Introduction:
Knowing His Comfort (John 14:1-6):
- Receive the peace Jesus Provides (John 14:1)
- Look to the place Jesus is Preparing (John 14:2-4)
Revelation 21:2 - And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
- Walk the path Jesus Prescribes (John 14:5-6)
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
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00:54-00:57
Open up your Bibles with me please to John chapter 14.
00:59-01:06
We're continuing our series called "Knowing Jesus." And that's what the Gospel of John is about.
01:08-01:17
It's about taking us from knowing about Jesus, some facts about a person, to knowing Jesus, having a relationship with Him.
01:17-01:19
Jesus said that is salvation.
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That is eternal life.
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"Knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He sent." We want to know Jesus.
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That's our theme, actually.
01:30-01:34
It was last year's, it's this year's, and spoiler alert, it's going to be next year's.
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And I can't think of a greater theme for us to go after as a church than knowing Jesus. Amen?
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All right, so let's do it.
01:44-01:49
You know, these are really stressful times that we live in.
01:52-02:17
And it's been very sad for me, people that have, due to health issues or whatever, that have had to lock down, isolate, quarantine, whatever you want to call that, and their only communication received from the outside world, mainly, is the television.
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Because what you have is a government and a media that is wanting people to be panicked.
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And Aaron and I know people personally that have really suffered with this.
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the horribly inflated death count, always in front, always leading, every news program, wanting people to be panicked.
02:50-03:06
And if that's not bad enough, I don't know if you've been following this in the news, but last weekend, Calgary pastor, Arthur Pawlowski, was arrested for the heinous crime of opening his church.
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And you're like, "Didn't you talk about that recently?" "Oh yeah, that was a different Canadian pastor that was arrested for opening his church." These aren't things that are happening on the other side of the world.
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This is happening in our neighbors up north.
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These are stressful times.
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I got messages this past week from a pastor friend of mine in Nepal, and if you've been following what's been happening in India, you understand, that's all we've heard.
03:38-04:02
"Oh, it's so bad! It's so bad in India!" And he's in Nepal, which is right next door, and he's like, "Oh, it's so bad, it's so bad!" And you could hear the fear coming out of his message, "It's so bad, we're locked down, and it's just so much death, and the hospitals are overwhelmed." Now Nepal is a country of 30 million people.
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Do you know how many COVID deaths they've had?
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3,000.
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And look, I know one's too many and all of that.
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I get that, and I'm not making light of that.
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But is that panic-worthy in a country of 30 million people?
04:20-04:28
What is concerning is the fact that the government is locking everything down so there's no jobs and the day laborers can't eat.
04:28-04:35
So this church sent $3,000 to this pastor to feed those people this past week.
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So thank you for your support in helping these people through this.
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But my point is, there's just so much panic right now.
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And whether you think it's justified or not, there's so much panic right now.
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I mean, even for us, church, you know, this fear of our rights being taken away and the price of gas, the price of food, gas shortages, joblessness, border crisis, riots, woke culture.
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Are you feeling stressed?
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You're like, "I wasn't until I came in here." This isn't helping.
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But let's be honest, wherever you are, your beliefs on this stuff, Are you feeling the stress?
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Well, is it wrong to feel stress?
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No.
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It's not wrong to feel stress.
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Even Jesus was troubled in spirit.
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We saw that back in verse 21 in chapter 13, right?
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So that's another way of saying stress, isn't it?
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It's not wrong to feel stress.
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See, church, we can't prevent stress.
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But we can overcome it.
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And it's overcome with the comfort that Jesus Christ offers.
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And the comfort that Jesus Christ offers outweighs any kind of stress, any amount of stress, any duration of stress.
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When you take that and put it before Jesus Christ, two will be an overcomer. So you're feeling anxious, are you feeling a little nervous, or are you outright panicked? Are you in a position right now where you're like, "What do I do?" Well, here's what you do. Know his comfort. You need to know his comfort. I'm not going to give you some motivational pep talk about how you can rise above, blah, blah, blah.
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I'm not... No.
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You need to know Jesus Christ, and you need to know the comfort that He gives.
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It's a spiritual comfort that He gives.
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And this is the most comforting passage in the whole Bible.
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And I would encourage you to mark this and read it and re-read it on your outline, "Knowing is Comfort." How do I have comfort when it seems like the whole world is both falling apart and going crazy at the same time?
