The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Use these materials to go deeper into this message on your own, or with your small group. 
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 1-12)
Passage Breakdowns, SOAPS Format & Instructions (Weeks 13-26)

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8:40 Service | 10:00 Service | 11:20 Service | Sermon Audio

Good morning Chapel family. I want to say congratulations to all the families who dedicated their precious kids today! Families and kids are a huge priority at The Chapel, so we celebrate this moment with you, and we look forward to seeing your kids grow up to love and serve God. I also have some great news: after four months of working hybrid between Texas and New Jersey, our new Executive Pastor, Josh Siergey, and his family, are finally here! Josh and Debra, their daughters Emma and Lily, and their dog, whose name I do not know, arrived safely in Pequannock on Friday night. Any of them in this service? Let’s welcome them (applause).

We’re continuing our study in the Gospel of John, and we’ve come to the last day before the cross. Jesus is gathered with his disciples in a rented upstairs room in Jerusalem; in just a few hours he’ll be arrested. And in last week’s passage, Jesus dropped a bomb—actually several bombs. He told his disciples that one of them would turn on Jesus and betray him; one of them would deny even knowing Jesus; and here was the worst part: he told them he was about to leave them and go someplace they couldn’t follow.

And this tight-knit group of friends, gathered around that table, is rattled. It’s like a dark cloud comes over the room, and suddenly the world looks hostile and dangerous. And Jesus knows how they’re feeling, so the very next thing he tells them is, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

You know what it feels like to have a troubled heart, don’t you? The Greek word for “troubled” is the word tarasso, which means unsettled or anxious or agitated. When you open up the top of our washing machine, right in the center of that main compartment there’s a vertical post that rises up from the bottom. Anybody know what that post is called? The agitator. It has ridges, and when the washing machine is going, the clothing can’t just sit there all peaceful, because the agitator grabs it, and twists and pushes and rotates it through the soapy water. Have you ever felt like there’s an agitator in your stomach? Or in your brain? Something is troubling you, and you can’t sleep, and you can’t think of anything else. And the agitator just keeps on churning.

That’s how the disciples are feeling at this moment, and Jesus knows it. So he tells them what they need to know to calm their troubled hearts. John chapter 14, verses 1 through 10. Let’s hear God’s Word…

1 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 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? 3 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. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 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’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. This is the Word of the Lord.

When the disciples started following Jesus three years earlier, they never thought it would wind up like this. They thought Jesus would rise up and lead a rebellion to overturn the Romans, and they would be on the winning team. But now he tells them two of the key guys on the team are about to flake out, and that he himself is about to leave them. So they’re sitting there confused and anxious and agitated. If you are feeling any of those things right now, would you receive the words of Jesus in a personal way today? He knows exactly what you’re feeling, and he has a word for you this morning.

Here it is: The cure for a troubled heart is to be confident about your home. The cure for a troubled heart is to be confident about your home. How can we do that? How can we get that confidence? Two things…

First, Know the Meaning of Home. So, right after Jesus tells them to not let their hearts be troubled, here’s what he says—verse 2: 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? So the first thing Jesus wants these troubled people to know is that there is a room being prepared for them in this place that he calls “my Father’s house.” What is that? Well, in the Psalms, David talks about it. Psalm 27:4…

One thing I ask from the Lord,
  this only do I seek:
that I may dwell in the house of the Lord (there it is—the Father’s house!)
  all the days of my life,
to gaze on the beauty of the Lord
  and to seek him in his temple.

So in that context, the “house of the Lord” is talking about the temple of God. That’s the physical place where God promised to dwell with his people. And David is saying, “Lord, I just want to be around your temple all the days of my life.” So the house of God is the temple. But it’s more than that. Because look what David says in the famous 23rd Psalm—very last line: And I will dwell—where?-- in the house of the Lord forever. Not just all the days of my life on earth, but forever. Which implies that the “house of God” is not just a physical place on earth, it’s an eternal place where God dwells with his people forever. In other words, heaven.

