Why Can't People Figure it Out
Tom Shrader examines Jesus' words to His disciples the night before His crucifixion, focusing on Christ's command not to let their hearts be troubled and His declaration as the way, the truth, and the life. He emphasizes that salvation comes through Christ alone and challenges believers to demonstrate love for one another as their distinguishing mark, while also engaging the culture around them rather than withdrawing from it.
“The challenge is not to die for Jesus, the challenge for us is to live for Him.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: John: The Essence of Life
Recorded: 2008
Duration: 43 min
Themes: salvation, hope, faith, love, truth, comfort, trust, discipleship, facing uncertainty, dealing with fear, questioning faith, new believer, struggling with doubt, seeking purpose, pastor, experiencing loss
Scripture: John 14:1-6, John 13:21, John 13:31, John 13:34, John 13:36-37, John 17:4, Matthew 26:20, 1 Corinthians 15:3, 2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Corinthians 1
Theological Themes: soteriology, exclusive salvation, christology, incarnation, eternal life, eschatology, biblical authority, christian apologetics
Full Transcript
It's session 8. So session 8 of what will be 12 sessions as we work our way through John. It is John, the very end of the Gospel in the 20th chapter, the 30th verse where John said there are other things that Jesus did, but I have written these things so that you will—and here's the operative word for us in the whole book—believe that you will believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That's the whole intention. And in doing that, John says, let me tell you what happens: now you have eternal life. So that really becomes the essence of the story of this Gospel and the title of this series, The Essence of Life.
We're in John today, the very end of chapter 13, beginning of chapter 14. In John 14, verses 1-6, is that section that's pretty familiar to many of you. Jesus says, don't let your heart be troubled. And there, in the balance of this verse, you see the key word twice: Believe in God. Believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many dwelling places. If it weren't so, I would have told you, for I go and prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to where I'm going. And Thomas said to Him, Lord, we don't know where You're going. How do we know the way? And Jesus says, John 14, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.
The Final Words Before the Cross
Let me do a little bit of a setup into this. When we get to John 14, if you have a red-lettered Bible so the words of Jesus are in red, John 14, 15, 16, 17 are essentially all red-lettered. Those are Christ's last communications that we have to His boys the night before He is going to the cross. Now just instinctively, that ought to tell you these are pretty important. So, here's the Savior saying these last things to these guys, and there's some powerful stuff in there.
We'll spend a little bit of time on it, not just today, but in the next week or so. If you're looking for a Bible study, something you want to get into and really mine something deep, if you took John 14, 15, 16, and 17 and just hung in that for a while, you'd do really well.
The setup to this is preceded by what we would call the Last Supper. Jesus says, now in John 13, 21, Jesus becomes troubled in His spirit and He testified and said, truly, truly, I say to you that one of you will betray Me. So Jesus has all the boys together and He now drops on them this incredible piece of information.
The Bombshell Announcement
We are told in Matthew's Gospel around chapter 26, verse 20, that when the evening came, Jesus was declining at the table with the twelve disciples. And as they were eating, He said, truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me. Now, the next verse, and I want to just plunge us into this story a bit, is incredible. Being deeply grieved, they each began to say to one another, surely not I, Lord.
We have a huge advantage in that whatever they saw, we have now seen the resurrection and the result of it, the expansion of the church, the establishment of the church. We have all sorts of advantages as we look back. One of the disadvantages I think we have is that we know how this story ends. So some of, if not all, of the drama is gone.
Imagine this moment. Jesus is with His boys. They are beginning to sense, because He's ratcheted up His teaching, this last year of His teaching has an emphasis continually on the Son of Man must suffer. Go into Jerusalem. There is this beginning of this public ministry that launches with this wedding at Cana, and it has this celebratory time to it. It gathers a lot of momentum. There are times when thousands—we know the feeding of the 5,000, that's just men plus women plus children, so 15,000, 20,000 people are gathered for His teaching. There is this sweeping away of people who want to say, Hosanna, Hosanna, and make Him king. So there's this popularity that's associated with Jesus.
