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[0:00] So, I don't know how many of you picked up, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me, which isn't a very Canadian thing to say.

[0:14] We're going to look at a passage which is very offensive to many Christians, many non-Christians in Canada, and because it's a text which is very offensive to people, it ends up often meaning that we don't really want to look at it or sort of grasp it or hold it tight to ourselves because we're worried a little bit.

[0:35] Well, sort of the fact that Canadians in general or many of our co-workers, our neighbors would find it offensive means it can often be a passage that we become at least a tiny bit ashamed about.

[0:47] And so we're going to look at this text which is sort of offensive to many Christians today. Actually, some of you might have, some of you if you've been to funerals, a part of this text is a very popular text at funerals.

[1:02] And I know I've been at funerals where they read the bit of the passage just up before the part which is offensive and they stop and they spend a long time on the part that everybody likes the sound of, but they never let anybody know, especially if there's no Bibles present in the room, the offensive bit that they stop just short of.

[1:21] And so we're going to look at it. And if you have your Bibles, it's John chapter 14, verse 1 and following. John chapter 14, verse 1 and following.

[1:34] And just as we're sort of finding that text in our Bibles, there are four ancient biographies of Jesus which are based on eyewitness accounts, either written by eyewitnesses or based on eyewitness accounts.

[1:47] And this is one of the four. And the way John has chosen to tell his biography, write his biography of Jesus, he puts the seven miracles sort of all, he puts seven significant miracles all together.

[2:01] And then he takes a long time sharing the private teaching of Jesus with his disciples. And what's just happened before this, they've had a meal together.

[2:14] Jesus has washed the disciples' feet. Judas has left to go and betray Jesus. And so even as Jesus is speaking, Judas is on his way to betray Jesus.

[2:25] He knows that Jesus will end up in the Garden of Gethsemane. And Judas is going to get the soldiers and others and bring them to the Garden of Gethsemane so they can capture Jesus.

[2:36] Jesus has predicted in every one of the biographies, Jesus predicts that he's going to be betrayed, that he's going to die on a cross. And he also predicts that he's going to rise from the dead.

[2:48] And so Jesus is talking to the disciples, mindful of the fact that events are in motion. Judas is left. And Jesus has shocked his disciples.

[3:01] He's troubled them because he's told them, just before this, he's told them three things. He's told them that he's going to go somewhere that they can't come. So he's going to leave them. He's going to leave, go somewhere they cannot come.

[3:12] He's told them that somebody is going to betray him. And he's told them that Peter, clearly one of the leaders, is actually going to deny Jesus three times before the next day has even really begun.

[3:25] And so they're shocked by all of this. And that's the context where we catch up in verse one. And Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God.

[3:37] Believe also in me. Now just sort of pause there for a second. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. Jesus is on one hand, excuse me, speaking directly to the disciples who are very, very deeply troubled that Jesus is going to leave them, that they can't come.

[3:59] And this whole thing of betrayal and this whole thing of Peter's denying them, they for the moment have just forgotten his prophecies about the fact that he's going to die on a cross and rise from the dead, but they're very deeply troubled.

[4:15] And so on one hand, what we see here is this wonderful thing of Jesus talking directly to his disciples. But it's also something that's very wonderful for us because we as Christians believe that Jesus looks down the ages and throughout the years and he's not just speaking.

[4:30] When he says, let not your heart be troubled, he's not just speaking to the disciples, he's speaking to you and me. That's part of the Christian hope. You know, if you think about it, one of the things that unites rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, conservative and liberal, genius and those who are far from being geniuses, rich and poor, African, Asian, European, North American, South American, one of the things that unites all human beings is that they have seasons of trouble.

[5:01] Being troubled is part of the human condition. So Jesus, when he's saying this, is speaking to the human condition. He's speaking to every one of us here. In fact, there might very well be some people who are here that are having a very, very hard time listening to anything I say because you're very deeply troubled about school or romantic relationship or money or who knows what it is, health.

[5:25] But you're very deeply troubled. And Jesus is speaking directly to you and me because we all have troubles. Every single one has times when we're deeply troubled. And so just listen to it again.

[5:36] He says, you know, it isn't as if Jesus says, you should be ashamed that you have troubles. It's not as if he's saying, you know, you're a bad person because you have trouble.

