Jesus Teaches

John 14 is where we will be this morning and we have a lot of ground to cover. It is in these chapters that we are going through leading up to Easter that we see something that I think is far greater than learning about the miracles and works of Jesus Christ, we see the heart and the soul of our Savior. Thomas Goodwin, a great Puritan preacher, so valued these chapters that he said that reading them was like looking through the window of Christ’s heart. Let us peer through the window this morning and look at what Jesus teaches His disciples in John 14. In John 14 there are 3 questions that are asked of Jesus by the disciples and we are going to address those 3 questions because just as those questions were relevant to the disciples, they remain equally relevant for us today. What then are those questions? 1. How can we know the way? 2. Show us the Father (Which is not exactly a question but we’ll use it as one). 3. How will you manifest yourself to us and not to the world? All 3 of these questions or inquires are still asked today. And I would argue that these three things have plagued the mind of mankind from the time of Adam because they come down to this: How do we get to Heaven? How can we know God? How shall we live? So, let’s turn now to how Christ teaches His followers and we will see the answer to those questions but before we do that, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

How Can we Know the Way?

Let’s address our first question of How can we know the way? Look at John 14:1-7. Jesus says:

John 14:1–7 ESV

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 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. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

While all three statements or questions that we are going to look at this morning, this one is certainly the most urgent. What is the way to the Father’s house? Now we have to give poor Thomas some credit here because the man was as confused as one could possibly be. Christ had just told His followers of His Father’s house, of the great rooms and mansions that He Himself was going to prepare for them, and He told them that He was going to come again for them and deep down, they knew the way to where Jesus was going. Thomas I assume is speaking the thoughts of everyone there and is likely wondering, “Is the Father’s house a physical place on earth? Can we put it into the GPS and get there? Have we been there before so is it familiar to us?” These are fair questions for those that think that this world is all that there is. If this existence is all that there is, you want the answer to those questions because you want to maximize your time on earth. Yet it is not a physical home that Christ is referring to, it is not a synagogue in another town, it is eternal life that He refers to! How can we know the way to Heaven? It is found solely in Jesus Christ. There is no other way. You see, everyone wants Heaven but not everyone likes the way to get there. Man likes to argue that the way to Heaven is far too narrow, far too exclusive, far too much to give up. Can’t you just believe in what you want and live a good life? Aren’t most religions the same? Why is it that Jesus is so special? Because there is no other name under Heaven by which man is saved. Even one way to Heaven is far greater mercy than you or I deserve. God owes sinful man nothing. There is not a soul here who is entitled to mercy but all will receive justice. The problem is, you don’t want justice because you need mercy. What does justice give us? It gives sin and sinners held accountable for what they have done. Justice alone carries many souls to hell but none to heaven. What carries man to heaven is the mercy of God. What carries man to Heaven is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus alone is beginning, middle, and end of salvation. Jesus Christ alone is the way to Heaven and heaven can only be entered by the way of Christ. The problem is that man thinks he can find it another way. The way to Heaven is not multiple choice. The way to the Father’s House isn’t a game of horseshoes, you don’t get points for trying. No one gets to Heaven outside of going through the narrow gate, no one’s climbing over the wall to get there. Jesus Christ is not A way He is THE way. He is not A truth He is THE truth. He is not one type of life, He is THE life and He makes it clear that He alone is the way to the Father. What does this mean for us? There is not a single Christian in Heaven who is there outside of the narrow way. There is not a soul in heaven that has gotten there outside of Jesus Christ. Let’s bring this down to you. If you are here today, do you know the way to eternal life? Not only do you know it, has it possessed your very life? The way to Heaven is through Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus does not mean that all we have to do is follow His example to get to Heaven. The way to Heaven is paved by Christ Himself. What this means for you and what it means for me is that the way to Heaven is not found in a lifestyle it is found in a person. It is found in the eternal Son of God who bled and died on Calvary’s hill, who stood in the place of sinners, who absorbed the wrath of God, and rose again from the dead 3 days later. It is not enough to know this, you must be born again. Jesus says He alone is the way this means that your works, your merit, your best effort won’t get you up the first step to Heaven. Salvation isn’t 1% you 99% Jesus. Even if it was, we’d never be able to make up that 1%. The answers that you have been looking for, the heaven that you have been searching for, you are not going to find it anywhere else. Don’t make it harder than it needs to be. You don’t need to earn you way to the Father’s house because you can’t earn your way to the Father’s house. You don’t need to be prestigious or elite to get an invite to this mansion. You simply believe in what Jesus Christ has done. You place your sins upon His shoulder and His cross and it is by faith in Him alone that you will reach the Father’s house. You simply come to Him and take His yoke upon you. You bring the best and the worst of yourself to this Savior and He gives you the best of Him. It is in Christ’s statement to that we see the great love that He has for us. Jesus did not secure salvation by taking the easy way out. Jesus did not take up Satan’s offer in Matthew 4 to secure our salvation. Matthew 4:8-10 “Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. And he said to him, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Be gone, Satan! For it is written, “ ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve.’ ”” Satan said, “If you want these people, here’s a way without the cross! Here’s a way without the cup!” Yet this was not the way of God! Jesus Christ loves you so much that He said, “I will take no other way! I will offer no other sacrifice! I myself will lay my life down to raise there’s up! I will lay down my immortality to take on mortality! I that am life will lose my own so that they may gain!” The way to heaven is paved by the blood of Jesus Christ! “Amazing love, how can it be that thou my God should die for me. He left His Father's throne above,so free, so infinite His grace; Emptied Himself of all but love, And bled for Adam's helpless race.” Your salvation was the highest cost. There was no other way to reconcile yourself to God unless your sin was dealt with first and Christ’s love for you was so great that in order for there to be a way, to be a life, He laid His life down willingly. And you must know that if all you want is heaven, that won’t get you there. No one is scared into the Kingdom of God out of fear of God and hell. You must know the Lord Jesus Christ, you must value Him as the ultimate treasure. It is when we love Jesus that He comes and makes His and the Father’s home with us, as we are going to see in verse 23. Are you searching for Heaven? Search no longer because Christ is the way. Are you searching for answers? Christ is the truth. You can trust Him, you can know Him, you can love Him. Death does not have to be the end for you because Christ offers eternal life. Eternity is on the line. The line between Heaven and Hell is rather small, it’s only the length of a cross. Be on the wrong side and hell will be your home. Be on the right side and dwell with God forever. Jonathan Edwards said of Christ, “He was the life or happiness to which they desired to know the way. And he was also the way to it. And he was the truth by which they might come to the knowledge of both the life and the way to it. There was everything in him that they needed; in him all fullness dwelt.” How can we know the way to heaven? The way to eternal life? It is only by entering through the narrow gate. It is only by Jesus Christ. This takes us to our next question or statement and this one from the apostle Philip. Let’s read John 14:8-11.

