The Greatest Promise

John 14:1-3 ““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.”

1. This was the greatest promise ever made because …

I. Made by the Greatest Person Who Ever Lived

A. Jesus’ life determined the course of history

B. His life was totally unselfish—

Phil. 2:5–8 “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”

II. About the Greatest Place Ever Imagined

“In my Father’s house are many mansions”

A. Man’s greatest efforts are hovels in comparison

B. Description—Rev. 21:10–23

A. Provides comfort now—“Let not your heart be troubled”

B. Provides comfort after death—“I go to prepare”

C. No more sorrow, pain, or death

“Believe in God … believe in me”

A. This proposition is called the “grace of God”

B. It is a promise to all who believe

Galatians 4:4: “But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,”

A. “Fulness” refers to preparation on earth

B. Jesus had to live, die, rise from the dead, and ascend

“I will come again, and receive you”

A. Prospect for the living and the dead

B. Paul’s verification—1 Thess. 4:15–18 “For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

C. We have no reason to doubt—“If it were not so, I would have told you”