"To Him be glory forever": John 14

Showing posts with label John 14. Show all posts

Monday, July 15, 2019

Many Rooms

I don't know this for a fact, but our family lives in one of the biggest houses in Dulce. A story-and-a-half, with a full basement. Five bedrooms and 2.5 bathrooms. As we have arranged things inside there is plenty of space for our family of five, and a spare bedroom for guests who stay with us.

The house was built in 1914, for the first pastor of our church. I think that he and his wife had six children and the house used to have six bedrooms. Somewhere along the way one bedroom was converted into a bathroom. The house was built to last, with an adobe exterior, which keeps things a bit cooler in the summertime.

Yesterday I preached from John 14:1-6. Among the things that John writes there are these words of Jesus:

"In my Father's house are many rooms."

As Jesus gets ready to leave his disciples he does not simply say "See ya later!" but wants them to know, with certainty, God's long-range plan. And part of God's long-range plan is to gather every single one of his children and bring them home. That's where the imagery of a house comes in.

A house represents a home, a place where a person can come and rest. A place where, ideally, everything will work out fairly easily. Meals, conversation, recreation, sleep…whatever the activity may be in the ideal home it will happen without trouble. And if there is any home that is ideal, it is certain to be the one to which God gathers his children.

"Many rooms." It’s a large house. It’s a spacious house. And it’s a house whose capacity can always handle another resident.

I think the idea of "many rooms" means two things. One is that we who have faith in Jesus can be assured of having a place there. It won’t be like when I was a child and shared a room with two brothers for a period of time. Each person will be able to have a place of their own.

And the other thing is that we can extend an invitation to others to come and join us. To move in with the family, so to speak. Every Christian knows people who, today, are outside of saving faith in Jesus. If you are like me, you probably know and dearly love people who don’t have saving faith, and it is the desire of your heart that one day they would cross that line and be welcomed to that home.

It's a house with many rooms. One for you, and maybe one for someone you dearly love. Pray for that person and pray that God would give you an opportunity to share the love you have received from him with them.

Thursday, February 28, 2019

A Pacer, From Start To Finish

This summer I'm going to try something adventurous. I'm going to run 100 miles in a single day.

At least I hope I'm going to run 100 miles. Not everyone who starts such things finishes them, which I personally know to be true from much shorter events. One hundred miles makes for a long day and a variety of things can happen along the way, from injury to physical and mental exhaustion. I sent my registration in a week ago and come mid-August I'm going to go to South Dakota and give it my best effort.

The race I'm going to do this at has a number of things that I hope work in my favor. The course is an old railroad grade that has been resurfaced in limestone. Many ultra marathon events are on more rugged trails, and I have a history of falling roughly once per previous ultra marathon, and so this surface will be about the best thing for me to run on.

I have a friend who lives in the area where the run will be who has offered to crew for me. She will be able to meet me at different places along the course, providing food and a change of clothing as I find I need them. Best of all, this friend has done a full triathalon, and she can give me words of encouragement that come from her own experience in completing a grueling event.

And the last major thing that I think will help is that over the last 50 miles runners can have a pacer. A pacer is someone who runs along as a companion, providing encouragment with both their presence and their words. In the picture is the friend who will pace me the last 25 miles. My event fits in well with his own preparation for a fall marathon, and so he will run with me as his own training run, and so in that way we both benefit. The race rules allow a person of my age to have a pacer the entire 100 miles, but I'm a little old-school and think the last 25 will be just fine. I plan to run the first 75 miles solo, or with whomever I seem to fall in with, rather than take the opportunity to find pacers from start to finish.

As I was out running this morning and thinking about this summer I was struck by the thought that the Christian life is one where we live with a pacer from start to finish. But the pacer is no ordinary friend joining us only when we look for encouragement. This pacer is God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit.

In John 14:26 Jesus is preparing his disciples for his coming departure from them, and he says:

"But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you."

From the first moment of faith until the drawing of the last breath, everyone who has faith in Jesus as Savior and Lord has the presence of the Holy Spirit with them. The Spirit of Christ, to teach, guide, encourage, comfort, strengthen.

He's not along for just a part of the trip. He doesn’t take a break because he happened to get tired himself. He's not a pacer who finds his own part in the journey hard, or who struggles to deal with his own injury that unexpectedly crops up along the way. He is fit for the task, from beginning to end. If at some point I'm not sure where he is, finding him is no harder that opening my Bible or lifting my hands in prayer.

I'm looking forward to the day this summer when I get to run the last 25 miles of a hard day with a good friend. But as a Christian, I'm glad to know that in the presence of the Holy Spirit I have a faithful companion from start to finish, for every step of every day.

