John #12

Northside Church

The Gospel of John

Dec 5th , 2021

John #12

Jamey Mills

Good morning, my name is Jamey Mills, I’m the lead pastor at Northside. It's always great to be with you.

Today we're going to jump back into the Gospel of John. It's one of the biographies on the life of Jesus that was written by one of the three that was considered by just about everyone to be closest to Jesus when He was alive here… John presents this unique and informed point of view.

Some of you may be sick of hearing about it, but this last summer I was able to do something that I honestly never thought I would do. It was a bucket list kind of a thing… The group of friends and I travel to Moab where we offloaded our motorcycles and we drove all around Moab and then ended up writing them the whole way home…

It was a hard trip. Over 2K miles living off the back of our bikes (Pic)… almost completely off road. The trip ended up taking like 12 days or something like that, taking our time enjoying the amazing scenery of

Pictographs

The deep utah dessert

The unique beauty of the bonneville salt flats.

Shimmering aspen trees at over 7k ft.

Finding ourselves in the middle of a cattle drive in idaho near where Kapla grew up.

meeting up with people on bikes from all over… going different places with different stories...

Watching Thom eat it on several occasions (pic).

It was beautiful.

Moab… is so unique… and so beautiful… and the entire trip was literally one of the highlights of my life, I won’t ever forget it. Just me and my hog…

So many times… looking over these beautiful things that I may never see again… my heart ached for home. My own bed… my own bathroom… food not in a pouch…

There is no greater home field advantage than your own bathroom…

And I remember how that feeling intensified once we hit the Ochocos and dropped into Prineville… once I knew my bike was pointed home… there was no stopping me.

I used to travel a lot… Not necessarily far, but often away from home… and for me that’s always been true… no matter how fun or exciting… my heart always longs for where I feel it belongs… it longs for home.

And that reminds me a ton of what we are looking at today…

John 14:1 NLT

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

(NLT)

“Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me.

Jesus knew… He knew exactly where they were… That Statement about the time being here and His going away… These people were living in this incredibly important and historic time… and they had real… hard questions. Jesus was compassionate… he cares.

Jesus says I see you… I understand… Trust me.

TRUSTING in God… Trusting in Jesus… the closer we get… the more we know them… the more peace… even the thought of them brings peace to the most chaotic, confusing and painful circumstances.

This longing… to be where Jesus is… They’d come to realize through this messy trial and error thing we call life...that it's what they were created for… that this IDEA of HOME and all that it means is found in His presence.

And Jesus goes on to speak into that…

John 14:2–5 NLT

There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. And you know the way to where I am going.” “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

(NLT)

2 There is more than enough room in my Father’s home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.”

5 “No, we don’t know, Lord,” Thomas said. “We have no idea where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

Jesus cares… and he meets them at this point of distress to remind them that the whole reason He is going… is so that when the time is right… they can come HOME.

Contextually… that's what this passage is about. HOME.

Last week I mentioned this… that if there are times you feel like you don’t belong here… that something is off… like your longing for something… “other”... you’re on to something.

1 Peter 2:11 NLT

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.

(NLT)

11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.

This idea… of waging war… within you… helps us to understand the severity of what Jesus is saying.

Philippians 3:20 NLT

But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Savior.

says instead… you are citizens in heaven… Citizenship in that day was so incredibly different… it spoke into your value, into your place in life, and even into the reality of your identity… who you really are.

And Paul is saying… who you really are… is HIS. That HOME is with HIM. This world has nothing for me.

CS Lewis in Mere Christianity said this…

“If I find in myself desires in which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world”. - CS Lewis

Chandler says that If money, power, success and sex doesn’t provide our heart with home… with peace and rest… maybe… it's time to consider it. Maybe it's time to realize we were made for other things and that more of the same is not the answer no matter how hard we try to make it be.

It’s important for us to rethink this idea of HOME… where it is you belong.