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How do I know the comfort of Jesus in the midst of this?
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I'm going to tell you, number one, you need to receive the peace that Jesus provides.
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Look at verse 1.
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Jesus said, "Let not your hearts be troubled." Believe in God.
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Believe also in Me." Now stop there.
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Literally, the tense in this language, Jesus is saying, "You need to stop letting your hearts be troubled." And Jesus knew the tension at this moment the disciples were feeling.
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Now obviously they weren't dealing with the COVID stuff that we're dealing with.
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But understand, right at this moment while Jesus was having this meal with them, you could have cut the tension with a knife.
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It was so tense at this moment. Why?
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Jesus just got done saying that one of them was going to betray Him.
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He just got done saying one of them was going to deny even knowing Him.
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by the way, the strongest one of them was going to do that.
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And now Jesus is talking about, "I'm leaving." Jesus talked about that so many times, "I'm leaving, I'm going away." And he's starting to talk about that again.
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And you could just imagine at this point, the disciples were like, "Ah, what is going on here?" You know, we left everything to follow this man.
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We thought this is the Messiah of Israel, and we thought he was worth dropping everything to fall in for three years.
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We followed him and now everything's falling apart.
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So they were feeling some serious tension right here.
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You're like, "Well, what did that feel like?" I think most of us know what that felt like.
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If you can think of, I mean, we've all lost people close to us, right?
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Can you think of somebody that you lost?
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Can you think of the days before that person passed away?
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Knowing that their writing was on the wall, and their time was coming, and you know what I'm talking about?
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You just know.
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I think to last year, the pastor who taught me everything I know about being a pastor, Bob Huber, he passed away last July 4th.
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And I got to see him in the hospital a couple of days before he passed.
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And as I was sitting there, I just knew, as much as I was trying to talk myself out of it.
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I just had this feeling, you know, of like, "This is the last time I'm going to see him on this side of heaven." And it was just so heavy, you know?
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And if you've been there, you know what I'm talking about.
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What the disciples were experiencing here, I would suggest to you, was even more intense than that.
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Because Jesus is about to be killed by wicked men.
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Jesus is about to take the sin of the world on Himself, and bear the wrath of God.
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And you would think for this, the Last Supper, you would have thought the disciples would have been comforting Him.
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Like, "Yes, you said this was coming. You said this was ahead.
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Jesus, let us pray for you. Let us encourage you." You would have thought they're comforting Him.
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He's the one about to go through the worst experience possible.
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But what you see here is Jesus comforting them.
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He says, "Hey, don't let your hearts be troubled." It's funny, you know? It's a command.
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He commanded them, "Listen to me, do not let your hearts be troubled." Like, "How do I do that?" He tells them, "Believe in God. Believe also in Me." In other words, Jesus was saying, "Hey, you know, you found comfort from God in the past, haven't you?
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Haven't you found God faithful to take care of you in the worst of your circumstances?
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Now you have even more reason to be at peace, because God's sitting here having supper with you.
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Jesus said, "Believe in God, believe also in Me." And church, I've got to tell you, you need to learn to trust God with the things that you don't understand.
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There are some things in life that we just can't understand.
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"Why is this happening? Why would God allow this?
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I don't understand!" And now listen, right now somebody's gonna write this off as trite.
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Like, don't do that.
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Don't write this off.
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Listen, you just have to face reality that there are some things in this life that our only response necessarily has to be getting on our knees and getting on our face and saying, "God, I don't understand this.
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And God, I don't like this.
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But I trust you because you've always been faithful, God.
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I believe in you God, I believe.
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And even if none of this makes sense right now, and I hate every moment of it right now, if I'm being honest with you God, but God I trust you.
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And I believe God, and I'm asking that you would help my unbelief.
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You need to learn to pray that.
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And through that you need to embrace the glorious truth that turning bad into good is God's specialty.
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Right?
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I'm always reminded of the cross.
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When you look at the cross, you know what you see?
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You see that God took the worst thing that ever happened in the history of the universe, and He turned it into the best thing that ever happened in the history of the universe.
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Think about that.
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It was the worst thing ever.
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It was the worst thing ever!
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Creator God Almighty, who loves us, showed up in person, And what did we do?