[5:49] He knows the human condition. He knows that when he says, let not your heart be troubled. And then the following things he's going to be addressing. He knows that he's speaking to something perennial in the human condition, that human beings have troubled hearts and troubled minds and troubled consciences and troubled bodies.

[6:08] So Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. He doesn't just say that. He goes on. Verse two. In my father's house are many rooms.

[6:19] If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself that where I am, you may be also.

[6:35] Now just sort of pause there for a second. The word which is translated is rooms. In my father's house are many rooms. It's a perfectly good translation. But what it means more literally is a dwelling place.

[6:49] And what Jesus is saying is that the way that Christians are to understand the new heaven and the new earth is that in the new heaven and the new earth, when we die in Jesus, well, we don't go to a disembodied state.

[7:05] We go to a place where we'll dwell. Well, we'll go. Literally, we will go to our true home. And it isn't just that we sort of will get cast out into a new world.

[7:19] It's like a type of a wilderness and we're going to be all by ourselves. But Jesus compares new heaven and the new earth to being a place where God dwells in something like Buckingham Palace, but with also lots and lots of other properties and guest houses and places to live.

[7:38] And when you and I go there, we go to a place where we can dwell, where we are home. You know, for some of us, you live in very, very tiny apartments and you look forward to the day where you can have a really, really big place.

[7:53] And Jesus will prepare a place that's just exactly what you need to be truly home. I don't know what it'll be like for me. I love books. I have to get rid of books because I get so many books and there's only so much room in the house.

[8:06] I'm just guessing I will have lots and lots of rooms for books. But for some people, what they want is just something cozy. They want something small, something manageable.

[8:18] And whatever it is, there's going to be enough room and it will be a place where you will dwell and a place where you will feel home. You are home. And it's a place that's prepared for you.

[8:30] It's not a place that, like you go and then you get there, you know, you go to another city and you maybe, you've gone Airbnb and then, you know, you have to go out and you have to buy some food and you have to buy this and you have to buy that and just sort of make your, it's when you go, like in my case, the dark roast coffee will be there with the beans and the grinder and the French press.

[8:52] And it'll be just the dark roast beans that I like. They're all prepared for me. And there'll be lots of freshly baked scones that just came out of the oven, some with blueberries, some with white chocolate.

[9:06] And in the new heaven and the new earth, I'll be able to eat as many scones as I want with my coffee and not have to worry about getting fat or having anything that's going to clog my arteries because nothing like that will happen in the new earth, new heaven and the new earth.

[9:19] But we go to a place where Jesus himself has prepared for us a place to dwell, our true home. And he's prepared it not just for a generic male or a generic female or a generic old person or a generic young person, but for you.

[9:34] For you. For you. And we'll be with many other people and with our Father in heaven. And you can see why this text is preached at funerals.

[9:46] But we have to remember that John is writing a biography. He's not writing some series of little tiny pithy lessons for people.

[9:59] He's recounting what actually happened in the upper room. And what happens in the upper room is well shown in the next verse because remember, John is writing this and the disciples, it's before the capture of Jesus.

[10:16] It's before he dies on the cross. It's before he rises from the dead and appears to them. And so they're confused. And so Jesus in verse four says, and you know the way to where I am going.

[10:28] He says, and you know the way to where I'm going. And Thomas, remember Thomas, Thomas, he's all confused. One of the things which is so remarkable about all of the four ancient biographies of Jesus is based on eyewitness accounts is it shows that in every case, nobody expected Jesus to die on the cross other than the enemies who were plotting it.

[10:52] And absolutely nobody thought he'd rise from the dead. Absolutely nobody thought he would rise from the dead. Not his mother, not his closest disciples, even though he told them it was going to happen, even though he predicted it, nobody expected it.

[11:06] And so, and if you think about it from Thomas' point of view, Thomas has seen and eyewitness miracles, he would say to himself, whenever he hears Jesus speaking, he would be saying, okay, well, I don't know what entirely this guy, what he means, but I mean, surely somebody who could turn water into wine, surely somebody who can walk on water, surely somebody who by a mere word of command can stop a storm on the Sea of Galilee, surely someone who can take a few loaves and fish and feed 5,000 men, surely someone who can heal people at great distances just by a word of his command, surely someone who is able to take a man who is never seen in his entire life, his eyes completely and utterly don't work and he can make him see, surely a man who can come to a person who's been in the grave, has been, you know, embalmed in the grave for four days and make him alive, surely a man like this will not die by crucifixion.