The Narrowing Path
But as He begins to reveal more and more of not just who He is, but what lies ahead, the numbers begin to dwindle. I would suggest that's probably what happens in our economy of thought when we leave Christianity undefined and just big. We can get a lot of people into that tent, but when we define it, those numbers start to dwindle.
If you start and ask, how many people are Christians? You can get something like 80% of the people, some numbers or stats will give you. But I think this is the number we've used, and it's sobering really. If you apply some basic tenets of the faith—and I'm not talking hardcore stuff, I'm talking about things like the virgin birth, the full incarnation of Christ, the infallibility of Scripture, just a handful of these—once you apply those, the people who sign off on that, the number in the United States of America goes to about 7% or 8%. It's a very small number.
So you have this interesting balance. You live in what's perceived to be a Christian nation, but that Christian nation is driven by a population of 7% or 8%. As the Gospel gets more and more clearly understood, the numbers get smaller and smaller.
The Shocking Reality for the Disciples
Jesus is now whittling this down. He's now down to the 12. And then He drops this bombshell: one of you are going to betray Me. Now when I say disadvantage, in our mind, knowing how this ends, because you have this name in the middle, what's the name in the middle of all this? Judas. You have this name that is despised to this day. You can probably find somebody somewhere named Attila. You can find a Napoleon. But you're never, never, ever going to find somebody named Judas. Nobody would ever do it. I'll name a boy Sue before I'll name him Judas. It's not going to happen. He's become iconic with all that's evil.
The disadvantage we have is we're thinking, okay, here they're sitting around this table, and Jesus said, one of you are going to betray Me, and
Our mind would go, oh, 11 pair of eyes would go right to Him. But that's not what happened. The strategy says, in essence, they went around the table saying, not me, not me, not me, not me. And when Judas said, not me, there wasn't one guy that said, I don't buy that.
I'm going to give you a little peek. Because I get all tense. There's a couple of things that tense me up, but having to figure out what I'm going to talk about at Easter, I decided I'm going to give you a little preview here. I decided at Easter I'm going to do the life of Judas. So this could be a really interesting approach to this thing.
The Compelling Case of Judas
So what I come away with in this idea of Judas is here's what I can get out of Scripture. He knew Christ face to face. He walked with Jesus essentially every day. He heard most, if not all, of what Jesus had to teach. He witnessed many of Jesus' miracles and what Jesus accomplished. He was trained to be an apostle.
So when we talk about discipleship, and we have all these discussions ad nauseum, and it's got something to do with some stuff you need to know. It's done in a relational context. It's as much hanging out and living life together as taking a class. That's my personal view.
He served on witnessing tours. You remember when Jesus is sending these guys out two by two? Well, he's one of those two by twos that went out and came back and said, you're not going to believe what happened. We're casting out demons. We've got stuff going all over.
He was a leader among the disciples and respected by them in the sense that these guys didn't have much scratch. They're trying to figure out what they're going to do with it. You're going to give it to the guy that you think is going to handle it the best. And these 12 guys pick as their treasurer Judas.
It is an amazing thing when you begin to contemplate it. He experienced the love and the camaraderie of these other boys, and he was warned clearly about all the things we talk about. When you put it in that sense, he really becomes a compelling figure. And apparently, there was no crack in his armor that any of the guys spotted this.
A Sobering Reality About Faith
Why is that important? It speaks volumes about you and me. It says you can be around this church thing a long time and never really be a follower of Christ, which is what we know about Judas. He was not a believer. You're not going to see this guy in heaven. Scripture's really clear on that.
Jesus loved him. Apparently, he was gifted. He was around a bunch of Christians. He was studying Christ's teaching. He had such a sense of leadership. He witnessed all these miracles. He was experiencing and respected by all these other guys. And yet, he was never a follower of Christ. That's a sobering thing to me.
So Jesus says, one of you guys are going to betray me. And they go, I don't think so. Not me. Not me. Not me. And then Jesus essentially, at this point, calls them out. And away he goes.
The Sequence of Glorification
Well, that sets up in that sequence a whole series of events. Look at John 13, the very end of that chapter. Therefore, 13:31, when he had gone out, so Judas is gone, Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him. If God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself and will glorify Him immediately."