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We made fun of him, we mocked him, we spit on him, we beat him within an inch of his life and then we publicly executed him.
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That's horrific.
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That's the worst thing that's ever happened.
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But at the same time, that's the best thing that ever happened because it was part of God's preordained plan that he would come and that was the means by which the Lamb of God was going to be sacrificed.
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That was how He took away our sin.
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And I have to remind myself, church, and so do you, that if God can do that, if He can take the worst thing ever and turn it into the best thing ever, He can take whatever it is that's troubling you, whatever it is, and turn it around for good.
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He can, and He will.
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So the bottom line is this, when you and I are anxious, when we turn on the news and we just feel our blood pressure rising, and we're frustrated and stressed, or whatever you want to call it, the bottom line is when we're in those moments, the reality is you and I just aren't trusting God that we should.
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In those moments, we're just not really believing that God is sovereign the way that we need to believe that.
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And I think you and I maybe need to spend less time on the phone, and less time watching the news, maybe more time on our faces before the Lord privately.
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Maybe more time in His Word.
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Receive the peace that Jesus provides.
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And He'll give it to you.
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If you'll go to Him looking for it.
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2. Look to the place Jesus is preparing.
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Look to the place Jesus is preparing.
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2 and 3, Jesus said, "In my Father's house are many rooms." If it were not so, would I have told you that I'd go to prepare a place for you?
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And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to Myself, that where I am, you may be also." Stop there. He says, "In My Father's house are many rooms." Now, that's literally dwelling places.
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Now, some of us that maybe have grown up with the King James are used to, "In My Father's house are many mansions." And I don't want to ruin anybody's day, but that's really not the best translation.
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It's not like you're going to die and go to heaven, and Alex Gianetti is going to be there as the heavenly real estate agent, and say, "Welcome to heaven!
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I'm going to find you a house that is perfect for you.
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Let's go." You'll see that they're all awesome.
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It's not like that.
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Alex, like me, we're going to be out of a job when we get to heaven.
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Right?
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We'll get a new one, I'm sure.
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But you see, this language that Jesus was using - this is very important, church, tune in here real close - the disciples would have picked up Jesus' language and terminology and figures of speech immediately.
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And we will too when we understand how Jewish weddings worked in Jesus' day.
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You know, in our culture, it's a little different.
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The way people get engaged and then married, and then they go to Alex and look for the house.
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But in Jesus' day, when a couple got engaged, the man would go back to his father's house.
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And he would spend, it could take upwards of a year, he would spend that time building an addition onto his father's house.
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You see, that's what they did.
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They would expand the house.
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And he would build this addition so that he could take his bride back to live there.
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The family lived together in their own little apartment commune thing.
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But that's how they did it.
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And then when the next son was going to get married, same thing.
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He's going to build another addition.
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But the man would go and he'd build this addition.
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Again, it could take a year.
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But here's the thing, the bride didn't know when He was going to come back and get her.
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So she lived with that anticipation like every day, "Is this the day? Is this the day? Is this the day?" And then, here comes the parade.
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He comes back, and there's a week-long wedding feast and celebration, and He takes her back to His Father's house, in the place that He prepared for her.
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Now, understanding that, do you see what Jesus was saying to His disciples when He said, "Hey, I'm leaving, but I'm preparing a place for you in My Father's house, And someday I'm going to come back and get you and take you there." Do you see how that makes sense now?
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And I love this, Jesus said, "If it were not so, would I have told you that I'd go to prepare a place for you?" What was Jesus saying there?
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Well, Jesus was saying that He wasn't giving a false hope.
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That's what we often do, right?
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in times of tragedy or crisis, we give false hope.
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We'll put our arms around a little kid, and we'll say, "There, there, everything's going to be okay." And deep down, we're like, "I don't know if everything's going to be okay." But we want to give this false hope.
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We've all done it, right?
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I remember several years ago, my wife Erin got sick, and I mean deathly sick, as in literally we didn't know she was going to make it.
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And her mother took her down to the hospital so that I could take care of the kids, who were much younger and much needier at the time.
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So I was getting things taken care of at the house, getting ready to go down to be with her.
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And I remember Cade coming into the room while I was getting ready, and he goes, "Dad, what if mom doesn't come home?" And like, what am I gonna say?
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I mean, like I said, he was little at the time.