Show Us the Father

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.

What does Jesus teach to us in this passage? He’s only saying what Paul would teach later in Colossians 1:15 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” What’s important for us to recognize is that God the Son is not God the Father and God the Father is not God the Son. No matter how you slice that, it’s heresy. We believe that there is one God in three distinct persons. At no point is the Father replaced by the Son or the Son replaced by the Father. There is an eternal three in oneness. So, what does Jesus mean then when He says that whoever has seen Him has seen the Father? It means that Jesus is the invisible made visible. It is a testimony to His deity. He is highlighting to all that He is no ordinary person, He is no ordinary prophet, He is no ordinary teacher, He is God made manifest. This means that all that God is can be found in Jesus Christ. All His holiness, all His righteousness, all His love, all His mercy, all His authority, every attribute is seen fully in Jesus Christ. A.W. Pink said, “The true knowledge of the Father cannot be obtained but by the true knowledge of the Son; and if the Son be really known, the Father is known also. The Father is known just so far as the Son is known; no farther. Christ was more than a manifestation of God; He was ‘God manifest in flesh’; He was the Only-begotten, who fully declared Him.” We’re reminded that Jesus is no lesser deity. He’s not a little g God. The Father being in Christ and Christ being in the Father testifies to the fullness of the deity that dwells in Christ the Son and the works that He did testifies to His oneness with the Father. What are the ramifications of this for us? On the one hand we continue to see the great love that God has for us. God did not send an angel to save mankind. God didn’t just send a prophet to warn us so that we could get a head start on earning our way to Heaven. He sent His very Son! God Himself came down and this is what makes Christianity so unique from any other religion in the world! Every other religion in the world teaches that if you want to be right with God, you must do all the work. He is the untouchable and you must crawl your way to him in the hopes that he may forgive you; not so with Christianity. Christianity says, “God Himself will come to you! God Himself will take on the punishment that you are due. God Himself will live the life that you are incapable of living and God Himself will pay the price. All you must do is believe in Him.” In this Jesus, we see the fulness of God. We see the One that all of heaven worships and it is this One that stoops down to us. No one has ever been brought lower and yet know One will be lifted higher. On the other hand, there is a grave warning here for all that reject Christ. If you have rejected Christ, if you have blasphemed His name, if you have spit in His face, you are not going toe to toe with simply another person. You have sinned against the eternal Son of God. You have blasphemed God in the flesh. You have nailed to the cross He that created all things. Do not think that this has gone unnoticed. Do you think that God will simply let those that are responsibility for the slaying of His Son go unnoticed and unpunished? He won’t. Yet God’s love is so infinitely greater than we can comprehend that He offers you forgiveness, He offers you a place in the Kingdom, Christ has prepared a place for every lost soul that has come home to Him. Prior to our coming to Christ, these were the crimes we were all guilty of. God had us dead to rights. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:11 “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” To know the Son is to know the Father and while we may not physically see the Son at this moment, we walk by faith and not by sight and it is with that faith that we know that we will one day see Him as the glorified King of Kings. Let’s quickly now turn to our final question and read John 14:15-28

John 14:15–28 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 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. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 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.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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. 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. You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

How Shall we Live?