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Not Our Home

"This world is not our home."

Those were Robin's words to me as I told her of the sudden death yesterday of the son of friends from our former church in Minnesota. Not only were his parents very supportive of us during our six years at that church, but the man's wife has been a friend of mine for 28 years, beginning the week after they married.

And the news of this particular death comes on the heels of my conducting a funeral today and another one yesterday. One man, one woman, each in their 30's and between them leaving behind nine children.

And as I write this it is about 24 hours since the terrorist bombing in Manchester, England killed 23 people and injured 59 others.

Christians looking at the world through the lens of the Bible clearly see evidence of sin and the brokenness that travels with it all around them. It is a view that is crystal clear as I think about the four events mentioned in the first part of this writing.

But Christians looking at the world through the lens of the Bible also see clearly, that God has something much better in place as the true home for His children. I noted that in yesterday's funeral sermon from John 14:1-6, where in verse 3 Jesus says,

"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."

John later gives an eyewitness report of this image of home in his Revelation, describing the new heaven and new earth in 21:1-4. Verse four is particularly clear in the way it talks about how drastically different the this dwelling with God will be, saying,

"He [God] will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away."

If you are in some way suffering from the broken nature of a world soaked in sin, may you know rest and peace in the arms of a loving God. Jesus lived and died that you might know true peace and true hope.

For the Christian, this world is not our home in the truest sense of those words. But it is place where we can live with faith in Jesus, serving Him until that day He brings us to be with Him forever.

(The picture is of the southwestern San Juan mountains, looking north into Colorado, about 40 miles west of where we live. I took it today while traveling to do some hospital and nursing home visits.)

Sunday, January 29, 2017

Not Bread, But Every Word

Last Monday, as I was preparing for the teaching I do at our community children's ministry, I read the story of Jesus' temptation, from Matthew 4:1-11. He had been in the wilderness for 40 days, with nothing to eat, and then he was tempted three times by the devil. In the first temptation he is told to prove He is God's Son by turning some stones into bread in order to satisfy His hunger. And to this temptation Jesus responds by saying:

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

We find it very easy to look at the teaching of Jesus, understand that what He teaches is for our good, and then begin to put it in to practice in our lives. But Jesus is more than the best of teachers, and the Bible is more than the place we might seek to find answers to all of life's problems.

The words Jesus speaks to the devil were first written by Moses, as he was leading God's people through the wilderness and they were learning to trust in God to provide everything they needed. And they didn’t just need the basics such as food and water, but they needed the word of God to shape them as God's people.

And when we think about the meaning of the phrase "every word" we begin to understand that for true life we don’t merely need the rules God gives, but we desperately need the gift that He holds out for us when we fail to keep those rules. The gift of forgiveness of sin and the restoration of peace with God is promised in the Old Testament and fully revealed in the New Testament, in the person of Jesus.

I believe that in our congregation we know this to be true. We know that Jesus is the only way to salvation, and we have put our faith in Him. Jesus, alone, is our Savior and our Lord.

But…we also know that there are many people in our community who don't know the singular place of Jesus, or perhaps they have heard it but then don’t understand it. It is really a life-and-death distinction.

Jesus isn’t just one good teacher among many. He isn’t just one of several different and valid paths to God. He isn’t someone I can follow on the one hand, while also following something else on the other. In John's gospel He says,

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

There are many people in our community who desperately need the hope that can only be found through faith in Jesus. Let us be people who faithfully share the good news of Jesus with them, to God's eternal glory.

Thursday, June 23, 2016

The Nature of Peace

This morning I preached at a funeral, using John 14:25-27 as the text. In that passage Jesus is speaking to his close disciples and He is preparing them for the rapidly approaching time of His departure from their presence. They have been together nearly three years and there are some things that He believes are very important for them to know now, and so in verse 27 He says:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

In this time of departure Jesus wants His disciples to know peace, and He wants them to know that the peace He gives is not the same thing as peace that is found in the world. Dictionary definitions of peace include:

The normal, nonwarring condition of a nation, group of nations, or the world; A state of mutual harmony between people or groups, especially in personal relations;

A state of tranquility or serenity.

These are all pretty good things to have, be it for an individual person, a group of people or even between countries. But they pale in comparison to the peace that Jesus gives to those who, by faith, follow Him. The peace that comes through the world is a transient thing. It is a temporary thing. It endures for a time, but that time always ends.