The bible uses incredible imagery… It talks about golden streets and pearly gates and all of that…

When Jesus says He is going to prepare a place for you, that He’s isn’t talking about architecture. He’s not talking about gold and glitter… I think that it's just the best our language and understanding has to offer…

What makes Home… Home

What makes Heaven… Heaven

What makes Heaven, Heaven?

Is nothing other than the presence of God… everything else feels as chincy when standing in the light of the one who created it...

What makes the Kingdom is not the decor… but the presence of the KING… it is where your soul belongs… It's HOME.

It's more about the going… that in Jesus’ going… he is paving the way to God.

And you gotta love Thomas… right… known in infamy as the doubter… when Jesus says… you know where I am going and you know the way…

In true form… brutally honest… you can imagine the look from the other disciples when he says… what they are all thinking… uhhhh…No we don’t.

Jesus we sort of banked our lives on you… we went all in…

We don’t know where we are going, much less where you are going or even how we’d get there…

And it's when Jesus drops one of the deepest statements the world has ever known…

John 14:6 NLT

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

(NLT)

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.

Jesus says that He is the way

, the truth and the life…

He is the way HOME… not a way but the way… THE ONLY way.

And we miss it. What Jesus said here is often seen as egotistical and arrogant… The only way it isn’t is if it's true… in which case telling people is the most compassionate thing He could do.

This is a salvation issue. I don’t know how else to say that. What it is that you believe here… is huge.

Jesus says… I am the only way to God… And it's easy to be indecisive… but you cannot afford to be here.

Believing anything less… makes Jesus out to be a liar and it begins to erode the moral ground out from underneath our feet…

If Jesus isn’t the way… make up your own, find your own… and in the process… we can become complicit in millions of people living… “lost” and away from HOME.

Jesus is saying that everything else is broken, no other thing, no other person, no other “religion” no effort of your own... there is no other way home.

And what do you do with a statement like that?

To be shown the way home, suggests what?

We aren’t there.

And the thing that stands between you and Home… between you and the presence of God that you were created for is the chasm of sin and death… (Slide 1)

Sin doesn't lead to being bad… it leads to spiritual death which is bad.

It leads to wandering… purposelessness… spiritual and moral blindness…

To separation between you and a perfectly HOLY God.

When Jesus says I am the way, He is saying that He alone can stand in that gap for our sin.

… and take the wrath of a Holy God on your behalf… to be the perfect sacrifice for sin… that brings peace… so that literally when God looks at you, He sees the perfect righteousness of Christ (SLIDE 2).

You’re made right with God… reconciled to God… brought back into relationship with God through what Jesus did on the cross… HE IS the way home where your soul was created to be.

This statement is not condemning the world to Hell… it’s inviting them home. Do you believe that? How is that truth impacting the way you see and do life, family and friendship?

Jesus also said HE is THE TRUTH…

Truth here is an interesting thing…

It has to do with transparency… being factual beyond dispute. Clearly true.

It reminds me of what it says in Romans 1:10 that God’s invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature are clearly seen through what was made so that all man is without excuse.

The truth of God and who He is… is everywhere.

A little later in life John would say it life this is

1 John 1:5 NLT

This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.

… That God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. Light… reveals truth… it shows us how things really are… and there is freedom in that! GI JOE… knowing is half the battle… common Joe it’s more than that. Seeing… knowing truth… is freeing and empowering.

His presence shines the light of truth as to how things really are… and in a world that lacks truth… and is beginning to unwittingly hunger for it… Jesus says I am the truth. I am what you're looking for… I am the truth that will lead you home.

Colossians 1:15 NLT

Christ is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,

says that Jesus is the Visible image or the invisible God…

Do you want to know who God is, what God is like, how God loves? Do you want to know what God is all about, what He’s passionate about or what He stands for? Do you want to know what His desire is for and from you? Do you want to know how God reacts to people… even broken people just like us?

