The Way

John 14:1-31

Welcome! Today we continue our series into the Book of John, focusing on Chapter 14. As a brief recap of what is going on, we are in Jesus’ final days, even final hours, before His crucifixion. Jesus and His disciples are in Jerusalem. They have come from a nearby village where Lazarus had earlier been raised from the dead, and where, a short time ago, Mary had poured a huge amount of very pungent, very expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet. Most likely the odor is still with Him. At the time, when Judas criticized the act as a waste of money, Jesus defended Mary, saying, it was intended that she should save this perfume for the day of His funeral. The passage does not record what the disciples thought of that statement, but I bet they were pretty bewildered.

Then Jesus entered Jerusalem and was given a victor’s welcome, even a king’s welcome, with shouts of “Hosanna” and “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” and “Blessed is the king of Israel.” Then Jesus spoke to the crowds, and instead of a victory or acceptance speech, said that unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. He also said that when He would be lifted up (speaking of how He would die), He would draw all men to Himself. The crowds were disappointed at this and even became hostile. What about the disciples? Again, I suspect they were lost and confused.

 And then, in Chapter 13, it was just before the Passover feast, and at the evening meal, Jesus takes the attire of a lowly servant and washes His disciples’ feet, about as far as you can get from the action one would expect of a future king. He stated He did this as an example to them, that they should do likewise. He then stated that one of them was going to betray Him, and Judas got up and left, seemingly on some errand from Jesus, when in reality, Satan had entered him and was putting into place the events that would lead to Jesus’ death. Again, I would ask what the disciples thought of all this. Most of them did not understand what was happening, but the statement of betrayal was undoubtedly disturbing to them.

And then Jesus stated that He was about to go somewhere they could not follow. Peter boldly asked why He couldn’t follow; he asked using wording that was basically a rebuke of Jesus’ saying such a thing. Peter followed this up by saying he would lay down his life for Jesus. In response, Jesus asked, “Will you really lay down your life for Me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown Me three times!”

I encourage you to imagine going through all of this as one of the twelve. What was going on? Jesus kept talking about death and dying and leaving, and saying that one disciple will betray Him, saying that Peter would deny or disown Him. If Peter, the boldest of faith, the one who had walked on the water, would disown Him, how could any of them hope to follow Him? And what was about to happen? It sure didn’t sound good.

 Remember – they had been with Him for 3 years. They had left everything to follow Him. They are convinced, mostly, that He is the Messiah. And now He is talking about leaving them? Or worse, dying? And He is saying that they will also leave Him? It is hard to understate how utterly devastating all this had to be to them. Jesus was their world, and it seemed like their world was changing, falling apart.

 And in this context, feeling worried, confused, discouraged, bewildered, we come to today’s passage. Here is what Jesus said next to them, and says next to us, when we have similar feelings, when we are going through circumstances it feels like we cannot endure.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. 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?” – John 14:1-5

Let’s take this sentence by sentence. Jesus starts by saying, “do not let your hearts be troubled.” More literally, don’t let your hearts be troubled any longer. He is about to go to the cross, but His heart is for His disciples – He is comforting them, because He cares for them. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be discouraged. Don’t give up hope. Don’t despair.

The next sentence: Trust in God; trust also in Me. There is some uncertainty in how to exactly translate this sentence, but what some translations use, and what I think is backed up by the Greek, is the following: You trust in God; so also trust in Me. Or You believe in God; so also believe in Me. The Pharisees would have found this blasphemous. And it was blasphemous, except for the fact that Jesus is actually God. Jesus was equating faith in God with faith in Him, not stating that they were the same, but stating that they should be done together, on equal footing. He was asking them to include in their faith in God a faith and trust in Him.

In context, He was saying, yes, your world will change, yes, some hard things are to come, but trust Me. I and the Father are one. Your faith in God should include trusting Me even through what disturbing things come to pass.

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. He is talking about heaven. But He calls it My Father’s house, or I think better, My Dad’s home, or just plain home. I don’t know if you are like me, but after going on vacation, I really like to just come home. My kids can attest that if possible, I try to get our family to get our house really cleaned up before we leave. I joke that we need to make the house neat and clean for the burglars, because we don’t want them to think we are messy people. But the real reason I do this is that I want to be able to come home to a clean house and just go, ahhhh. Perhaps you don’t really have a home right now, because you are a student or because you have recently moved. If so, I bet it bothers you. I believe God has put this desire for home in our hearts to make us long for the real home, the eternal home, the one with Jesus, heaven.

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. More in keeping with the real meaning, because I go to prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with Me. So there is this home intended for us, but we have no right to this home, because we have alienated ourselves from God, separated ourselves from His holiness, from Him, through our sin. If it weren’t for Jesus, if we tried to go to this home on our own, in our own strength, on our own merits, we would be the robbers. But Jesus has gone there ahead of us, sacrificing Himself so that we could be accepted there eternally as beloved sons and daughters of God, of the King of kings. We have a home of homes to look forward to, a place where we know we belong, in a family that is infinitely better than any family on earth, with love that is infinitely greater – all because of Jesus.