In the New Testament, Paul picks up the same theme in 2 Corinthians 5:1—look at this: For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not build by human hands. Paul is contrasting the impermanence and fragileness of our human bodies with the permanent home we’ll have one day. And he calls that permanent home an “eternal house in heaven.” That’s what Jesus means by “my Father’s house.”

Kind of a funny historical note: if you read this verse in the old King James Bible, Jesus says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” But then Bible scholars realized that translation was based on a mistranslation of the Latin, instead of the original Greek, and a more accurate translation would be “rooms.” So there were generations of English-speaking Christians who died and showed up in heaven expecting to get the keys to their 10-bedroom, 8-bath, luxury palace. And Jesus had to tell them, “Sorry—bad translation. But you do get a room!”

But I say that jokingly, because here’s the reality: the whole point of this is not the kind of structure we’ll be living in. We will not care about that. The point of this is not where we’ll be living; the point is who we’ll be living with.

When Norma Jean and I got married, we lived in 3 different homes in Dallas, then we lived in Kinnelon, New Jersey, then Bakersfield, California, then back to Kinnelon, then Riga, Latvia for a year and a half, then back to Kinnelon, then Rockaway Township, then Lincoln Park, and then Pequannock. So in our first fifteen years, we lived in eleven different places. And so because of that, and also because we like to travel, there’s an old Billy Joel song that became sort of the anthem for our marriage. It’s a song called “You’re My Home.” And one of the lines is, “Wherever we’re together, that’s my home.” Because we’ve realized that what makes home “home” is not the address or the structure or the stuff in the house. When I’m feeling exhausted and discouraged and I’m longing for the comfort of home, what I’m longing for is not the house; it’s the people. That’s what makes it home.

And that’s exactly what Jesus is saying here—verse 3: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me—listen—so that you also may be where I am. What makes heaven “heaven” is that Jesus is there, and we get to be with him. That promise of Emmanuel—God with us—that happened at that first Christmas and lasted for the 33 years that Jesus walked the earth—that will be the permanent reality.

So I don’t know what you think about when you think of heaven. Maybe you think about some of the other descriptions found in Scripture: no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Yes. No funerals…no tumors…no car accidents…no overdoses…no more teenage kids committing suicide…no more need for Saint Jude Children’s hospital, because there won’t be any more kids getting cancer. Yes. Like it says in 1 Corinthians 2, no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. So yes—it’s going to be good and right and beautiful beyond our wildest imagination. But what makes it heaven—the essence of heaven—is that Jesus is there. Like it says in Psalm 16, “[Lord], In your presence is fullness of joy.” None of us has ever experienced “fullness of joy.” We’ve had glimpses of joy. But in heaven our joy will overflow in ways we’ve never even dared to dream. Because we’ll be with Jesus. And you’ll be welcomed in as a beloved member of the family. And you’ll be fully accepted and embraced and known by name…forever.

So don’t let your heart be troubled. No matter what’s happening in your life, it is so temporary. If you’re a believer in Jesus, you can be confident that he is right now preparing a place for you, so that where he is, you will also be. So tell the agitator that’s churning in your stomach to be still. Let your assurance of home bring you peace.
This conversation between Jesus and his disciples is so important. Because it doesn’t just define the meaning of heaven—of home. It explicitly tells us how we can be sure that’s where we’re headed. So let’s talk about that—second and final point:

Know the Path that Leads Home. So in verse 4, Jesus says 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” Aren’t you glad Thomas asked that question? That might be the most important question anyone has ever asked: “How can we know the way to the Father’s house?”