Who's glorifying who to do what? What's going on here? Well, what's happening is if you flip, just turn, it's one page in my Bible. John 17. When you get to John 17, what you have is the Lord's Prayer.
Now, we've done that a disservice because when we say, what's the Lord's Prayer? Our Father... That's not the Lord's Prayer. That's when they came and they're talking about how should we pray, and Jesus says, well, pray like this. This is kind of a form. Pray this way.
But when Jesus prayed, and the intensity of this prayer is huge, at the end of this very sequence, right before He's going to the Garden, He prays, and what He says in here is really powerful, that has huge implications to you and me today.
Our Incarnational Mission
Now, let me give you just one of them. Because in this He says, "Father, do this, just as You sent Me into the world, now I send them into the world." That means to us that we are to live as incarnationally as Christ did. That the last thing we ought to do is abandon the culture or pull out of the culture. We need to engage the culture.
I understand the tension in that. I understand how difficult that is. But God left us here for a reason. Jesus Christ died to push back the works of the devil. And it begins in your heart and mine. It brings us to this point of salvation in Christ.
But He did not then say to us, see how many spiritual, religious, monastic conclaves you can get yourself in, and the hell with the world. He did not say that. He said, "I'm sending them into the world just like You sent Me."
So we're in there battling like mad. Not because we're going to win. You're not going to win it. Not until He comes again, then we've got the great kingdom. But you're in there battling like mad because you represent Christ in the midst of this. And that's why all these things matter. All these things that you're doing matter. It matters how you deal with yourself and your company. It matters how you deal with the culture.
Engaging Cultural Issues
I was away a couple weeks ago with some of the large church pastors. And we were talking about what are the big things out there that we can look at in the culture? Education being one of them. This is kind of the mantra. Up till third grade, you learn to read. From third grade on, you read to learn.
Do you understand that the educational system in the state of Arizona is 50th in this country? You're behind Mississippi. And I've been here 75 years. And for 15 years, all I've heard is governor after governor say, this is an issue, this is an issue, this is an issue. And they haven't fixed it one drop.
And somewhere along the way, you all need to rise up and say, this is nuts that we got kids in here that can't read. And I understand all the other things. And if they can't fix
We live in Phoenix, the number one kidnapping city in the country. This is all new to me, so I'm going to guess it's new to you. This is a sex trafficking kingdom here. When your girls, your 14-year-old girls go to the mall, virtually every mall in town, there are predators and pimps in there who are luring these girls away. This is huge. Well, you can make a difference in that. We can make a difference in this. You see that? God's left us here for that. This is great stuff.
Here's what Jesus says. How about this? You want a prayer? I'll give you a great prayer. John 17:4. Jesus said, "I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work which you gave me to do." That's what I want to say at the end of my life. God, I glorified you. I brought honor to you. Your name is lifted up because I did the things you gave me to do.
I'll tell you something that's really obvious. You have to figure out what it is He's given you to do. But I know He's given you something to do or you'd be dead. That's when you're done with the assignment. But every breath we take, you are assignment from God for a reason, for a purpose. And it's a big deal. And it's all different.
Finding Your Unique Assignment
Here's what we want to do, and we'll instinctively do this. We will try to create a model and then shove everybody into it. Anytime you collectively try to structure and organize something beyond just a bare minimum, you rob people of innovation, entrepreneurship, and the same thing is true in the church.
So I'm sitting in a meeting the other day. How good is this? And one of the guys said, one of our gals in one of our areas just went on Facebook and got ahold of her neighbors and said, "I'm going to do a Bible study at the house." And she had eight gals show up based off the Facebook invitation. So she didn't even know them. They were kind of in there and they knew each other. They're all kind of networked. So the neighborhood got it.
See, we could never, coming up with a program, we couldn't come up with a program. We would screw that up 48 ways from Sunday if we tried to do it as a church. But you say, figure out how to reach your neighborhood and they do it and it's a win. That's a huge deal. And now you're going, "I don't want to do Facebook." Whatever, don't do it. But where did He put you? See that? That's a big deal. And He's left you here for a reason.
