Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
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Introduction
Have you ever been lost?
Most of us have.
One time I got lost in Hong Kong, China…leading a group of twenty-five teenagers and their youth leaders!
It was embarrassing, frustrating, and a little scary!
What a lot of people don’t know is that parts of Hong Kong are similar to Las Vegas for Europeans; what happens in Hong Kong stays in Hong Kong…unless it requires medicine or shots down the road!
My mistake was I started following a road lined with smutty shops, remembering that the bus dropped us off in front of a bunch of smutty shops.
I later found out that it was a different group of smutty shops!
Ugh!
I can laugh about it today, because we didn’t stay lost for long and now those who were with me just tease me about it.
But, a large portion of our world is spiritually as lost as I was in Hong Kong, and many don’t even realize it!
But, there is hope!
Body: John 14:1-6
What I skipped...
Peter asks Jesus where he is going, because Peter apparently thought Jesus was going on some sort of earthly journey and wanted to come with.
But Jesus informs Peter that he cannot come yet, because Peter’s not ready.
Peter, being Peter, presses Jesus, saying he will follow him anywhere, even to death.
However, Jesus drops a bomb on Peter, informing him that in just a few hours he would deny even knowing Jesus three times.
As you could imagine, that interaction would have made an already tension filled room that much more tense.
But then Jesus moves to some incredible words of comfort and hope His disciples desperately needed.
Verse 1
We find the disciples at a point of distress.
They hear that Jesus is going somewhere that they cannot go;
They find out that one of their own would betray him;
And they are told that the trial they were about to face would be so severe that even their spokesperson (Peter) would deny knowing Jesus!
Remember, these are guys who left everything to follow Jesus.
All their hopes were still based on their Jewish belief that the Messiah would come to overcome the Roman oppressors, bring the people back to Yahweh and usher in the Israel’s national sovereignty again.
That is why we see in the Gospel of Matthew that the disciples were disputing over who would be the greatest.
But everything Jesus had just told them didn’t sound like the victory they’d been anticipating.
And, in fact, it wasn’t.
So Jesus encourages them not to be troubled (or distressed), but to be men of faith.
His encouragement is that they already believe in God (though their faith has wavered a bit), now they needed to believe in Jesus in a similar way.
How do they believe in God?
Without seeing Him.
They will need to believe in Jesus without seeing him now as well.
Additionally, they believed in God for their hope and their strength.
They would now look to Jesus for their hope and strength as well.
Most of all, they put their faith in God.
Now they needed to put their faith in Jesus.
And their faith would not be in vain, because Jesus is truly the faithful one who loved them, as exemplified in the next two verses.
Verses 2-3
Truly, these are some of the most wonderful verses in the NT!
Jesus would show his love and faithfulness through this two-fold preparation:
First, He would show His love and faithfulness in going to the cross.
Why do I mention that here?
In doing so, He was preparing His followers spiritually to get to Heaven.
No one is entitled to entry into Heaven.
How does one become righteous and receive eternal life?
His atoning death assured a place for believers!
Second, He would show His love and faithfulness by preparing Heaven for his followers.
This goes back to their distress about Him leaving them.
He assures them that He is making ready a place for them where He is going, that one day they would be with Him again.
Little is really known about Heaven or why Jesus would need to prepare a place for His followers there...
But what we do know is He is making it ready for his beloved children.
But here’s what I often think about: If God created this incredible earth in six days, then how great will Heaven be after over 2000 years!
But, what’s truly exciting about Heaven for the disciples is they would once again be reunited with Jesus.
He will take them into himself, not just simply to Heaven, though that’s great, but into his embrace.
The important thing about Heaven is that we will be with Jesus…that should be enough.
Questions I’ll ask God when I get the Heaven...
Verses 4-5
Jesus lets them know that they know the way in which he is going, but Thomas disagrees.
In his mind, he still thinks Jesus is talking about a journey somewhere, of which Jesus never gave them directions.
However, Jesus has shown them the way, and now he will make it even clearer:
Verse 6
Jesus tells them that the only way to Heaven is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
Not a direction on a map, but the Way, Truth and Life, which is Him!
Jesus here tells the disciples, and us too, that there is only one way to Heaven, Jesus!
To the modern person, these are some of the most offensive verses in all of the NT.
Thus, they say things life this:
“How can you Christians be so closed-minded?”
“How can you be so arrogant to say that your way is the only way?”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I like to think if there is a God, he would accept all of us as long as are good people.”
“Don’t you people know the only absolute truth is there is no absolute truth?”
“All that stuff is outdated myths.
You need to get up with the modern times!”
“Modern secular truths, which are based on scientific fact, have disproven your antiquated religious systems.”
Have you ever hear those types of things?
Of course you have.
But, here’s what we must bear in mind:
You didn’t make Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; you believe it.
Thus, you don’t need to defend what Jesus clearly says.
What you believe has stood the test of time, while today’s “modern secular truths” will be tomorrow’s outdated and passe belief systems.
Everyone on the face of the earth believes in some absolute truths:
Plastic bag over the head…humans absolutely need air to live.
Change something that happened in the past…you absolutely can’t.
Something modern secularist never consider: What if they are wrong?
In the end, they can call us what they want, but I’ll take God’s opinion of things over theirs!
So how can we be so sure?
Because Jesus is:
The Way:
The way to the Father; the way to Heaven; the way to abundant life.
Notice that Jesus doesn’t simply show the way, like the prophets of old, Jesus is the Way!
The Truth:
The only true way and the Author of truth.
Jesus is not just one who teaches truth, he is the truth.
Thus, they might say today there is no absolute truth, but we say that Jesus is absolutely the truth!
The Life:
The example for a godly life, but even more so the Author of life.
He is the source of physical, spiritual, and eternal life.
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