The peace of Christ is an everlasting thing. It is an eternal thing. It comes as a gift from one whose nature is everlasting, and so all the things He gives to those who follow Him are also everlasting. By faith in Christ we are restored in our relationship with God, and the peace that Christ gives cannot fail.

Having the peace of Christ does not mean that we won’t have times of hardship and suffering. But it does mean that even in those times we can know true peace, because Christ is with us. And this is the peace that I tried to point to this morning.

People were gathered to worship God and remember a man who was a husband, a father, a grandfather, a brother, and a friend. There was much sorrow and much grief. My prayer for them is that they take to heart the words Jesus spoke to His disciples and know the unfailing peace that is only found in Him. And may you know this peace too. Amen.

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

ha hin day

This evening we went to a community activity where we had a chance to learn about some after-school and summertime programs available for youth here on the reservation. They are programs run by the Jicarilla Apache Nation but a child doesn't have to be Jicarilla to participate. Our daughter is on the waiting list and we enjoyed having a chance to learn more specifically about what the various programs were and which ones might be a good fit for her.

While we were there we ran into a few other people we have met in town, and it was nice to visit with them. And there was a meal. One person in charge of the activity knew I was a pastor, which resulted in an impromptu invitation to give a blessing over the meal. Such is life in a small town.

The real blessing tonight, for me, was that while we were sitting, by ourselves, a woman asked if she could sit and eat at our table. She had spent the day at a program devoted to Native American culture and so a large part of our conversation was about culture and the various challenges Native American groups face in maintaining their culture and passing it on to future generations.

A few weeks ago, at a pot-luck at our church, I had a conversation with a man from our church. He is not Jicarilla but Tiwa, and told me that in their language there is no word or phrase for "good bye." Instead, they say "see you later."

Since we have been on the reservation I have only learned a few words of the Jicarilla language, one of them being a greeting. So I asked the woman eating with us if there was a Jicarilla word for "good bye" or "see you later." There is no "good bye" but there is a "see you later," which I transliterated as "ha hin day."

I like what a phrase like "ha hin day" suggests, particularly in the absence of "good bye." It suggests, to me, that a parting from someone else is only temporary and that not only will I see that person again but I will look forward to seeing them. I am sure that there are times when people use the phrase as a courtesy, ending a meeting with it even if they have no desire to see the other person again, but that won't be my intent as I work it into my vocabulary.

That phrase, ha hin day, or see you later, also points me to the something Jesus taught his disciples. In John 14 he talks to them about their home, not here on earth but their eternal home, with him, in heaven. In verses 2-3 he says:

"In my Father's house are many rooms. 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."

Jesus was preparing his disciples for that time when he would no longer walk the earth with them. In a manner of speaking he was saying "see you later," but his "see you later" is much more than a simple reunion.

When his disciples, the ones he walked with, taught among, and shared meals with, and all of his disciples since then, see him again they will be seeing him in all his glory. They will see him as Savior and Lord. Joy will abound, between both created and Creator. It will be a reunion unlike any other, and a reunion without end.

I'm looking forward to it. Are you?

Monday, October 14, 2013

Milestones

This month of October is turning out to be a time of marking several milestones for me. There are some of fairly trivial significance and only of interest to me, and others involving my family and my current ministry. Some were expected and others not.

Many of my friends know that I am a runner. On the first of the month I marked 35 years as a runner, being 35 years since I first wrote an entry into a log and kept track of my mileage and anything else about the run I felt was significant.

I run nearly every day and on the 10th I reached a milestone tangentially related to the first one, being my 1,000th consecutive day of running. My last day off was in January, 2011 and this is the second longest streak I have had. (There is a group for streak runners, located here.)

More importantly is the milestone arriving on the 16th, the sixth anniversary of marriage with Robin. Speaking for myself, because this is my blog, our marriage has been a wonderful adventure. Some parts easy, some parts delightful, some parts hard, but all done together with a sense that our marriage in not merely a joining of two, but of two who seek above all for their marriage to be pleasing to God and to serve him well in the world.

The last of the milestones I want to discuss came last Wednesday, when I conducted my first funeral. My understanding when we came here was that I would find myself conducting more funerals than most of the other pastors in town. For its first 50 years ours was the only church in town and despite the presence of several other churches many people still consider it "their church," whether they have been active in it or not, particularly when it becomes time to remember the passing of their loved ones. Our churches policy is not to turn down any request for a funeral, so on Tuesday evening I learned that I would be doing a funeral on Wednesday morning.