Even the dying process. Even if you're laying there. Even then, at least you become an opportunity for people to serve you. And God's glorified in their service. You're never done until the very end. It's just a huge deal. And so here's this. Jesus said, "I'm glorifying you." In the ultimate sense, I'm going to the cross.
Where I'm Going, You Cannot Come
Now Jesus turns it a little and says, "Little children, I'm with you a little while longer." Okay, so I'm dying. "And you will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, now I'm going, where I'm going, you cannot come." Now we know that sounds weird because we read in our introduction, He's saying to them, "You know where I'm going, come now." So it must be, because we know Jesus is not garbling this up and the Bible's not going to contradict itself. So He's just real simple. He's talking about two different things.
He's saying, "Where I'm going, you cannot come." What's that? The cross. I'm going to the cross. You can't come there. Not going to do you any good. Me dying, you dying for my sins isn't helping anybody. Okay, I'm going to do that.
A New Commandment
Now, here you go, verse 34. "A new commandment I give you." Now I've said, love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, love your neighbor as yourself. He's not abolishing that. He's saying there's the essence of that. New commandment I give you, John 13:34. "That you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you love one another also. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."
Now, He's not talking about, and I'm all over this love the world and all of that. I got all that. Put me down for yes, we're into that. But here's what He's saying here. This is the love within the brothers and sisters. This is our love that we're to have one for another.
We Don't Have Anything Anybody Wants
This is a great moment for me. I'm walking out of the Thursday noon study, the last one before Christmas. So I'm on kind of this euphoric high because I know I'm done. I know I've got a month to do whatever I want to do. So I'm walking out and this guy stops me and he says, "Shouldn't we as churches be affecting the world around us?" And I said, "Yeah, I think so." And he said, "Do you think that's happening?" And I said, "Well, you know," because I'm euphoric, I'm on vacation. So I want to get to it. I said, "Well, what do you think?" And he said, "I don't think we are." And I said, "Okay." And he said, "Why do you think that's happening?"
And like out of nowhere, you have one of these moments where you say something. Usually for me, they're stupid and I wish I had them back. But I said to him, "We don't have anything anybody wants."
I'll give you a great example. We just remodeled our chapel at church. And the people, especially the older people, I've done nothing but whine since we finished this thing. We went from pews to chairs. We did that for one reason, not to be hip, not to be cool, but we can get 120 more people in that room with chairs. You get in there, you get your fat can in there in a pew, then you lay your Bible down and you stretch out and there goes three seats. And it's full when it isn't full at all.
We've had all sorts of sound problems in there. "It's too loud, we can't hear it." So we brought in a bunch of soundproofing, which is ugly. And we didn't want to spend a ton of money on it, so we made sure the lights, we did some things. It wasn't about making it cooler or hip, although it is.
The Heart of Christian Love
My point is this: why would anybody be so focused on these trivial matters? These people have been whining for three months about the building, the temperature, the chairs. I can't handle it. You're treating me like we're Nordstrom's customer service, filling out response cards about environment and sound. I've got to tell you honestly, I don't care about those things. I don't want to blow you off, and I spend more time trying to be sensitive to these concerns than you can imagine. But there are 720 of you, and when somebody writes that the room is too cold, do you understand that someone else thinks it's too hot? This is just stupid.
You've got your shorts in a knot over chairs and temperature, and we're in here trying to worship and teach and talk about Jesus. At that point, my heart says to you: you need to go somewhere else. You need to go somewhere where they care about your seat, because I don't have it. I care about your soul. I don't care about your seat.
But you see why the world will look at this and shake their heads? The world is standing in the lobby, listening to a bunch of church people whine. They're thinking, "I can get that anywhere. I get that at my son's game."
Love That Thinks of Others
Jesus said it's this love that makes the difference. The essence of this love thing—and I know this is hard, and I want to be sympathetic—but the essence of the love thing is that I'm thinking about you, not me. I understand that seat may not be as comfortable. But the idea of having 120 more seats is that we might get 120 people in that room that we couldn't get in otherwise. We've been turning people away this whole time. We might get people in there who otherwise would never come to church. We try to fix the sound thing so maybe you could hear without a lot of distractions.