Over the last thirty years of pastoral ministry, I’ve discovered a few common ways that people answer that question. I mean, some people don’t believe there’s an afterlife at all, but for those who do, there are a handful of common answers to that question.
The first one, I’d call the Universal answer. This is the view that everybody goes to heaven. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done or what you believe or don’t believe; at the end of the day, God is too nice to exclude anyone. So every single person winds up in the Father’s house. Theologians call this view “universalism,” and it seems like a very kind view, but it has a fatal flaw: Jesus disagrees. Jesus said, …broad is the road that leads to destruction…and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

The second one, I’ll call the Moral answer. Most people who hold this view don’t think you need to be morally perfect, but you need to give it a good effort: be nice to your mom; drop a few dollars in the Salvation Army pot at Christmas time; separate your recyclables; and then avoid major sins like murder and kidnapping, and you’ll probably be okay. Do you know anybody who believe this? It’s a popular view. The problem is, this view minimizes the moral perfection of God—as if we can be relatively good and meet his standards. And if this view is true, Jesus really didn’t need to go to the cross to die for our sins.

The third one, I’ll call the Religious answer. This is the belief that entry into heaven requires participation in certain religious ceremonies: baptism; communion; maybe confession, last rites. So they believe there’s power in ritual—like reciting prayers over and over again. This is the view Jesus confronted most often in the Pharisees—the religious leaders in Israel. And he said, “These people honor me with the lips, but their hearts are far from me.” Jesus explicitly rejected salvation by religious ritual.

So…if none of those answers is adequate, how can we know the way to the Father’s house? It is even possible to know the way? That’s what Thomas is asking Jesus. And I don’t think anyone in that room is expecting the answer Jesus gives. “Lord, how can we know the way?” Verse 6: 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. The answer to the most important question ever asked is not a religion or a philosophy or a good deed; the answer is a person. Let’s look at what Jesus specifically says about himself.

First, I am the Way. He doesn’t say, “I know the way,” or “I can show you the way.” He says, “I am the way.” For anyone else to say that would be the height of arrogance. But Jesus is not anyone else. He lived a life of perfect obedience to God, and practiced what he preached 100% of time. No one else can say that. Just hours after he said this, he went to the cross and offered himself as the perfect payment for the sins of the world. No one else has done that. And three days later, he rose from the dead. No one else has done that. So yes—it’s a bold and audacious claim. And coming from anyone else’s lips it would be ridiculous. But Jesus is not anyone else. He is the way.

He also says, I am the Truth. People like talking about “my truth” and “your truth,” and you have to live your truth. But Jesus would say, “There’s no such thing as ‘your truth’; there’s just truth. There is ultimate reality. And I don’t just teach that truth, I am that truth. Earlier in John, Jesus said You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. Because when you know Jesus—when you let him define reality for you—it sets you free from the wishy-washy relativism that surrounds us. When Jesus speaks about God and sin and salvation and eternity and how to live, you can believe him…because he’s the truth.

And then third, I am the Life. John 1:4 says In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. Since Jesus is the creator of life, that means he’s the source of all life. So if you want to know how to get eternal life, you have to get it from him. If you want to know how to have meaningful life here and now, you have to get it from him.

He is the way, the truth, and the life. And then he says the most audacious thing of all: No one comes to the Father except through me. There is no other way to be confident that you’re headed for the Father’s house. No other religion, or morality, or philosophy, or path of meditation. And some people are bothered by the narrowness and exclusivity of that claim.

Let me share a quick story with you: On my birthday about 15 years ago, I got a great present: I got to spend the night in the Chilton Hospital Emergency Room with my daughter Sara. She had been complaining about pain in her abdomen. She couldn’t sleep. So finally I brought her to the E.R.; they examined her; they did a CAT Scan; finally the doctor came out with his diagnosis: “She has appendicitis—very clear case.” I said, “Okay—what do we need to do?” He said, “We need to get her in surgery as soon as possible, and remove her appendix.”

Well that was a narrow thing for him to say. Wasn’t it? It was very exclusive! He didn’t give me options. He didn’t say, “Here’s what we think it is, and you can choose any number of treatment options.” He said, “Here’s the truth: her appendix is infected; if we do nothing it will probably burst. And there’s one way to deal with this—take it out.” Completely narrow! Totally exclusive. And you know what? I never thought of saying, “Doctor, I can’t believe you’re being so narrow. That is so arrogant of you!” You know what I said? “Thank you. Let’s get this done.”