[12:06] I mean, we would have probably felt the same thing, like that's just crazy, how on earth could that possibly happen, how on earth could a man who's able to do such spectacular, miraculous acts, how on earth could he possibly be dying?

[12:21] And so, Thomas is just completely and utterly puzzled, Jesus has said he's going to leave them, he's going somewhere where they can't go and this makes no sense to Thomas because he thinks, well, Jesus, if you're going to walk, I can walk as far as you and if you're going to get on a boat, I can get on the boat as well and if you're going to go on a horse, I can go on, like, I'll run along beside you and so Thomas doesn't understand and he doesn't understand what's going on about this betrayal and why it is that Jesus isn't going to be around and that Peter's going to deny Jesus three times before the sun rises the next day and so Thomas says and John records what exactly Thomas says to Jesus in the upper room.

[13:01] Thomas says in verse 5, Lord, we do not know where you're going. We do not know where you're going.

[13:11] How can we know the way? It's so wonderful that these biographies capture this, capture these things. It doesn't, the biographies aren't written so John can make himself look good or he can make his buddies look good.

[13:26] John just wants to record what really happened and so Jesus says this very famous line which is so troubling today to so many, would be troubling to Canadians.

[13:38] If I was to organize a Bible study at the Starbucks, one of the Starbucks that I go to and got the baristas that I've talked to and I was to have them read this passage, you can just imagine the chill that would come in the circle when I say Jesus said to him, I am the way, I am the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me.

[14:10] If you had known me, you would have known my Father also from now on you do know him and have seen him. Andrew, could you just put up the first point, please?

[14:26] You know, if there's one thing that's going to happen in this sermon, if all you get is this, I am unashamed of this text, I believe it 100% and I want to believe it 300%, 1,000%, and if all I get is to encourage and exhort you to be unashamed of this text, then I have done my job this morning before God and before you.

[14:53] Even if it's such a troublesome text to Canadians. So you see, some people might now at this point in time, maybe it would happen if I did organize such a Bible study amongst people who thought, up until I said this that I believe it 100%, they thought, I thought George was a nice guy, now I'm not so sure.

[15:12] I thought he was sort of a thoughtful guy, now I'm not so sure. I thought he was a kind guy, now I'm not so sure. I thought he was a gentle guy, now I'm not so sure when I see that he believes something as offensive as this.

[15:25] And so maybe they would say, maybe you would say, well, you know, maybe there's something in the original language that takes some of the sting off of this. I've said that to you before when we've talked a few weeks ago about hating somebody and I said that it's an idiom.

[15:38] In other words, it's an expression which literally means that, but it's an idiom. It doesn't mean the literal thing, it means something like this. And maybe some of you will say, well, maybe in the original language there's an idiom there which we're missing, but I can tell you this right now that in the original language this is a perfectly accurate translation of the original language and it is not an idiom.

[15:57] Jesus says these very words and he says it with conviction and he says it to comfort his disciples and to comfort you and me who are troubled. He says these things.

[16:08] It's not an idiom. And then maybe some of us could say, well, you know, that's, okay, so Jesus said that, but you know, he doesn't know all of the things like we know today.

[16:19] We know a lot more about religions and we know a lot more about other different ways of living and maybe this just reflects Jesus' partial knowledge. You know, because he lived a long time ago and he didn't have the internet, he couldn't just ask Google a question, he couldn't say, Siri, you know, tell me about it, are there other religions in the world?

[16:39] No, that's not going on as well. Jesus might not have had Google, but he knew that there were, I mean, he was in Jerusalem, which was occupied, he was in Israel, which was occupied by the Roman, by the Roman army.

[16:57] And most of the Roman army weren't made up by Romans, but made up by people that they'd conquered from all over the empire. And so if there's one thing that Jesus would have known on a daily way is that there, in fact, that there were lots of different gods and goddesses and lots of people who believed it 100%.