That was fairly short notice but on reflection I think that God was good to me in the way the arrangements worked out. I kept the things of worship fairly basic and traditional, and spent most of my prep time in working on a short sermon. I used John 14 :1-6, where Jesus talks about preparing a place, an eternal place, for his followers, also telling them that following him is the only way to get there,

"I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the father except through me."

Jesus invites us to join him on a journey to a place, an eternal place, that is better than the best destination we could ever imagine. And he provides the only way to get there.

I have no idea what milestones I'm going to pass along the way with him but I am glad to be on the journey.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

John 14, part 3

A week ago I gave a lecture for my local Bible study on John 14. In this third, and concluding, post of the series I want to share the things I learned from John 14 and taught to the class. (Here are the links to Part 1 and Part 2.)

If you have missed the first two parts, or to review for those of you who have read them, John 14 is the beginning of Jesus’ farewell to his disciples. They are gathered in the Upper Room and have shared a meal, shared in the Lord’s Supper and experienced the foot-washing. Judas has left the group, putting in place the process of Jesus’ betrayal. Chapters 14, 15 and 16 make up Jesus’ final teaching session for those who have walked so closely with him for three years.

The broad theme I believe is present in chapter 14 is that it was Jesus intent to prepare his disciples for the time when he would be absent from them by giving them a firm sense of hope and assurance in their future. He wanted to give the disciples a perspective that looked beyond the present and cast their vision on eternity. And I believe that this same intent is true for us as we read and study John 14.

Chapter 14 briefly considers Jesus’ teaching on six different topics. In Part 1, I talked about Heaven and God, the Father. In Part 2, I reviewed Prayer and the Holy Spirit. In the last part of the chapter Jesus talks about the Father’s love and God’s peace. He then closes with an enigmatic, but meaningful phrase.

In verses 19 through 24 Jesus talks about the love that God, the Father, has for the disciples. Verse 21 says,

Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him.

Despite the way it may sound here, I don’t believe that Jesus is teaching that the presence of God’s love in their lives is dependent on their keeping the commandments. Instead, Jesus is teaching them that God’s love is present to them because they love Jesus.

The disciples grew up and lived in a culture where there was a precisely calculated system of sacrifice and atonement in order for one to experience forgiveness by God. But even with the performance of the sacrifices I don’t think that a Jew would claim to know God personally, or to experience God’s love intimately.

But in these verses Jesus is teaching a radical truth. He is teaching them that God’s love is known personally by them in the very presence of Jesus.

We can take great comfort in this too, because we can’t possibly be perfect in living within God’s commandments. The radical truth is that God loves us nonetheless. He has promised to love us no matter what the circumstances of our lives may be.

There may be times when God seems distant, and in my experience these are times when the distance has been due to my own bad choices in relation to godly living. And the misery I may know at these times is actually God’s merciful action towards me, driving me back to him, where in repentance I clearly know his presence and love.

The last thing that Jesus assures his disciples of, in verses 25 through 31, is that they will experience God’s peace. In verse 27 he says,

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

Throughout chapter 14 Jesus has been preparing his disciples for the time when he will no longer be with them, a time that he knows is very close. But while he will be physically absent he wants to assure them that they will know peace, a deep and true peace. The world’s peace is transient and imperfect but the disciples will know God’s peace, which is perfect.

God’s peace is something that they are hearing about in the Upper Room but that they won’t be able to really grasp until he is gone and they are living without him. It is a peace in which they will have no reason to be troubled or to have fear.

The disciples will experience persecution, but they won’t experience it on their own. They will have the Holy Spirit and the deep comfort of God’s peace. IN the presence of persecution they will have full faith in God’s promises.

In the book of Acts we see something of the violent persecution of the church by Saul. But later, writing as Paul, he tells the church at Philippi that God’s peace is one that surpasses all understanding.

We, too, will know times of struggle. Physical struggle. Emotional struggle. Spiritual struggle. Struggles that can take us to our breaking point. But we can go through those struggles knowing that in each and every circumstance of life we have the promise of God’s peace.

Jesus has given his disciples assurance of God’s promises and hope for their future. It may not have been fully known in the short-term but it is certainly true in the long-term, when they cast their vision on eternity.

And eternity is where we should cast our vision as well. John 1:4 says,

“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

We will certainly see and know periods of darkness but God’s light, in Jesus, has already overcome darkness and shines eternally.

John 14 ends with the phrase “Rise, let us go from here.” The curious thing is that there is no action that follows the phrase, as chapter 15 begins with Jesus continuing to talk, something that lasts through chapter 17.

This phrase is something that biblical scholars have differing views on, with some believing it to have been added in error, while others completely ignore it.