Because sometimes…truth—by its very nature—is narrow and exclusive. And if the one speaking that truth is trustworthy—if they’ve given you reason to believe they’re to be trusted—the only wise response is to believe what they say. “No one comes to the Father except through me.”

And then Jesus has this interesting interchange with one of the disciples. Verse 7: 7 If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” 9a 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. In the Old Testament, there are a few moments where people get a vision of God himself. Like Moses, on Mount Sinai, or Isaiah in the temple. They get a limited glimpse of God’s glory, and it changes them. And it seems like that’s what Philip is asking for: “Jesus, can you show us the Father? Can you give us a glimpse of the radiance and holiness of God, so we can really know for sure you know what you’re talking about?” And Jesus says, “Philip, don’t you realize that for the past three years, as you’ve walked with me and spent time with me, you have been with God! I’ve been showing you the Father this whole time! Because anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.”

Listen: when Jesus tells us how to get to the Father’s house, the reason we should believe him is not only because of his perfect life, and his sacrificial death, and his miraculous resurrection. We should believe him because when we hear him speak, we’re hearing the voice of God.

There was a respected Jewish scholar named Jacob Neusner—he died a few years ago. He wrote a book called A Rabbi Talks with Jesus, all about how he would have responded to Jesus if he were alive back then. He had a lot of respect for Jesus and for Christianity, and he says he would have been moved by hearing Jesus teach. In fact, he says he probably would have joined the crowd that followed Jesus around and listened to Him. But he says ultimately he would have turned away, because Jesus made Himself the main issue. And Rabbi Neusner said, “In the end, Jesus makes a demand that only God makes.” You know what? He’s exactly right. Jesus made claims, and he made demands, that only God can make. And his entire life backed up that claim.

Do you believe that claim? Do you believe that Jesus is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life? Do you believe that, right now, he’s preparing a place for you in his Father’s house? If you do, you have the most powerful medicine for a troubled heart. If you believe strongly in heaven, and if you are confident that’s where you’re headed, you have the inner resources to handle anything. Anything that is troubling your heart—it might be really bad; it might be really painful—but knowing the big picture, and knowing it’s going to end so well, and knowing Jesus will walk with you through the trouble until the day he calls you home…will give you everything you need to handle it.

If you don’t believe—if you’ve chosen to reject Jesus, you are making a tragic mistake. Are his claims narrow and exclusive? Yes. Truth is like that. And if you reject the truth, you will be left to face the trouble of life on your own. So I’m urging you—I’m pleading with you—turn to Christ. Believe in him. Let him calm your troubled heart and give you a glorious future.

The Christian counselor Larry Crabb talks about a friend of his who was raised in an angry family. He said in his friend’s house, mealtimes were either silent and cold or sarcastically noisy, as they mocked each other. Down the street there was an old-fashioned house with a big porch, where a happy family lived. And his friend told him that when he was about ten years old, he started to excuse himself from the dinner table as soon as he could without being yelled at, and he would walk to the old-fashioned house down the street. And then he would crawl under the porch and listen to that family having dinner—laughing and talking together.

So when he told Larry Crabb that story, Crabb asked him to imagine if the father in that house somehow knew he was huddled under the porch, and sent his son to invite him in. He said, “Imagine what it would have been like to accept that invitation, and to be given a place at that table. And then, imagine if you accidentally spilled your glass of water, and you heard the father roar with delight, ‘Get him more water! And a dry shirt! I want him to enjoy the meal!’”

Is that the way it is in your house? That’s the way it is in the Father’s house: Acceptance. Grace. Forgiveness. Joy. And because of Jesus, we can be confident that’s where we’re headed.

So do not let your heart be troubled.