[17:16] So it wasn't as if he said this because he just didn't know that there were other religions, he knew there were other religions. That he knows he's going to be tried by a man the next day who was not Jewish, who believed in many, many gods and goddesses, and he knew he was going to be tried by that.

[17:36] And then some of you might say, well, okay, well, maybe Jesus sort of knew that, but maybe it wasn't offensive then. Well, that's not true either. It was just as offensive then. In fact, in some ways it might have been, well, maybe, I don't know if we can say it was more offensive, but it was just as equally offensive.

[17:50] In fact, Jesus offended Jewish people and every pagan if they would have heard it. I don't know if you know this, but in the first couple of centuries after the Christian faith erupts onto the scene, many people in Roman society thought that Christians were atheists.

[18:09] It's an odd thing, but they actually thought that Christians were atheists. Why? Because Christians did not believe in any of the gods, any of the gods, and to not believe in any of the gods meant you were an atheist.

[18:22] That's actually what many people of the contemporaries of the early Christians thought. And so Jesus knew that he was being offensive to the Romans and to the Greeks, to the different gods, and he was being offensive to the Jewish people because he doesn't say that the way that you have to follow is the way of Moses, that the truth is found in the law.

[18:41] He says, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. So, how is it that we can comfortably believe something like this surrounded by a sea of opinion that thinks it's wrong and offensive?

[19:11] Well, let's just take a moment to think about this for a second. And this is going to be if you're here as a guest or you're really struggling with this whole thing or you've come to the point that you can be a Christian you believe without believing this.

[19:22] I want to say that most of the reaction to it of finding it untenable is at the level of the emotions and the level of the imagination but not of reason.

[19:35] Now, I know I've been a little bit hard by saying that but I think it's actually very, very true that if you actually just pause for a second and sort of decouple, take away our emotional responses to it and just take away what often goes with the emotions which is how our imagination and our affections work and you just look at this as an idea you'll see that at the level of reason it actually makes a lot of sense.

[20:03] You see, one of the things for most Canadians when they think of religion or when they think of spirituality and generally, of course, religion is bad, spirituality is good but if we think of a person who's being spiritual and Jesus is a spiritual person and he's saying something like this for most Canadians when we talk about spirituality and religion we're not talking about something which is real.

[20:26] Now, we're talking about something which is really important to us and we're talking about something which is very personal and we're talking about something which is in fact so deeply personal that it's offensive to say that something which is deeply personal and important to them is somehow wrong but it is at the end of the day something which is we don't really believe it's real in the same way that if you got your visa bill your next visa bill and there's $3,000 of expenses that you know charges that you know you didn't make you would immediately get on the phone and you would be on the phone and you would be doing everything in your power to make sure that the visa people understand you did not spend that $3,000 your card's been compromised because what you see in a visa bill is real it is so real that you will lose sleep over it you will have to control some of us will have to control ourselves saying very naughty words and yelling and screaming and doing all sorts of things because we believe a visa bill is really, really, really, really, really, really, really real but we don't think that about religion in Canada which is why if somebody tells us that they're going to have smudges or going to a sweetgrass ceremony we don't really think that they believe that the entire world is on the back of a turtle or that it was a result of, you know, some ravens dropping like we if you press them on that it would be viewed as rude to press them on whether they really believe that why?

[22:02] because we understand that religion and spirituality is something which is just sort of personal it gives me some peace it gives me meaning we have troubles in this life we have worries about romance and worries about our job and worries about our bills and there was just a thing in the paper the other day about how I think like 85% of Canadians think that the world will be worse for our children than it is now and so we have lots of troubles and you know what if belief and if having some smudging and some smoke helps you get through the day good on you you go for it but it's not really real if you know what I mean but here's the thing is that Christians believe Jesus is saying that this is true Jesus is saying there is a God who is there Jesus is saying I really will die on the cross I really will taste all there is to taste of death I will really will rise from the dead I really will defeat death I really will defeat that which causes death