In that early church, the compelling motive that the secular authority directly attributed to the expansion of that church was they looked at these Christians and said, "Nobody lives like that." People who barely had anything were feeding people who had nothing. The story goes that when they were in Rome, lined up in cages, about to go out where lions would eat them, the Christians were fighting to go first because it was such an honor. I know none of my kin would be there, by the way. I'd be going, "You know what? I don't mind waiting. Go ahead." But I'm not there yet—good for them.
Extraordinary Opportunities in Crisis
But you see how compelling that is? You're going to have great opportunities. Before all four services Sunday, I had somebody come up to me and say, "I lost my job this week. I got an email." This is not going to go away for a while. It's going to take time for it all to figure out. Somehow it'll settle down. We'll hit the reset button and start over.
In the midst of this crisis, you have extraordinary opportunities to reach out to the people around you. Some of you have a little money. It may be time for you to buy a house and put somebody in it, even if it doesn't cash flow. By the way, this whole reset button is not about you guys who have money making more money. It's about you using this as an opportunity to minister to others.
You can all of a sudden buy three houses for what you used to buy one for. You can take a family that just lost theirs, put them in it, have them pay the utilities and paint it, and you don't have to get this big return on your money. You'll get your appreciation over five years. But think about somebody other than yourself. There are a lot of opportunities here if you get creative.
Personal Vulnerability and Gratitude
There is not a day that goes by that I don't thank God. I look around and think, "I don't know what I would do if I lost my job." There's not a lot of people who will pay you to do this. Work is not appealing to me, and I'm too old. But you see that vulnerability?
I'm in enough meetings to know there are people everywhere hurting. I heard on the radio today that the two most affordable housing places in the country are Denver and Phoenix—medium income now matches up to medium housing. We're getting close to where money will start kicking back in, if the banks lend it and all that.
A Challenge to Act
I want to challenge you, especially those of you who can afford it, to think about buying a house and putting somebody in it—not just so you can cash flow it, but for something more than that. I'm all about money—you know me. I'm free market capital all the way. But you can have the best of both worlds here.
As you see hurting people all around you, you can be the hands and feet of Jesus in this situation. It's a big deal. All of a sudden, they look at it and ask, "Why would you do that? Why would you do that?" The answer: "Because I love Christ." And they're brothers here—do you see that? It wasn't just the world watching this; it's the brothers too.
It's the people at church. You get your ears open, you sit around church in your Sunday schools and listen, and you're going to hear people who are saying, "Hey, my family and I have just lost our house." Now, you can do this. You can go, "Well, I'll bet if they got rid of the cable TV and the..." Don't do that. Jump into their lives and find out if you throw them a lifeline, they can pull certain things together.
You can be, I don't need—and I don't mean this disrespectfully at all—I don't need Barack to bail me out. You can bail people out. You can make the difference and push back the effects of this silliness that we see from government. So I know that's a long way from the text, but that just kind of all came out. That's not in the notes, but I really feel it passionately.
Susan and I are challenged the same way. The house next door is for sale, and I can't afford it. But everything in me wants to buy that house and put people in it that we know, that are quiet and don't have a dog. You don't need me to grind on that anymore.
Peter's Bold Declaration and Human Limitations
All right, now we only have 10 minutes left, and here's the whole point of the lesson. Peter said, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus said, "Where I'm going you can't follow me now, but you will follow me later." Peter said to Him, "Lord, why can't I follow you right now?" And then he says this in verse 37: "I will lay down my life for you." Jesus says, in essence, "You're not going to make it through the night. The rooster's going to crow three times, and you're going to deny me."
Here's what I want you to see. I believe that Peter believed that he could really do that. I don't think he's just blowing smoke here. I think he's doing Peter. He's doing religion, because that's what religion is always doing. "I'll do something. I'll die for you, Jesus."