Jesus then says, cryptically, that the disciples know the way to the place He is going, and at this, Thomas interrupts, stating what most likely all were thinking, that they have no idea what He is talking about. Not only are they lost, they are thinking on entirely the wrong plane, or more specifically, the wrong planet. They are wondering which village He is talking about, someplace outside Jerusalem or back in Galilee or somewhere else? And how can they know, unless He tells them?

But you know, I think they are actually asking a deeper question. The deeper question is “Why should I trust You?” I say this because He just told them to trust Him. Shouldn’t that be enough? If He says they will know the way, then if they really trusted Him, they should be able to simply believe Him, right? It reminds me a little of Moses’ encounter with God in the burning bush, with all his questions. Moses’ real problem was that he didn’t trust God. The disciples have the same problem. And so His word isn’t enough. They want to know, what is the way to this place?

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me, you would know My Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.” Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” – John 14:6-8

Wow. That is just so powerful! Jesus says, “I am the way.” This too reminds me of Moses in Exodus 3– Jesus even uses the “I AM” that God said to Moses. Moses, in one of his many questions, asked God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you” and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God answered Moses by saying “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 

The disciples ask “What is the way?” And Jesus says, “I AM the way.” If they want to know what truth really is, or what is really true, Jesus says, “I AM the truth. I AM truth.” If they want to know what real life is, zoe, the abundant life, eternal life, Jesus says, “I AM the life. I AM the zoe. I AM the abundant life. I AM eternal life.” If these answers don’t quite satisfy you, I would argue that your real problem is that you are still looking for another path, another way, one without Jesus. Maybe you think you can follow Him on that path from a distance. But that’s not how it works. He is that path. Without Him there is no path. Without Him there is no life, no zoe. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. There is no “at a distance” with Him. Either He is in you, and you in Him, or you are still separated from God in your sins.

Philip (and undoubtedly the other disciples) still doesn’t get it. “Just show me the Father.” Moses said, at the end of his excuses, “Please send someone else.” Philip says, “Please show me someone else.” What is happening is that Philip is coming to the end of his excuses as well. Jesus is forcing him to confront his lack of faith.

Jesus answered: “Don’t you know Me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. – John 14:9-11

Wow. That’s quite a confrontation! I do want to point out one thing in this passage that really strikes me – the miracles are secondary to knowing Jesus. Do you see this? “At least” believe on the evidence of the miracles. The miracles are the fallback plan. Have you ever heard someone say, “If God would do a miracle for me, then I would believe.” Maybe they would and maybe they wouldn’t. But Jesus is saying that knowing Him is a far more powerful reason to trust Him than any miracle. Now we are not “with Him” in the sense that the disciples were – that is, not yet; we will be with Him. You will know Him better than you ever knew your parents, or if you are married, better than you ever knew your spouse, or if you are a parent, better than you ever knew your children. But even though we are not “with Him” in the physical sense, He is with us, in us, and in His Word, and we can get to know Him powerfully, deeply even while we wait for our future union with Him in heaven.

When life gets hard, when we despair, Jesus wants us to trust Him. What a heartbreaking thing Jesus asked Philip. “Don’t you know Me even after I have been with you such a long time?” Jesus could ask the same of us when in crisis we fall back to faithless thinking. But He doesn’t leave Philip there. He exhorts Philip trust Him, right now. And Jesus exhorts us as well.

“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in Me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in My name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask Me for anything in My name, and I will do it. If you love Me, you will obey what I command.”  – John 14:12-16

Does this mean we can ask God for a Lamborghini and He will give it to us? Well, number one, you are missing the entire context of these verses if you think that. Jesus is saying He is leaving them, that for now, they cannot follow Him. Jesus has been their director, their leader, their provider. He fed the thousands. He even got a tax coin from a fish. What’s going to happen when He’s gone? He is telling them that He will continue to provide for them what they need – they just need to ask.

And number two, it says to ask “in His name.” That’s not like some special secret code words like “Open Sesame” that opens the hidden vault. Just because you say “I want a Lamborghini, in Jesus name, Amen,” doesn’t mean you have prayed, that you have asked, in His name.  To ask in His name means that you are asking as a servant of Christ, for His work, for His glory, in accordance to His will. Don’t skip the “so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.” That’s a part of all this. This is where I am getting the “as a servant of Christ, for His work, for His glory, in accordance to His will” from. Now do we need to be sure that anything we pray for is all of this before we pray it? No. We can simply ask and trust Him to give what is best – not necessarily what is best for us in that moment, even, but what is best for Him, for His glory, in His will. Ultimately, that will be what is best, even for us, anyway.