[23:02] I really will ascend into heaven and the new heaven and the new earth is a real place and I really will return and everything about this is a claim to be real claim to be true and if Canadians understand that they might say whoa okay like really it's true my mom stopped laughing it's true at least it puts in a different thing it's not just a matter of me insulting people we believe Christians were called to believe this is just as true as your visa bill it's just as true that should have been a point maybe it is just as true as your visa bill or MasterCard just to show I'm not showing any type of favorites in terms of financial providers but some people might say okay George but don't we all go to the same place that's a very very common thing like don't we all go to the same place and so if we're all going to the same place why does it really matter if you follow the Buddhist way or you follow a native way we're all going to the same place but if you think about it for a second we don't actually think we're all going to the same place like if we just actually give people the dignity once again we remember that it's not just a matter of like some people use Prozac some people use

[24:25] Jack Daniel some people have Buddhism and they're sort of all the same if it helps you get through the day as long as you don't hurt people and rob banks and insult people and get along with people it doesn't really matter if we understand we're talking about something true if you actually listen to what people say the fact of the matter is that the different ways don't actually all claim to go to the same place you see if you were a Buddhist or a Hindu and you hear that after death you go to a place where there's a room what would they tell you they'd say ah you haven't paid for all your karmic debt yet you still have to keep doing things because where we'll all end up is it will be like a drop in the ocean we lose our individuality it's like a drop in the ocean and the cycle of death and rebirth will come to an end but if Jesus is saying that after death you go to a room and you dwell there it means you still think there's a difference between you and the room and you still have to die and you still have to you have to work on your karma because you you haven't actually reached the end yet and for the average Canadian who believes that when you die you go to a better place what the average

[25:45] Canadian means by a better place is that there's an invisible world an invisible world of immaterial spirits like spirits or minds that's invisible because we can't see it but if we could just sort of pierce the veil and maybe we can do that through meditation maybe for a moment we can do it through drugs or some type of higher consciousness but there's this invisible immaterial world which is just sort of parallel to us and beside us and when you die you go there but Jesus says no no that's not what happens when you die we're not talking about going to the same place and you see if what religion and spirituality has to deal with is what is real and if they all go to the different places then you can't all say that the different ways are all going to equally work it would be like going into a pharmacy and for some reason you know there's been the zombie breakout has happened and so all the pharmacists have left and you go into the pharmacy and somebody tells you just take whatever drug you want and as much as you want it'll all be fine because they all make you better and the doctors would go no you don't all take whatever drug any combination as much as you want some of them will kill you and so they don't all go to the same place and then some of you will maybe say some people will maybe say

[27:10] George maybe and here's we can put up the elephant thing George I think your problem is George the Christian problem is George that all you do is Jesus has just touched one small part of reality and he's extrapolated from that one small part of reality to think that he's understood the whole it's like the classic case of the blind men touching the elephant and some blind men touch the elephant's tusks and think that well God is like a knife or the whole thing is like a knife and others touch the trunk and they think of a snake and others touch the leg and they think of a pillar and others touch the side and think of a wall and not quite sure what's happening at the end and at the top they touch the end and somebody would say George that's the problem is that you know Buddhism touches

[28:11] God is so immense and they touch God in a tiny little way and so they've come up with this conclusion and Hindus have touched God in this way and they come up with this conclusion and they come up with this conclusion and Jews and Muslims and Christians but the fact of the matter is you're just touching a tiny part of the reality and you don't realize that it's an elephant and it's a very powerful and emotionally powerful illustration in our culture I've had it told me I don't know four five six times a year somebody will tell me this but the problem is huge problem what can we all see the elephant we're not blind the person telling me the story is saying George you're blind but I'm not blind like they don't say this they're not actually meaning to be arrogant but it's an unbelievably arrogant thing to say and it's so common in

[29:17] Canadian culture that if you challenge I remember just a little while ago I said to somebody that in fact it was an arrogant statement and he got so mad at me he got verbally abusive to me in the Starbucks and wouldn't now maybe I could have been a bit more gentle about it my wife will tell you truly that I don't always I'm not always a good communicator I'm often a very bad communicator but if you think about it that's why I had Andrew put it up is the mistake is that somebody knows that it's a whole elephant well who made you God who made you different than every other human being you see the fact of the matter is that actually it doesn't actually work as an analogy at all it has emotional power but it actually isn't true another more common problem though to say could you put up the number one again Andrew thanks Jesus said unto them