The question that we will look at is asked by the other Judas. Keep in mind that Judas Iscariot has already left the upper room at this point, so this is the other Judas. The question was: Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world? He asks, “How will you reveal yourself to us and not the world? How will you make yourself known to us and not the world?” Keep in mind that in Judas and the other apostles minds, they’re still trying to figure out how the Messiah is going to be an earthly king ruling on a physical throne. Judas is likely asking, “Jesus, if you are leaving how will your kingdom be made known? Why will it only be made known to what seems like a select few? Shouldn’t the kingdom be seen all the world over?” What’s interesting is how Jesus does and doesn’t answer Judas’s question. He doesn’t say, “Here’s how this will work Judas.” Instead, it looks like He almost just goes on to the next point. But at the same time, Jesus does answer the question and it highlights how we as Christians are to live in this world. Now if you are a Christian, you know what it is like for Christ to manifest Himself to you and not to the world. The longer you are a Christian, the clearer this reality is to you. What do I mean by this? What I mean is that Jesus has made Himself known to you in such a special way, that you feel like you really and truly know Him. Peter speaks of this reality in 1 Peter 1:8-9

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Jesus has manifested Himself to us in a very special way. He has drawn us to Him so that we may know Him and we love Him. We love Him greater than any other person and any other treasure and in a way it can be hard to explain but we know that it is true. Jesus has so changed our lives that our lives reflect that change, our lives reflect the new person that He has made us. He has revealed Himself to us and we are saved through faith in Him. That’s how He manifests Himself to us and not to the world. We know that the world doesn’t know Jesus and the reason that they don’t know Him is because He has not been manifested to them. Jesus Himself says this in Luke 10:22

All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows who the Son is except the Father, or who the Father is except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

Jesus is manifested in our lives because we know Him! He is not a religious figure, or an idea, or a legend, He is our dear brother! He is our loving King! He is someone that we truly know and truly love and it is because we love Him that we do what He commands us. In the grand scheme of things, the commands of the Lord are not a burden to us. Jesus says if we love Him we will keep His Word and He and the Father will make their home with us. As we live this life of faith we are reminded that the Holy Spirit will be our helper, the Spirit will be our guide. It is through Him that we are offered that which the world cannot offer. We have an otherworldly peace, we have an alien righteousness, we have an eternal reward that the world can never offer because the world doesn’t know it. But the world needs to know. The world needs to know of the God made manifest and that responsibility falls to us as the People of God. In a way, the answer to how Christ will manifest Himself to the world is found in the people that he saved out of the world. How does Christ reveal Himself to the lost? It’s through His Word and it’s through His Church. We as the people are the Body of Christ, we are the one’s that show the world the God who is there. We are the one’s with the mission, a mission that is God-given, to reveal the Son to the nations. So, how then shall we live? We as the Church are to live in such a way that when people look at us, they glorify God. Peter says in 1 Peter 2:12

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

The world already has their eyes on us. They’re already waiting for us to stumble so they can ridicule us and the God we serve but we are to strive to give them no opportunity to. We are to live such God-glorifying lives that when people look at us, when they look at the church, they see lives that have truly been saved by Christ. That by peering into these things they may taste and see that the Lord is good. Can you say that you are living like that? Has the Gospel that saved you pushed you to attempt to save others? How are you making the name and person of Jesus manifest in a dark world? You have been given a great light; it would be very foolish to hide it under a basket. It would be very foolish to find this great treasure and leave it buried in the ground. It would be very foolish to have been given this gift of life but to live like a dead man. What are you going to do with the new life you have been given in Jesus Christ. Finally, is this the ruler you serve? We know that there is the ruler of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the god of this world, Satan. We know that he is prowling around like a lion seeking to devour us but he will not have the final say in this world. Jesus says in John 14:30 “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me.” Here is Jesus, the Son of God, the greater Adam, claiming the victory. Satan has nothing on Him. Where Adam would fall in a garden, Christ would triumph just a few short hours from now. Where death was brought forth in the Garden of Eden, Christ would secure eternal life by rising from the dead in a garden tomb. Satan has nothing on the Son of God and if you belong to Christ, know that he has nothing on you. Who are you going to serve? To quote the great theologian Bob Dylan, “It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you’re gonna have to serve somebody.” So, what is it going to be? What have you learned from what the good Lord has taught us today? Let’s go to Him in prayer.