WEDNESDAY 13 April 2022 “HOPE” John 14:1-11

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Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this WEDNESDAY of “Holy Week”,

I’m taking each of the days this week to invite us into the “upper room” in Jerusalem where Jesus spent Passover evening with His disciples. I left you yesterday sitting at the table, among the disciples simply overwhelmed with amazement, shock and disbelief. Judas has left the room, identified by Jesus as the one who would betray Jesus! Peter is almost breathless since Jesus has just announced that Peter would deny Jesus, not once or twice but three times, and that Peter would even go so far as to say he didn’t even know Jesus!

Oh my how that room needed some words of hope! Jesus spoke again, this time with deep empathy: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in ME. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that 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.” (John 14:1-3) Jesus paused, the men all smiled and breathed a little sigh of relief even though none of them were exactly sure what Jesus meant by what He had just said. While unclear, it sounded hopeful, and that’s what they needed in that moment. May I ask my friends, when you need HOPE, where do you turn? Is there a friend or family member you call asking them to encourage you? Are there poems or special cards of encouragement you’ve received and you keep handy for times when you need hope? Or have you found God’s Word, the open throne room of God, and the welcome of Jesus who is there, at the right hand of the Father, is the place you go for hope?

Jesus didn’t pause there for long… He added: “You know the way to the place where I am going!”

The men looked around. It was as though they had all missed something very significant? Thomas was really confused and not afraid to admit it! “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Everyone nodded in agreement, some may have even verbally said, “yeah, that’s right Thomas! Help us get some answers here!” With all eyes glued on Jesus He spoke one of the most powerful statements of hope which has helped hundreds of millions of people through the centuries, right up to our day: “I am the WAY 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…” (John 14:6) These disciples had heard Jesus many times say “I tell you the TRUTH” as He spoke of God or the kingdom of God. In fact these men had learned Jesus always spoke God’s truth about everything and that truth was like LIGHT in the fog, in the confusing darkness of our world. In fact John recorded a time Jesus had said “I am the light of the world, whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness.” (John 8:12) So YES, they believed Jesus spoke and was living TRUTH!

These men had seen Jesus actually raise dead people to life and heal Lepers from their living death! They’d seen Jesus many times give new life to blind people as they received sight, or cripple people as they stood and walked, or demonized people as they were set free! Yes, they knew first hand Jesus was the giver of LIFE. Especially to those living in any type of bondage Jesus could set them free and help them live life free from whatever had bound them, even if it had been a lifelong bondage!

But what did Jesus mean by His statement, “I am the WAY… No one comes to the Father except through Me. If you really knew Me you would know My Father as well.”? Was Jesus claiming there was no other way to God except through HIM? Was Jesus claiming that those who would come to know Jesus, trust Jesus, and learn God’s truth from Jesus would, at the same time, be coming to know GOD? Was Jesus declaring that all other roads, which claim to bring you into a personal relationship with God but WITHOUT Jesus, are not legitimate paths, and are in fact dead end spiritual roads? YES to all those questions, YES!

In fact a few weeks later when this John, who penned these chapters of what happened that night with Jesus in the upper room, was standing with Peter before the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem, being called to account for healing a crippled man, they made this bold statement: “It is by the name of Jesus Christ whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this crippled man stands before you healed. Salvation is found in NO ONE else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10,12) There it is… no other way to God except Jesus!

So I have a very important question for all of us, my “Walking with Jesus” friends, all around the world: ‘Is this true? Is Jesus the ONLY way to a sin-forgiven relationship with Holy, Almighty, Creator God? If YES, then what does that mean for the billions of people who are trying to follow other paths to God? Those paths include religions which deny or do not include Jesus? Or paths to God which require great human effort or financial sacrifice or personal holiness or baptism or any number of other things, but do NOT depend on Jesus? Are all people who are NOT depending on Jesus alone for their relationship with God actually spiritually lost, still in their sin, and NOT going to heaven when they die?

Here’s another important question friends: ‘What authority did Jesus have to make such bold, rash, radical statements?’ Jesus answered that question next by saying to the disciples: “Anyone who has seen ME has seen the Father. The words I say 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.” (John 14:9-11) The miracles… so that’s why Jesus did the miracles! To prove that He is God the Son and that God the Father’s power flows through Him! His miracles earned the right for Jesus to speak God’s Truth and call people to believe God’s Truth.

Do you hear the radical claim Jesus made, that He and the Father are one? Jesus was the God-man… fully God and fully man! That’s the miracle of the Incarnation of God which we celebrate at Christmas. Everything hinges on the truthfulness of this fact! You see, If Jesus is ONLY a good man, saying nice things and doing good, amazing deeds which help people… as wonderful as that is, it’s not enough. To save us from our sin bondage and give us eternal life with Him in heaven, Jesus MUST be sinless, holy, God! This is why John began His account of Jesus with this statement: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life and that life was the light of mankind... The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-14)

The two biggest questions which hung in the air that night as Jesus and His friends gathered for the Passover meal were this:

1. WHO is Jesus? I wonder how you answer that question today? Did you know the quality of life you can live now, and your eternal destiny, both depend on your answer to that question?

2. WHAT gave Jesus the right to make such radical statements about Himself and God and eternal life, for those people who believe in Him? Words are cheap and easy to say, even preposterous claims. But these powerful, hope giving statements which Jesus made, and we have reviewed today, are ONLY viable, believable, authentic, realistic TRUTH… IF Jesus IS who He claimed to be: God the Son. AND His truth statements are only life changing IF Jesus did go all the way to the cross, paying God’s price for the sins of humanity with His death, and then rising from the dead, in His victorious resurrection defeat of death and Satan, and then ascending to heaven where Jesus can be our advocate with God! Some years later Paul made that so clear as he wrote: “God our Savior wants all people to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all people…” (1 Timothy 2:4-6)

Let’s pause right here friends, looking around that upper room. The disciples were struggling to understand these remarkable, life giving, truth statements from Jesus. None of them knew that within only a few hours Jesus would be hanging on a cross, dying not for any crime He had committed, but dying so these truth statements He had made could become life giving redemption for any person, anywhere who is ready to be set free from their sin bondage and given eternal life by Jesus! “I am the WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE, no one comes to the Father but by Me!” (John 14:6)

Now let’s really ponder what that means for you and me and the legacy of our lives with this very powerful song:

Today’s Scripture is John 14:1-11.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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