[30:19] I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me a more common one is that when people hear that they think that if I said that to somebody they think that I was saying that I'm better than them and the problem is that often Christians throughout history have been very arrogant and not just throughout history that there's ways that I can be arrogant without realizing it but the fact of the matter is is that when I share with somebody that Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me what I'm saying is actually that I have absolutely nothing to boast about I've shared with you many times Spurgeon's famous line that the Christian faith is one beggar telling another beggar where to get free bread it's not a billionaire bread producer saying that if you just worked as hard as I did etc etc you could make lots of bread as well it's not like that at all it's very humbling Jesus is saying George all of your ways none of them will work all of your truths none of them will work all of the ways that you justify yourself they don't work none of these things work

[31:29] I am the way I am the truth I am the life no one comes to the father except through me and I am telling you this because I have done everything for you to know the father I have done everything for you to know the truth I have done everything for you to the life all I'm asking you is to set down all of your ways to justify yourself and make yourself look good and make yourself look like you're special and make yourself I I'm just me and I take you I am the way I am the truth I am the life Jesus is saying it's all me it's not you at all see the fact the matter is that this passage and what

[32:30] Jesus is doing answers the deep longing of our hearts and answers a part of our cultural longing that our culture can't figure out for itself because you see what we want in our culture is if you think about it what we want in our culture is we want to know that there's the truth of the visa bill and there's the truth of science that the first and second law thermodynamics is true and we want to know the truths that are scientific and historical but they're also impersonal and we have this basic sense that the truth can't just be impersonal that real truth has to be somehow a personal truth that it's something that's personally known and somehow or another that actually personally knows you and we want to think that there must be something that we want more of life we want to have hope about the future we want things to be real and we want to feel at home in the world we want to feel at home in our bodies and we want to have a sense that where things end up as we get older is that it's a moving towards being at home at home with who we are at home with our bodies just at home with the created order and our culture longs for that but at the same time our culture longs for that we know that the smartest people in our culture knows that that is just something which will all come to an end and collapse

[33:56] I don't know if I can recommend it as something for you to watch Louise and I have just passed the halfway mark in watching a very interesting BBC series which is on Netflix called Black an attempt by Rwandans to bring some of the perpetrators of the genocide to justice and it's not only trying to bring some of the perpetrators to justice it's all about how the colonial powers the French the English the Belgium and maybe the Americans and the degrees within which they've been complicit in the genocide and I can't tell you if it's a good thing or not I'm only five but so far it's very grippingly done and the principal star of the show is a stunning young African woman and she plays a

[34:57] Tutsi but she's actually from Ghana I looked it up on the internet and she's from Ghana and she's a very powerful actress and it's very powerful she plays a person who's an investigator she herself lost all of her family in the genocide in Rwand she herself was physically disfigured although you can't see it just on her face but she was physically disfigured left for dead found by this English lawyer and adopted as her own daughter and raised up in England and part of her problem is that she doesn't know her language she doesn't know her biological parents in one level she's English but in the other hand she bears in her body the scars of the genocide and she's very very broken up and the powerful things in the movie there's this very powerful scene this isn't a spoiler alert none of these are spoiler alerts but there's this powerful scene she's just brilliantly and powerfully acted by this young woman and there's this very powerful scene where she meets the sister of her adopted mother and her sister is the sister of the her daughter filled with hatred completely and utterly unattractive and she does this long dump on this young woman and her response is that

[36:18] I long ago kicked God out of any place in my mind in my life because none of these things mean anything and she is obviously the one who's very very powerfully committed to justice even in the midst of her pain and all of the Christians presented in this particular thing whether it's this devout woman or the monks because one of the things that the show brings out is the complicity of some of the Catholic church in the genocide and the monks are completely and utterly unattractive and give biblical verses to justify lying and she the woman who's cast God out of her life is the one who's obviously at a level of the emotion and the imagination we are drawn to her we feel with her we want to be like her not like these dead forms and these lies and this hatred and this unforgiveness and yet as the movie as the show progresses there's this very very powerful scene where she's speaking to a group of young girls at a school that she had attended when she was younger and she shares about how all of her life she's been running and running and running from the evil which has been part of her childhood and she's come to the conclusion that you can never outrun evil that evil cannot be defeated that evil comes into you and grabs you and you can never get rid of it out of you as a person it is just something that ultimately wins and these poor of the reality this woman who has cast