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And I just said, "You know what, buddy?" I said, "Everything's gonna be okay.
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"Everything's gonna be fine." But I'm gonna be honest, church, inside I was freaking out.
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'Cause I'm like, "Yeah, what if she doesn't come home?
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"What if this is it?" And it almost was.
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But I couldn't say that to my son.
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I'm just like, okay, there, everything's gonna be okay.
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Everything's gonna be okay.
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And here's Jesus' point.
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He's like, I'm not doing that.
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He goes, if it were not so, what I've told you, I didn't come down from heaven to give you some false hope.
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They're there, everything's gonna be okay.
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Now Jesus says, this is real.
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And this place that I'm describing is real.
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It is absolute truth.
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Church, this place is as real as the chair that you're sitting on right now.
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This place is real.
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Jesus really went there, and He's really preparing a place for you right now.
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It's real.
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And over and over, we've seen Jesus talked about leaving.
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He talked about leaving, and here's the comfort, church.
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This is the first time that Jesus specifically said why He's leaving.
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He says, "I got a project to do." I'm going to build an addition onto my Father's house." And that's what he's doing right now.
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And by the way, Father's house is the best term for heaven in the Bible.
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And I am not even open for debating that.
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The best term for heaven in the Bible, Jesus calls it "my Father's house." Because there's something just so comforting about going home, isn't there?
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You know our family, Friday and Saturday we took a little two-day trip.
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Went to Cedar Point, and it was great.
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But you know what else was great?
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Coming home.
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Coming home, sitting on my own couch, with my own stuff around me.
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There's just something, you know what I'm talking about, just so familiar and comfortable.
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It was nice to go, but I'll tell you what, it's just so nice to be home.
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Or think of like college students, right?
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Like, isn't there something comforting, Christian, about going home?
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You have to say yes now, because you're kind of between your parents.
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(laughing)
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But you know what I mean, like, you're away, you're doing your thing, you're working hard, you're...
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But there's something comforting when you go home.
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Like, "Ah, I'm home. I'm with Mom and Dad." And it's all familiar.
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And I'm sure when, and Samuel, I'm sure when you guys go home, it's not like weird, like, you know, "Do I have to take my shoes off here?
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Am I allowed to sit on this couch?" You're home, right?
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So when you're home, you do what?
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You make yourself at home.
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Now listen, church.
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Heaven is exactly like that.
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It's not going to be weird or unfamiliar or uncomfortable.
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I've wondered that.
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Like when I die and go to heaven, is it going to be like a learning curve of trying to get used to how things are and this is weird and different?
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I think one of the things that Jesus is emphasizing here in calling it his Father's house, is it's going to be so relaxed and safe and familiar.
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Because going to heaven is going to be like going home.
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Because we're going to be residents there.
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You're not going to be guests.
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Because if you're there, that means you're a child of God.
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You're like, "Well, what's this home like?" Oh, we covered it back when we went through Revelation.
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I just don't have time to get into it all today.
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But it's a city, it's called New Jerusalem.
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And it's a huge cube. Huge!
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You're like, "How huge is it?" Remember that old bit?
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It's huge. And if you would set, if you would look at the measurements and set this cube on the United States of America, it would cover more than half of the United States.
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It's huge and it's a cube. That's New Jerusalem, it's a city, it's the place that Jesus is preparing. And Revelation gives just an incredibly beautiful description. And again, I don't I don't really have time to get into that today, but I'll just tell you the one thing you need to know about it.
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There's one thing you need to know about the New Jerusalem.
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The place Jesus is preparing. Revelation 21, verse 2.
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Jesus' place He's preparing is described like this.
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I want you to see this.
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He says, "And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, "Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Here's the only thing you need to know about New Jerusalem.
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It's prepared as a bride.
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Like, what does that mean?
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Well, I've done a lot of weddings.
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I've done a lot of weddings.
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You know something I've never seen at a wedding?
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That it's like, the music's playing, the groom and the men are here.
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We're like, "Where is she? Is she here?
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we haven't seen her, is bride here, is she here, is she here?
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And then all of a sudden the door opens and there she is wearing sweatpants and a pair of Crocs and a college hoodie and her hair is up in one of those bun knot things.
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And she's like, oh, was that today?
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Look, I've been doing this 25-ish years or so, I have done a lot of weddings, I have never seen that.