Can we do greater things than Jesus? Well, I suppose it all depends on what you mean by “greater.” Only Jesus was God. Only Jesus went to the cross for our sins, died on the cross, and came back to life after three days, proving that He was who He said He was and that all that He had told us was true. Nothing is greater than this.

But if you look at the number of people impacted by the gospel, in terms of numbers, Jesus only reached a handful directly. His followers, in His name and by His empowerment, have reached millions, tens of millions, perhaps even hundreds of millions. Each person who has come to faith in Christ has had their eternal destiny changed. That in my opinion is a greater miracle than a healing, or even raising someone from the dead. It affects eternity. All of it is due to Jesus, of course, we His followers, only “do” anything in a limited sense. To use the analogy of a great machine, we push a little button, but Jesus makes the machine run; He built the machine; He holds the machine together. It’s all Him, well, 99.99% Him.

And then Jesus says, If you love Me, you will do what I say to do. I will come back to this in a bit. For now, let’s continue with the passage.

“And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see Me anymore, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live.” – John 14:17-19

There is just so much here. Again the context of this whole chapter is that Jesus is comforting the disciples, not just saying “There, there,” but showing them His love and showing them how He will still take care of them. He is leaving them for them, to prepare a home for them. He will answer their prayers, providing for them what they need. And He will send the Holy Spirit to be with them, intimately, in them. And this is true for us!

Remember how, in response to “What is the way,” Jesus said He is the way, but not only the way, but also the truth and the life? Notice here how He calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth. One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to be a bringer of truth. He speaks truth to our hearts, confirms our correct understanding of God’s Word, and brings wisdom. And because the Holy Spirit is also God, it is part of the I AM. And then verse 19 says that they will live, that is they will have zoe, real life, eternal life. Again, Jesus says I AM the life. Although Jesus will leave them in the flesh, He will bring them truth and life.

“On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.  Whoever has My commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love him and show Myself to him.” – John 14:20-21

Now for the second time, Jesus says that those who love Him obey Him, do what He says to do. Again, I want to put off talking about this for a little longer. But this passage also says that God the Father and Jesus will love them, those who love Him. And this of course applies to us. Now, don’t misunderstand this to assume that God’s love is conditional. “Yet while we were sinners, Christ died for us.” He loves us first. We should never have the mindset that we must do things to earn His love; our goodness is nowhere near good enough to earn His love. And that’s just not how His love works. That’s not what this is saying.

So what is this saying? It is saying that He will show Himself to those who love Him. That is, as we trust Him in faith, and as that trust leads to us serving and following Him, we will see more and more of Jesus; we will see Him more clearly. We will know Him more and more. It’s not our works that start this; it is our love. The works are symptoms of that love. The works are results of that love. To pursue a deeper walk with God, we don’t start with works; we start with our hearts.

Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “But, Lord, why do You intend to show Yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus replied, “If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. These words you hear are not My own; they belong to the Father who sent Me. – John 14:22-24

When I was younger I thought that Jesus wasn’t at all answering Judas’ question; it almost seemed as if He was completing ignoring him. But I don’t think that any longer. I think Jesus is answering this question. And it goes back to what I just said in the last group of verses. This is three times now, maybe more, depending on how you count them, that Jesus has correlated loving Him with obeying His teaching.

So let’s now talk about this. If you think about Jesus’ life, He demonstrated His love of the Father by obeying His commands. He was obedient even unto death, death on the cross. What about the disciples? Did they love Jesus? Well, I would argue that they loved Jesus at a somewhat superficial level, but their love for Him would not be proven until they really began, on their own, living for Him.

Now, they did have a superficial love for Him; they had followed Him for three years, and had come to like and respect Him, although they were still quite confused about Him. And they had something in their hearts for Him because I am sure they were grieved about His talk about leaving them and even dying. Our culture, and in fact, many cultures, would use grief as a measure of how much someone is loved. They did it even in Jesus’ culture – remember in John 11, at the death of Lazarus, Jesus wept. What did the Jews say after this? “See how He loved him!”

But outward showing of grief has more to do with just how expressive you are of your emotions than it does with how much you love. Some people may love deeply but are just more reserved in what they show. You can’t really conclude anything from this.

All of life is about choices. We are constantly making choices about what we do next. And among the options are always choices to sin, choices to not live as God would want us to live, choices where we choose out of selfishness, or out of some form of idolatry, or pride, or some other sin. When we know what the right thing to do is, but we choose the wrong thing, we are loving ourselves or loving something else (idolatry) more than we love God, more than we love Jesus. Every choice we make is really a choice of love.