Because my lecture was only on chapter 14 I believed that it was of significance for our study, because it reminds us that the reason we study God’s word is not merely to learn it more deeply, but to live by it in the world.

We were gathered in a Bible study and were fed on God’s word. And being nourished we were then sent out by him to serve him faithfully and to make his glory known through acts large and small in the places we live our daily lives. In our homes. In our places of work. Through our recreational activities. Through the seemingly chance encounters that occur each day.

And this is true each and every time we draw from God’s word.

So let us rise, and go from here, out into the world, making the glory of God known wherever we are.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

John 14, part 2

In the first post of this series I shared some thoughts I had on John 14 from a lecture I gave on that chapter at a local Bible study. To briefly review, the setting of chapter 14 is in the Upper Room. Jesus has shared a meal with his disciples. There has been the foot-washing and the Lord’s Supper. Given that no Gospel includes both of those activities we don’t know in which order they happened. Judas has left the group to arrange Jesus’ betrayal. The remaining disciples are receiving their final teaching from him, a teaching that includes this chapter, along with chapters 15 and 16.

For the purposes of my lecture I found six key teachings collected under the broader intent of Jesus to provide his disciples with assurance and a firm hope in their future as he prepared them to go on without him. In the first post I talked about Heaven and God, the Father. Today I’ll discuss the next two points, and the series will conclude with a final post on the two remaining points and a thought on how the entire chapter calls us to serve God today.

After teaching about God the Father Jesus then moves to a brief discussion of prayer in verses 12 through 15. Broadly speaking, prayer is conversation with God. We speak with God and God speaks with us. I think that many of us are better at speaking to God than listening to what he may have to say to us. A teacher I have learned a great deal from has often equated prayer with breathing, because as constant breathing is necessary to sustain life, constant prayer is also needed to sustain spiritual life. Perhaps this is why in writing to the Thessalonians Paul encouraged them to “pray without ceasing.”

In the three years Jesus has spent with his disciples he has given them a model of a prayer-filled life. They have seen him give thanks to God as he has done miracles, such as feeding the five thousand. The disciples have seen him go off by himself to pray. Jesus has also given them a model of prayer in the form of the Lord’s Prayer.

Now Jesus teaches the disciples something about the power contained in prayer. In verse 13 he says,

“Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.”

I believe there are two things to be mindful about prayer within this verse. The first has to do with the idea of asking “in my name.” I don’t believe that Jesus is teaching that our prayers have to be structured in a specific manner, containing the phrase “in Jesus name I/we pray,” as if that was an incantation or formula that makes the prayer acceptable before God.

To pray in Jesus’ name does mean that we have to have the mind of Jesus as we pray, i.e. that in making our requests to God they should be the types of things that Jesus would ask of God.

As an example, I could pray that God would make me prosperous in my work. And while that may seem like a good thing to pray for I have serious doubts that it is the type of thing God would want us to ask of him, or that Jesus would pray to the Father for. A better example would be that God would lead me to use whatever prosperity I experience in my work to serve him well. This latter example combines both parts of Jesus’ teaching, that the prayers are the kinds of things Jesus would pray for and that God is glorified through their fulfillment.

One thing Jesus doesn’t talk about is the connection between our prayers and when they maybe fulfilled. It could be that our prayers are for things we would consider to be very appropriate, such as that someone dear to us would come into a saving relationship with God. And while we ardently pray for such things we have to be mindful that our knowledge is always incomplete. Our prayer, as heartfelt and sincere as it may be, may not be a part of God’s greater purposes and plan. I think the best thing we can do at such times is to remain faithful in our prayers and to leave the results in God’s hands.

In verses 15 through 18 Jesus assures the disciples that even though he will be absent they will not be left alone. In verses 16 and 17 he says,

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”

Jesus tells his disciples that, through the Father, he will provide an eternal presence to be with them.

In the ESV the word “Helper” is used. The NIV translates this as “Counselor” and other translations use “Advocate.” We know this presence more clearly as the Holy Spirit. The word that John uses in the Greek doesn’t translate easily, hence the variations, but it does clearly teach us that one the purposes of the third person of the Trinity sustain us in God’s truth.

The world may tell them, and us, that Jesus is an ordinary man. The world may say that Jesus was a good teacher. The word may say that in death Jesus was a misguided martyr.

The disciples are learning a different truth about Jesus. They are learning that Jesus is God, alive in the world and alive in them, for the purpose of bringing a people into eternal fellowship with him.

And there are the same truths that we need to be reminded of again today. God has touched us and healed us. God is with us, and we will never be the same. Thanks be to God.