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Never.
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Do you know what I have seen every single time, without exception?
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She's preparing for that day months in advance.
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And the weekend of that day, I mean, it is hair and nails and dress and makeup, and it's not even I trust myself to do it.
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She hires the pit crew to come in.
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Like NASCAR, yeah.
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(imitates car engine)
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And like, preparing her.
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I'm sorry, was that too far?
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(audience laughs)
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Let's back that up.
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She has this whole crew come in to prepare her every time.
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I've seen it, the door opens, and here she comes, breathtakingly beautiful.
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You're like, "What's the point here?" Here's the point.
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Jesus is preparing this place for you the way a bride is prepared for her husband.
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Meticulous, all the time, effort, energy, resources.
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You see that woman on that day, she's like, "I'm going to look perfect." And that's the same mentality and mindset that Jesus is putting into preparing this place for you.
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Jesus is saying, "I'm making this place on my father's house for my people, and it is going to be perfect." Jesus is not in heaven right now slapping together pallets.
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It's like, "Well, we'll do shiplap. They seem to like that." That's not what he's doing.
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He's like, "This place is going to be perfect in every way." And then look at verse four.
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Jesus, this is just hilarious.
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He's talking about this wedding terminology.
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I'm preparing this place, I'm coming to get you.
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In verse four, he says, and you know the way to where I am going.
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Just imagine the disciples kind of caught up in this and they're hearing this.
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And like, oh, he's preparing a place, he's coming to get us.
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And Jesus is like, and you know how to get there.
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and they're like, "That sounds awesome." "What? Whoa, what? I know how to get there?" Well, fortunately for us, we have Thomas.
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Right this time, number three, walk the path that Jesus prescribes.
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Walk the path that Jesus prescribes.
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Jesus says, "You know how to get there." I love this verse five.
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Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going.
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How can we know the way?
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Thomas was echoing Peter's question back in verse 36. Remember that?
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Verse 36, Peter said to Jesus when he was talking about leaving again, like, "Oh, this stuff again." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, where are you going?" He was just like flat out, "Okay, you're talking about this again.
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Where are you going?" And Jesus gives some more elaboration here and says, "You know how to get there." Thomas is like, "Um, yeah, question?
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We still don't.
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We still don't know where you're going.
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How do we know the way?" In verse 6, Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life.
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No one comes to the Father except through me." In other words, Jesus was saying, "Hey, you don't need to know how to get there 'cause I'm coming to get you." Have you ever been looking for something in Walmart?
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And if you were able to find an associate, you've asked the associate or something, how many people have had this horrible experience?
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Have you ever, you've asked like, you know, you're looking for something like, like maybe like washers.
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They're like, "Hey, can you tell me where the washers are?" And they give you the most complicated, convoluted directions.
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Well, those are in hardware, so if you go, there's the paint booth, but then there's the half aisle there, but you don't wanna go there.
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It's another aisle past there, and then if you take a right and go past the rugs, and then you've gone too far.
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But they're just right there.
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Awesome, thanks for that.
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Well, when I worked there back in the mid-90s, when it was still classy, pointing or just giving somebody directions was a huge no-no.
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We were not allowed to do that.
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Do you know what we were told, nay, commanded to do?
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We were to say, "I'll take you there." Every time.
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We're the washers.
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"Hey, come with me, I'll show you exactly where they are." We would take them to the item they were looking for.
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In other words, when they said, "Hey, how do I get there?" You would say, "I'll be the way to get there.
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Come with me.
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I'll take you right there." And you see, it's the same thing with heaven.
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And Thomas is like, "How do we know the way?" Jesus didn't just tell him.
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Like let me lay out for you the Roman road, Thomas, so you can understand the plan.
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Or list some 26-point doctrinal statement.
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Jesus didn't even just point.
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Like where's heaven?
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Jesus is like, "There." Like way up there.
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Like way up there.
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If you've gone a long time and you still haven't gotten there, don't be discouraged because I'm telling you, it is way up there.
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He didn't do that.
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Because He takes us.
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He is the way.
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Jesus is the way.
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You see, you don't go to heaven to find Jesus, you go to Jesus to find heaven.
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There's incredible comfort to know that I don't need to find the way to heaven.
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Like, how do I get there?