He's not asking you. He already did all that dying part. He died. The challenge is not to die for Jesus. The challenge for us is to live for Him.
Peter's Transformation Through Failure
You all have been around. If you're a priority living veteran, you know where I'm going with this. Though this is a defining moment in Peter's life, it's not the final moment in Peter's life. It's a defining moment for sure, because just in a matter of hours, he's going to go, "I never knew Him, I never knew Him, I never knew Him." He weeps bitterly, and he's just overwhelmed by this. But he emerges out of this.
So within about 45 days, not even 90 days, he's preaching a message and 3,000 people are saved. Though he denied Christ, the authorities now come to him and he's saying, "I can't stop talking about it." So that's the Peter we want to remember. He said, "I'd lay down my life." He blew it here at the end of the Gospel. But we know he was martyred for his faith, and tradition says he was crucified upside down because he said, "I'm not worthy to be crucified like my Savior." That's cool, isn't it?
That's the power of the Spirit of God. By the way, there's nothing extraordinary about Peter. We've read enough about Peter to know he's a goofus just like you and me. The difference is he's invaded by the Holy Spirit, same Spirit that's available to you and me. And then he yields to that Spirit, and he's filled with that Spirit, and he submits to that Spirit. And God takes an ordinary guy and does an extraordinary thing through him. And it's the same thing that He will do in your life.
He's not looking for a bunch of superstars. In fact, Paul kind of tells us in 1 Corinthians that He goes the other way, because if He gets a superstar and the superstar gets used, the tendency is to worship the superstar. Really incredible.
The Heart of the Message: Do Not Let Your Heart Be Troubled
Then this, the essence of this lesson. "Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me." I didn't get very far. I got to the verse. But the reason is I think it has huge application for where we are in this whole process.
Can you imagine? At this moment, they're probably pretty confused because they're sensing that this is it. But in about a day, the one that they've left—they've left everything, remember? Jesus said, "Follow me," and they walked. They didn't say, "Let me do a liquidation sale, take the proceeds, and come after you." They went immediately. They've walked away from everything. They've walked away from enterprise. They have become absolutely convinced that Jesus is something extraordinary. They're not quite there to Lord and Savior yet. He's the one that they've pinned all of their hopes and all of their dreams on.
And within a day, He's going to be publicly humiliated, beaten, crucified, died, and buried. And my suspicion is that when they're sitting around, one of them's going to go, "Hey, do you remember what He said? Don't let your heart be troubled."
When Trouble Reveals Truth
Now, I will tell you something about that verse. It doesn't mean anything to you unless your heart's troubled. It doesn't mean anything to you unless you've got stuff piling up all around you. It doesn't mean anything to you if everything's cruising well.
It's like patience, isn't it? We talk about this all the time. You don't know if you have patience until that light turns red, not when it's green. I am telling you, I am so patient with green lights. I have no problem with green lights. That light's green, and I move along. I have no problem when people drive with the same spirit that I drive with. You don't know if you have patience until you're in those trying circumstances.
You don't need "let your heart be troubled" until that heart has circumstances all around it. Now, what's really cool is Jesus does not say here, "Don't let your heart be troubled, because I'm going to take away all the problems." He does not say that. He just simply says, "I'm going to climb in there with you. Now, I'm going to give you the ultimate bailout, and then I'm going to prepare a place for you. And then when I go and prepare that place, I'm going..."
The Way to Heaven
Jesus is talking about something different than His earlier statement. He's saying, "I'm going to go, and I'm going to get you, and I'm going to take you there. Then you know the way." So He's talking about heaven. He's talking about eternal life. "I'm going to go and prepare this place for you. I'm going to come and get you. You know how to get there." Thomas says, "No, we don't." And Jesus says, "Here's the answer."
So if you're sitting here today trying to figure out this heaven thing—is there heaven?—that was always my deal. I knew from a really early age I was going to die. I had that part down. I'm done. But I didn't know, is there anything after this?