The religious leaders presented such a poor picture of God’s heart; and so do I… we see the truth in Jesus.

And that, right there is something that people in His day had no idea what to do with.

Jesus’ love and mercy… blew the minds of those who thought they knew what God was like… it totally flipped the script… and knowing the truth has the power to point you HOME.

Hated tax collector; traitors of the worst kind that swindled their own people.

The Woman at the well who in the eyes of man was disqualified 3 X over.

The Woman caught in the very act of adultery

The untouchable and diseased

Even his closest disciples… were a mess.

We see the truth about who God really is..

But also the truth about who we really are and God’s response to it.

Do you want to know the truth about your identity… Its truth is found in Jesus and Jesus says, it’s in Him alone.

NOT EVEN YOU… get to mess with who and what the author of truth says you are… Why you’d ever choose not to embrace it is beyond me. The value that God puts on you… is nearly unbelievable… but go there… wade out in it.

Jesus is the truth that invites you home, the righteousness that gets you home.

Jesus says that He is the life…

We talk about this alot at Northside. Real life… FULL life… and freedom are found IN Jesus… and that doesn’t just start in heaven.

Just a few verses later… (15) John says this… if you love me, obey what I tell you? Why? Because these are the things that bring the life and purpose of God to life in US.

All of the commands of God are about leading you to the fullest life possible…

Ps 16:6 (NIV)

The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

That the law of God, the commands of God lead us to good and healthy things.

… to life giving places.

He’s not trying to take things from you… He’s leading your home.

Who knows more about relationships better than the creator, money, dealing with stress, anxiety, fear, marriage…

Jesus is like this huge light up arrow that says… THIS way to life.

Learning how to see the commandments of God the right way will rock your world. They bring life… and fight death in you. It’s absolutely a real thing.

He is the life.

And He goes on to say what has become a great offense to man…

That NO one… comes home. No one comes to the father except through HIM.

It's seen as an outrageous and arrogant statement…

Two things that stand in the way…

Moralistic and individual deism.

I may have made one of them up.

Moralistic deism is everywhere… so much of the world and world religions is built on it…

It's this idea that if we do the right things… God will accept us… and the issue with that is it pushes us back into self-righteousness… where we try to earn it.

Which leads us to this place of living a double life… we are trying to project… to do… all right things…

NOTHING… sucks life out of you faster than that. And it's true… Nothing sucks the life out of you, out of your relationships or even out of a church faster than pretending to be or projecting something you're not. LIFE… is not found there. Physically, spiritually, emotionally, relationally… it takes a toll on you… and Jesus sets you free from that when we come to this point of knowing… HE IS the LIFE. LIFE is found IN HIM.

10 commandment pop quiz… chandler

Do you ever love things or show more dedication to things than to God?

Are you guilty of taking the name of God lightly.

Lie?

I mean… maybe never committed adultery, but what about lust

Never killed anyone, but anger is your heart

Get mad when people get things you want or feel a little to good when people get what you think is coming to them?

God’s point in giving us the 10 commandments wasn’t to us we could live them out perfectly… but it was to show us that we can’t. That we can’t rest in our own righteousness.. We aren’t any good at being good… we cannot rest in any righteousness of our own…

And individualist deism…

To prioritize the desires of self over all else including reality.

It’s where we allow our own desires, lusts and appetites to be the ultimate definition of truth in our life.

No one… tells me what to do… or what’s right… in essence it's saying… I am my way, this is my truth and it is MY life…

And where does that lead?

Lawlessness… helplessness… depravity… and a complete loss of our true identity.

And the rampant nature of that in our culture… with everything that's going on… it blows me mind that we miss it.

Jesus said… I AM the way the truth and life…

And the only true way home.

And in all sincerity… it is only offensive if it's untrue. Otherwise…

It really is the way…

The truth…

The life

It really is pointing the way home… to the very presence of God where you belong.