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I don't need to try to find the way.
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I need to seek to know Jesus Christ through His Word because He is the way to heaven.
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You see, that's why His reply was not a recipe.
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It's about a relationship.
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And this verse could be the greatest revelation about that relationship.
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Look at it again.
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Jesus said to him, "I am the way and the truth and the life.
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No one comes to the Father except through me." Look at this.
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Jesus didn't say, "I am a way." Like, well, heaven's like at the top of a mountain and there are many roads up to the top of the mountain.
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I'm a way there.
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He didn't say that.
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Jesus didn't say I'm a truth.
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Jesus didn't say I'm a life or a option to get life.
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As in I'm one option of many.
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Jesus made a very exclusive claim here about himself.
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He used the definite article.
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He says, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.
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Come to me and meet God.
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Come to me and find ultimate reality.
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come to me and possess life.
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And in case that was too ambiguous for some of us, Jesus doubled down when he said, "No one comes to the Father except through me." Let's be clear here.
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Jesus said, "No one goes to heaven except through him." And with that verse, you have two options.
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Either Jesus was telling the truth for Jesus was not telling the truth.
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But I believe that Jesus is telling the truth, that He is the only way to heaven.
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And there are some people that are gonna say, oh, well, that's so narrow-minded.
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That's so narrow-minded of you to say something like that, Pastor Jeff.
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You're saying that Jesus is the only way to heaven?
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That's narrow-minded.
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Is it?
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Is it really?
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See, we grew up in Shakurah.
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Show of hands, how many people have heard of Shakurah?
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Should be a lot more in this area.
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Shakurah is a small little town.
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How small is it?
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That bit again, it's so small, the city limit signs are on the same post.
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That's how small it is.
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And if you were like, you know what, Jeff, we're gonna take a ride.
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We wanna see this magical place of Shakurah.
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because we've heard so many wonderful things about Shakura.
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Jeff, how do I get to Shakura?
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And I said, "Any road will take you there." Like, what?
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That can't be true.
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Sure, listen, get in your car and just get on a road and just drive because any road will take you to Shakura.
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You'd be like, that doesn't make any sense at all.
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And my reply to you is, look, just pick a road that you feel best about.
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Whatever road looks right to you, whatever road in your heart of hearts makes you feel best about yourself, you get on that road and you'll end up in Shekura.
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You think I was an idiot.
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But you realize that's what people do with heaven.
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How do I get to heaven?
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Whatever road feels right to you, Whatever road is best in your heart of hearts.
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See how dumb that concept is?
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Jesus is the only way to the Father.
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He's the only way to heaven.
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Why? Because you and I are guilty of sin before a holy God.
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And trying to be good doesn't take away your sin.
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And trying to do good doesn't take away your sin.
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Jesus Christ died on the cross to take away our sin.
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No one else did that because no one else could do that because no one else was qualified for that.
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That's why Jesus Christ is the way.
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And you need to believe this because He is the truth.
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And when you receive Him, When you're born again, you know. You know.
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He is the life.
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So if you know about Jesus, then you know about the way to heaven.
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But when you know Jesus, you know the way to heaven.
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I'm going to ask if our worship team would come forward.
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Rich and Mark, our elders, if you guys would come forward.
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We're going to gather around the Lord's table to worship, to give thanks, and to once again embrace that Jesus Christ is the way.
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Because He made the way with His blood.
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This is why Jesus is the only way to the Father.
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The Bible says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.
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And it was the Lamb of God who laid down His life, taking our sin on Himself, so that we could have the eternal life in his father's house that he was talking about.
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God's Word tells us on the night that Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and He broke it, and He gave thanks, and He said, "This is My body, which is given for you.
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Eat this in remembrance of Me." After the meal, Jesus took the cup, and He said, "This is the blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sin.
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Drink this in remembrance of me.
Small Group Discussion
Read John 14:1-6
What was your big “take-away” from this passage / message?
On a scale of 1-10, how much do you need comfort right now?
(1 = I am as calm and peaceful as a human can be, 10 = I am despondent.)
What is giving you the most stress right this minute?Why is heaven compared to a bride (Revelation 21:2)? How should this thought comfort God's people?
Someone says to you, “Jesus is the only way to heaven? Isn't that narrow minded?” How would you respond?
Breakout
Pray for one another.