My Catholic Background
I was raised in this environment. I was raised in Catholic grade school, high school, college. So I was raised in that environment, that theology. But for me personally, I wasn't connecting dots on that. One of the great things about my Catholic upbringing is I knew all the words. So when you came to Trinity, or Incarnation, or virgin birth, I never pushed away from that. I just didn't know that they were particularly significant.
When all of a sudden the Bible and the Spirit of God makes that alive—I don't know if you've heard the term as it relates to the Jewish people, a completed Jew. I feel like a completed Catholic in the sense that all those things that were taught now mean something. And then a bunch of things that I was taught in there have now fallen away as not being accurate. They're not biblical. That's not bashing the church, by the way. That's just saying, listen, Jesus is saying, "Here's the way."
The Definitive Article
Verse 6: "I am the way, the truth, the life." He uses a definite article there. And that's really important. If I said to you when you came into the room today, "Find a seat," that's very different than if I say, "Sit in this seat." Jesus doesn't say, "Find a way." He doesn't say that. "Find a truth. Find a life." No, He said, "I am the way, the truth, the life." And by stating it that way, grammatically structuring it this way, He eliminates all the other options.
So when you say, "What about all these other paths? Don't all these other paths lead to God?" No. "Aren't all these religions essentially the same?" No. They are—I might say it differently—they are all essentially the same. But there's one. If you boil it down, you have biblical Christianity, and you have everything else.
Religion vs. Salvation
Everything else is a sinful man trying to appease a holy God. And it works itself out in a variety of ways. It may be do, do, do, do. That's religion to its highest power. Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do. Don't do, don't do, don't do. Don't do this, do this. And you can tell somebody that's really into it and serious about it, because they have no joy. There is no joy in Mudville on that deal.
And then there's the hybrid that says—cut me slack here—but kind of says, salvation is a joint venture project. So Jesus is the general. He's done a lot of it. But now you do your share. That is not salvation. Salvation is all of Him.
He died on a cross. First Corinthians 15:3. He died on a cross for our sin, according to the scripture. And then you know what they do with dead guys? They buried Him. And then He rose again on the third day. And then He appeared to twelve, and then five hundred, and then blah, blah. That's the gospel. That's what He did. And if you believe, then you have eternal life. And I am very excited about that.
Contemplating Mortality
I think to contemplate it is really interesting. I don't run our staff meetings anymore. I've spent a lot of time—and you all have been through my sojourn. And it's either good or bad that you get sucked into this. But it's kind of cathartic for me. But I've spent three years evaluating and battling different things. And the last year and a half really implementing a plan in my life that I want to set up the last decade. It's not necessarily the last decade. Who knows about that?
I talked to my mom the other day. How perfect is this? So I talked to my mom. And I said, "How are you doing?" "Great, great, great." She said, "Yogi died." Now, Yogi didn't mean anything to you. But that's my dad's brother. His name is Eugene. He thought Yogi was better. I don't know. Yogi died.
And I said, "Oh, wow. When did that happen?" "Eh, a couple of weeks ago." Well, we're a close family. So I see why we share these things. Does that not sound like about every family?
Family Patterns
So I said to her—this is my mom. You got to know my mom. She's a great lady. But there's not a lot of filter there. So I said, "How did he die?" She said, "The same way his dad did, the same way your dad did, the same way you're going to." It's just perfect. And what she's saying is, my grandpa, my dad, and my uncle, all are just walking along. And then they fell over dead, every one of them.
I mean, that's what happened to my dad, remember? He does his thing, watches Lawrence Welk, goes upstairs. Bam, he's dead in twelve, fourteen hours. That is not a bad thing. I said, "Mom, I hope you're right. That's not a bad deal. Put me down for that." If I could sign that contract today, I'd sign that deal.
Staff Meeting About Heaven
Well, what happens then? Well, there's this thing called heaven. So we're in a staff meeting. I don't run the staff. Part of freeing up my life was getting me out of running a bunch of meetings. I don't even want to go to meetings. But they said, "All right, I want you to sit around the table. Think about the things of above. Think about heaven. Share with them what you think about heaven."