[38:05] God out of her mind and out of her life that evil wins you can't outrun it and they don't clap there's just stunned silence and then finally a perky head mister starts to give a little bit of a clap and they all clap but what I'm sharing about you this is that our culture has this deep desire that there can be that there must be a way that there is true knowledge that there is hope that something is real that there is something like peace that there's something which is life giving and that there's something which is true and yet at the same time that we have such a desire about this in our culture our culture also knows that the smart people know that the end of the day the second law of thermodynamics wins and everything all life comes to an end that at some point in time the sun will burst into a supernova and all life will win that human beings all will die and it doesn't mean how much you've built or how much you've won you all die you're so glad you came here you all die death wins evil wins on this side of the grave injustice doesn't happen and so we're caught between our desires on one hand at the same time you almost don't even want to think about the message of shows like black earth rising which so powerfully portrays the human condition and in such a world only the gospel only

[39:35] Jesus answers the end of our longings and yearnings Jesus really did exist non-Christian sources Jewish sources Christian sources he really did exist he really did die on the cross the biographies he really did die on the cross he really did predict that he was going to die on the cross and he was going to rise from the dead he really does do this not for himself but for you he really does die there is in fact good evidence that the grave actually was empty that people actually saw his life only the resurrection accounts for what happens in the days and weeks and months and decades of Jesus it really happens it happens in history it happens because it's true and this thing which happens in the truths says listen your longings at the end of the day you will be at home at the end of the day there is life at the end of the day justice is done at the end of the day mercy is real at the end of the day goodness is there at the end of the day we are meant for life we are meant to live under justice we will live in a place with bodies where we are at home and we can dwell and this is guaranteed by the man who is saying this to his disciples hours before he will die on the cross not for himself but for you and for me and he dies as the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the father but through him and he does not say this to exclude but to wooed you desire truth there is personal truth there is the personal

[41:12] God I am God God is forever the father and the son and the holy spirit he is a personal God who desires not only to be known as real but to be known in a personal way and to come into you and to know you in a deep and personal way and to see everything there is within you and love you so much that he would provide the way by which you can be made right with God and know truth and know the way and know life only the gospel deals with the longings of our hearts in a way that the world cannot provide an answer so I just want to encourage you I know emotionally and imaginatively it is very hard Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me Andrew if you could put up just and just listen to these other promises that will go with you that go with it remember he's already said about home in verse 18

[42:17] I will not abandon you as orphans I will come to you the next point verse 23 if anyone loves me he will keep my word he will keep the word of John 14 6 and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him the next point verse 16 and 17 and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever the spirit of truth and this word helper referring to the Holy Spirit is also known as advocate he advocates for you he counsels you he gives you wisdom and insight I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever the spirit of truth and the next point the final point peace I leave with you verse 27 my peace I give to you not as the world gives do I give to you because the world what does the world give to you the world gives you you can have an imaginary thing that's personal or you can have Jack Daniels or Prozac but at the end of the day you're still going to die and human life and human life is by trying to forget those inconvenient truths and Jesus says peace

[43:29] I leave with you my peace I give you not as the world gives do I give to you let not your hearts be troubled or lacking in courage can you all please stand for those of us who are in Christ this text is a call for us to cry out for the courage to fully embrace the hope of John 14 6 that Jesus said I am the way and the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me and it's a time to call out to God that he would grant us the courage that we would grow in a humble trusting knowing walking in the truth of who Jesus is and what he does for us and what he says and if you are here and you have not yet given your life then it is a time to cry out to God that you might have the courage the courage to embrace and to receive

[44:31] Jesus who is the way and the truth and the life who will bring you a dwelling place not just in a room but in a dwelling place where you are at home and you will know the peace of Jesus as it starts to grow within you and there is no better time than now to call out to Jesus who will give you the Holy Spirit let's pray Jesus you know our hearts you know how many of us are troubled by different things and we thank you Jesus that you know our hearts you know that we get troubled and you know that sometimes we just need courage and we ask Lord that you would pour the Holy Spirit deep within us and help us to grow as people of courage people with the courage to grow in a humble trusting walking knowing believing hoping resting in the truth that you

[45:32]  Jesus are the way you Jesus are the truth you Jesus are the life that you bring us to the Father and you make your home within us and all God's people said Amen t do and do and and go