Are We There Yet?

Welcome: My name is Kent Hinrichsen. Welcome again to Hype Student Ministries. It’s good to be back here again after we took last Sunday off from Ice Camp. Speaking of Ice Camp, it was a fantastic weekend. Here are what some students who went said about Ice Camp.

Insert Gracie and JJ’s one paragraph summaries.

If you were unable to go to Ice Camp make sure you sign up for our next camp which will be our Summer Retreat in July. Details about summer retreat will come out later this semester.

Introduction

To start off our lesson I want to ask you a question.

What is the longest road trip you’ve ever been on?

Ask students.

For me it was when my family decided to go to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The Trip took over 24 hrs. Luckily my family had a huge van with a TV in it and my siblings and I played a lot of Mario Kart.

What are some essentials that you need when going on a road trip?

Ask students.

A Destination, directions on how to get your destination, a way of traveling (car), snacks, money for gas and for hotels.

Tonight in our passage of John that we are going to study, we see Jesus’s disciples ask Him questions about a destination and directions to get there. If you have your bibles or scripture notebooks with you please meet me in John 14.

Context of John 14

To put this story into context the disciples have spent roughly the past 2.5 to 3 years of their lives with Jesus. In this time, Jesus has been teaching them how to interpret God’s word, how to live a godly life, and most importantly how to be in a relationship with God. Along the way Jesus is preforming miracles and preaching that He is the Son of God and that He has come to save people from their sins. He will do this by being crucified on the cross.

Now in Jesus is only a few short hours away from being betrayed and then later the next day being crucified on a cross. Starting in passage we read last week, where Jesus washes the disciple’s feet, we see Jesus having His last meal with His disciples before He dies, commonly known as the last supper. During this meal Jesus is giving His final teaching to His disciples before He dies, commonly known as the upper room discourse. All of this is happening within 24 hours of Him dying on the cross.

Jesus’s last meal with His disciples before He dies - Last Supper

Jesus’s final teaching before He dies- Upper Room Discourse

Now we know how our passage fits into the larger story, let’s starting reading.

Meet me in John 14:1. John 14:1.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 14

14 “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? 3 If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am you may be also. 4 You know the way to where I am going.”,

5 “Lord,” Thomas said, “we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?”

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Let’s stop reading here for a moment and look at the first question that Jesus is asked.

What’s the Destination?

Here we see Thomas ask this,

“we don’t know where you’re going. How can we know the way?”

In other words Thomas is saying to Jesus,

You tell us your going away but that you’ll come back and also that we know how to get to where your going. But there’s one problem Jesus, we don’t know the location. You haven’t told us the city or place you are going? If we don’t know the location,

How can we know the way to find you?

It would be if we knew our current location but didn’t know our destination.

If you don’t know the destination you will not know how to get there.

Show Google Map pictures.

In Jesus’s answer He gives both the location of the destination and way to get there.

Let’s go back to our scripture notebooks and read John 14:6-7

John 14:6–7 CSB

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Here we see

The destination is being with God the Father.

“No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Going to the Father is the journey with God the Father being the destination.

Not only do we see the destination but we see how to get there.

How do we get there?

Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

I hope you see that for humanity the destination that we were created to arrive at is to be with God forever in Heaven and there is only one way, one way, (how many ways are there?) to get there. That one way is by having a relationship with Jesus, believing in Him as your Lord and Savior of your life. This looks like repenting of your sins, confessing them to God and asking for forgiveness and turning away from sin and pursuing after obedience to God’s commands.

There are times though when we don’t want to go through battling with sin, denying our self, pursuing righteousness. There are times we just want to arrive at the destination. This is where Philips request comes.

Let’s continue reading our passage of John 14 at verse 8.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 14

8 “Lord,” said Philip, “show us the Father, and that’s enough for us.”

9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Otherwise, believe because of the works themselves.

PRAYING IN JESUS’S NAME

12 “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.,

ANOTHER COUNSELOR PROMISED

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever. 17 He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.

THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT

18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live too. 20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you. 21 The one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father. I also will love him and will reveal myself to him.”

Ok so Jesus just gave a really long response to Philip. So let’s break this down and explain it further.

Philips request can be seen as this.

When will you show us the Father?

He is saying how much longer until our destination? Are we almost there yet?

All Philip wants is to arrive at the destination as fast as he can.

What Philip has yet to understand is that Jesus is fully God, part of the Trinity, He is one with the Father yet also at the same time a distinct person of the Trinity.

So in one sense Philip was in the presence of God the Father when he was with Jesus.

Jesus tells him this in John 14:9-10 (underline these verses)

John 14:9–10 CSB

Jesus said to him, “Have I been among you all this time and you do not know me, Philip? The one who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who lives in me does his works.

Because Jesus and God the Father are both God,

In that moment when Philip asked that question, He was seeing God.

Philips core desire was to be with God. Jesus was like bro, I’m God and I’m currently with you and when I leave you to go back to Heaven with the Father, I’m going to send you the Holy Spirit, who is God, to be with you forever.

So far we have gone over our destination and the way to get there, next we see a disciple ask a question of how we can stay on our way to our destination.

Read John 14:22-31.

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 14

22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it you’re going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”

23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24 The one who doesn’t love me will not keep my words. The word that you hear is not mine but is from the Father who sent me.

25 “I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. 26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

JESUS’S GIFT OF PEACE

27 “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful. 28 You have heard me tell you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you loved me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I. 29 I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen you may believe. 30 I will not talk with you much longer, because the ruler of the world is coming. He has no power over me., 31 On the contrary, so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do as the Father commanded me.

“Get up; let’s leave this place.

Judas’ question makes sense when Jesus says that He is the way to get to the destination and then says He will reveal himself to His followers and not the world.

Basically Judas is asking,

How does this all happen?

This happens when someone has the desire to follow God’s word, at the moment,

The Holy Spirit will teach you truth.

Starting with the truth that you and I are sinners in need of forgiveness and grace and the only way to get receive that by trusting in Jesus as Savior and Lord of our lives.

After this the Holy Spirit will dwell within in you forever and continue to convict you of your sin and directing you back to God the Father in grace and truth.

Think of the Holy Spirit as your GPS. Telling you when to turn, where to go. And when we sin, the Holy Spirit tells us that we did something wrong and that we need to turn away from our sin and back to Jesus.

I ask you this question.

What is your current destination?

Where are you spiritual headed right now?

Do you even desire to follow God and His word?

If your desire is not to be with God then I hope you realize that your destination is separation from God for eternity in Hell. Which is not a fun place to spend eternity in according to the Bible.

If you do desire to be with God, do you see Jesus as the only way to get to that destination?

If your destination is Heaven, what is one way that the Holy Spirit is correcting your life?

Let’s pray.