Well, what does it mean to obey His commands, His teachings? Well, really, everything that is revealed of His will in the gospels and in the rest of the New Testament is what we are to follow, to do, to obey. At the heart of it is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself. If you study the gospels you will find His commands, the things He tells people to do. But more than anything what He told people to do was to believe on Him, and that is the starting point. You believe in Him, you receive Him as Your Savior, you invite Him to search your heart, you seek to love Him and know Him more and more, and He leads you step by step into a life of increasing obedience to Him.

That’s not to say it is easy. We will never be free of sinful desires in this life. I can’t even promise you that it becomes “easier” over time. I don’t think that if we really love Him and seek to follow Him that we become more wicked over time, but I do think that over time He enables us to see more clearly the wickedness that is in us, and that is not a fun thing to see. But we also see His goodness and love and holiness and purity and beauty more and more over time, and I find that I fix my eyes more and more on Him, and less and less on me. The one time I don’t think you can sin is when you are gazing intently and worshipfully on Him.

And this hints at the results of obeying Him: intimacy with Him. There is a kind of circle here – we obey out of love, but as we obey, we grow in love and fellowship and communion with Him. And this growth helps us to love Him more and we obey Him more, and grow more in love and fellowship and communion with Him, and on and on… And all of this, growth in love and obedience over time, is only the tiniest hint of what is to come in heaven, where obedience is no longer a battle. Our love will grow so much more rapidly – if rapidly even has meaning eternally – and yet it will have no end. We will never come to the end of knowing God, of knowing the depths of His goodness and love. And I believe He will somehow continually enlarge our capacity for love and understanding so that we can appreciate Him more and more forever and ever.

If anyone loves Me, he will obey My teaching. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. Jesus shows more of Himself as we love Him more. He who does not love Me will not obey My teaching. People who don’t love Him don’t really want to see Him. And Jesus doesn’t violate their will. And so this really is an answer to Judas’ question about why He intends to show Himself to the disciples, and all true disciples of Christ (including us) but not to the rest of the world: they don’t want to see Him.

I should also point out that, by its very nature, God’s holiness is also a barrier to those who reject Him. God’s holiness prevents us from drawing near to God until we allow God to cleanse us. There is only one way we are cleansed – through Jesus. And so people who reject Jesus keep God away from them. And even Christians, when they walk in sin, when they don’t seek forgiveness, when they don’t repent, distance themselves from God, and although it pains God to see this because of His love for us, the result is that they do create a distance between themselves and God.

 “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. – John 14:25-27

Jesus is telling His disciples that this is only the beginning. The Holy Spirit, after Jesus is gone from them, will continue to teach and help them remember what they have been taught. We are not called to live this Christian life alone! If you are a believer, I don’t care if you are stranded on a remote desert island, or if you are locked in prison in isolation. You are not alone!

You know, I am not against seminaries, but you don’t need to go to seminary to grow into a mature believer. I think you do need to be in the Word, one way or another. Not all cultures have the luxury of free and plentiful Bibles as we do. But those in such situations can be “in the Word” by talking with others who remember and know various parts of the Word. And the Holy Spirit, over time, will help you to understand it and to remember things you need to remember at key times. Remember, the process starts with love and with obedience in love. If you don’t spend time with God, you aren’t being obedient and you are not going to grow. If you live in a place with other believers but forsake fellowship, you again aren’t being obedient and, again, you probably aren’t going to grow. But if you are obedient, in love, the Holy Spirit will help you. You are not alone!

And He gives us peace, eirene (ay-ray-nay) in Greek. You could translate this as tranquility or even assurance. His peace. Think about that for a moment. Jesus’ own peace. This is supernatural peace. I think of Philippians 4:7 –

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts in Christ Jesus. – Phil. 4:7

It’s the peace of God, again, a supernatural peace. We could do an entire message on peace. Let me just say this. Before I was a believer, worry was a big part of my life. One of the biggest immediate changes I noticed in my life when I turned to Christ was a peace in my life that I could only marvel at, because it was so new and so wonderful. That’s not to say that I never worry – but when I am right with God, when I have an eternal perspective, when my heart is set on Him, worry evaporates into the air and there is a solid something, a peace that transcends all understanding, in its place.

If you are a believer, you have an eternity that will be beyond awesome to look forward to. As Paul says, to live is Christ and to die is gain, so it’s all good whatever happens. But this peace is more than just logic and thinking through what is true – it is supernatural. There is a supernatural peace in God.  Don’t let your hearts be troubled, Jesus says. That means, don’t take your eyes off of Him.

Finally, we have these verses:

“You heard Me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on Me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what My Father has commanded Me.” – John 14:28-31a

I will say more about these verses next week. But I just want you to see that this entire chapter has been about Jesus encouraging his confused, worried, upset, and even grieving disciples. And these words are every bit for us as well. I encourage you this week to spend time re-reading this chapter and reflecting on its powerful truths. There is tremendous joy to be found in these verses; not happiness, necessarily, not fun, but joy. Jesus is risen, and although He is not here, He is powerfully with us.