And it was really interesting. Because one of our guys went right to Jesus. He said, "I just don't know. It's kind of that 'I Can Only Imagine' song. What am I going to do when I see Him? I don't know." And then the other, they all—
I had these incredible spiritual things, and I'm going, you know what, I just stink. Because I know Jesus, I got all that. But there is that relational component. Am I going to see Larry again? Is he going to know it's me? Am I going to know it's him? Is he going to be able to keep up now when we walk?
I was talking to a friend the other day, somebody who's become a good friend of mine. We don't get enough time together, I don't think. I said, I was thinking about last night, being able to come and see you in heaven and saying to Susan, "I'm going to go see" and then the name. She'll say, "When are you going to be back?" I'm going to go like 100 years, something like that—150 years, 200 years, I don't know. You in a hurry? I don't know where to go. You got forever to get there. It's like a low-key Mayberry, is what I'm wondering. Is that what it's going to be like? I don't know.
The Essence of Heaven
I'm afraid if we think about the place here, we can get too hung up on the place and miss the essence of it. The essence of it is I'm no longer looking through this veil, and I'm seeing Jesus perfectly. But there are all these other aspects to it.
Why does He drop it? Isn't that interesting? Here He is, at a key moment, and He's saying goodbye to these guys. He starts by comforting them: "Don't let your heart be troubled." The most frequent prohibition He gives us is "do not be afraid"—in essence, the same thing. He starts with that: don't do that.
What's the antidote to it? You see it in 14:1. Twice, the key word in this whole book: believe. "Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe in me." We're the same. Then He talks about heaven.
Heaven as Comfort and Sustenance
It seems to me that part of what sustains me is a legitimate—not a "sweet by and by." I wrote, let's see if I can find it in here: "They sing hymns of the sweet by and by, and their thinking thoughts lofty and high. Dreaming great dreams up in the sky, everyone wants to go to heaven and no one wants to die."
I can think about that idea of heaven, not to escape from this world—that's not His intention here. His intention is to comfort us in this world, to sustain us in this world, to do and live the life that He's left us to live, to glorify Him, to one day when we'll see Him perfectly.
The Payoff Question
Here's the payoff pitch, spring training language. Here's the payoff pitch: Do you believe? It's not just mental assent. No, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm trusting Christ and Christ alone.
Though it will not happen this way, it seems to be a way that clarifies it. If Jesus were to say to you, "Why should I let you into heaven?" if you have any other answer other than, "You know, You shouldn't, but You got to. You shouldn't, because I didn't do anything. I'm a sinner, I'm a puke, I'm pond scum. I've sinned at every level. I break Your heart, I've broken Your rules, I deserve hell. You shouldn't let me in, but You got to, because You promised You would if I believed that when You died, You died for me."
The Great Exchange
What happens—and I'm going to go back to my friend Larry Wright—Larry Wright wrote a wonderful poem that then his grandson, Justin, made into a wonderful song called "The Great Exchange." I'm exchanging my sin for His righteousness, so that's what takes place on the cross. Can I explain that? Not really, other than I can just give you that. How did it happen? It's kind of a mystery, but I do know this: it did happen.
On the cross—2 Corinthians 5:21, that should be another verse that you're going to all the time—on that cross, He made Him, God made Him, Jesus, who was no sin, to be sin on our behalf. So Jesus, though He never sinned, nor did He on the cross, was treated as though He was responsible for and guilty and punished for the sin of all the people that ever believed. That's the agony of the cross right there. He took your place. He died in your place.
You simply believe that. You come to Him in repentance and faith. If you do, you'll have eternal life.
Eternal Life Begins Now
Here's the deal about eternal life—this is the other side about it: eternal life begins today. It starts now. As Jesus talks about this, I will grant you, He changes tenses sometimes, but there is a point where He says, "You have eternal life." You're in it now, how you live now in this kingdom. We'll pick up right there next week.
Father, help us see this truth. That feels like a long way around the park here today, but God, hopefully in the middle of that You're glorified. Those things that are of You and that are good, I pray that indeed they would infect our heart and occupy our minds. God, change our lives. We ask that our heart would be transformed, our mind would be informed, and we would live radical lives for Your glory. We pray it in Christ's name, amen.