14 Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe * in God, believe also in me.

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Alvin Hodge
6 years ago
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1 Sermon John 14: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe * in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father s house there are many dwelling-places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? * 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And you know the way to the place where I am going. * 5 Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? 6 Jesus said to him, I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you know me, you will know * my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him. 8 Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied. 9 Jesus said to him, Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, Show us the Father? 10 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; but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; but if you do not, then believe me because of the works themselves. 12 Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If in my name you ask me * for anything, I will do it. 1 Sermon Can you think of where you heard this gospel reading last? It is very commonly used at funerals as a comfort text. Jesus has gone on ahead and when we die we will be instantly whisked into heaven to a cute Bed & Breakfast that He has set up for us. 1 accessed 08/May/ P a g e

2 Comforting, isn t it? No need to worry, no cares, three square and a bed to rest in death is good! But is this passage really for the assuring of the dying and caring for the bereaved? Or does it offer something greater for you and I in the here and now? Why should we have to wait to experience the blessing of God in the next life when He created and blesses everything around us? Look around, there is beauty and peace to be had for everyone no need to die to get to it. God is with us all the time; not just when we get to heaven. Jesus was desperately trying to get His disciples to understand that. In this interaction, Jesus is trying to get them to be brave. He s trying to get them to understand that He will be going before them and preparing the way so that we will be able to join Him. This was going to be a good thing but it sure didn t feel like that for a couple of the disciples. It is important not to be too hard on Thomas and Philip though because we are just like them. When we are with a very special loved one, it is hard to understand where and what is happening when they leave us either due to death or illness. We ask these questions of the pastor: Will they go to heaven? ; What is going to happen to them now? ; Will I see them again? ; and so on. Even though we know the answers to the questions, we need to hear it from someone in authority. Thomas and Philip, are you and I. They, and dare I say, you and I need to hear from Jesus the answers to make us feel OK. We do this because Jesus is the source of 2 P a g e

3 the truth. He is the truth that comes from the Father God. He is God. We need to understand this completely and believe in it completely as this is foundational to our faith in Jesus. So now you ask; Why is it foundational? It is foundational because we believe in His resurrection. Since it is true, then all the other things Jesus promises us are true also. So, if we are worried about going to heaven or not, we need only remember that Jesus promised that those who believe in Him will have eternal life with Him. Jesus doesn t live in hell so the only place left for us is heaven. That is something to hang on to when things get tough and we are worried about where we are going. Jesus is telling us not to fear for if we believe in Him, we will be saved. If you turn your back on Him though or you fail to head the call, you lot will be cast into the burning lake for eternity. That is something to believe in also. So why do these fears continue to exist? What about our friends and family that don t go to church? Many in the world today say that religion is passé. They are spiritual so they are going to be ok. This ideology is nothing further from the truth. We need to have faith, gifted by grace from God to believe that Jesus was God, sent to redeem humanity by taking on our sins, dying on the cross, descending into hell to rise again three days later. We claim this promise every week when we say our creed. We acknowledge Jesus and God being One. We acknowledge the saving grace of God through His Son, Jesus 3 P a g e

4 Christ, our Lord and Savior. We claim the promises of God made through the Word in scripture, song and action. We need to do this without actually having seen or heard Jesus. We live by faith in Jesus and the Word. We should be doing this without fear. Yet we are human and weak and so Jesus reminds us again to fear not. Since the disciples had seen and heard and lived with Jesus, they should recognize God in Him. They should not fear since He will leave them alone to face the world. They should not fear that He will no longer be part of their lives. They should not fear because their deaths will not be the end. Let us grab a hold of these promises. They were not just for the disciples but for us as well. We worship a living God who is with us always. We should not fear our end as it is a new beginning. The completion of our baptisms. Life eternal in communion as children with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit one God, Three in One. It is really interesting to note that Jesus told us that if we have no fear and believe in Him we will accomplish greater things than He did while on earth. That is a bit scary to me. After all, He went around casting out demons, healing the incurable, turning water into wine, walking on water and so on. He said we would do greater things!! What does that leave us to do? Simple. Love God with all our strength, heart and mind and 4 P a g e

5 love our neighbor as ourself. I would add to that: share the Good News, and trust in Jesus for all things. But that is just my thinking Jesus didn t leave the disciples or us powerless either. He sent the Holy Spirit to comfort and guide us. But also Jesus told us to pray for the cares of our hearts in His name and He will answer those prayers. This is an awesome responsibility He left us with. Praying in the name of Jesus is powerful. It is something we should not take lightly. It is an awesome power that we wield. If we listen to the Holy Spirit as our guide when we pray, mighty things can happen. Praying is so vitally important to the Christian life as it enrichens our communion with Jesus and the Father. It helps us to bring out the cares and concerns of our hearts as shared burdens with someone who can make a difference. We need only practice patience as prayer is answered in accordance with God s will and in His time. This last part is true but can cause us to drop into a state of fear and or frustration when things don t happen according to our plan or prayer. We have all experienced that. But we have also experienced the passage of time so that we can reflect on the situations and see that God has answered our prayer in a way that turns out to always be much better than we wanted. We need have no fear of that. 5 P a g e

6 The next time we hear these gospel words spoken at a funeral, I want us to think about how much more they mean as words of encouragement and support for living our lives out in the promise of doing greater things than Jesus did. Doing so fearlessly! Why can we do it fearlessly? We know that God is with us because Jesus lives. As we leave here this morning with all of these things I have talked about ringing in our ears, remember what God in Jesus told us so that we might not fear living in this world. It is the kind of thing a parent would do for a child. It calms our fears, soothes our worries and allows us to go about our lives with confidence and surety. It is these last two items that the world sees in us as we go out from here. Not everyone is gifted to be a great conversationalist able to sway peoples hearts with their words. That is not what the majority of us do. Instead, we live our lives with grace and practice mercy and love for all of God s creation. That we can do fearlessly! Not many are ever brought to salvation by words alone or for that matter by good deeds alone. Good deeds mean nothing unless they are done out of our faith in Jesus Christ to glorify our God. Each and everyone of us are evangelists through our actions and if we need to use them, our words. Be fearless, live your life knowing you are going to accomplish greater things than you ever thought possible. Amen 6 P a g e

21 DAYS OF PRAYER IS FOR YOU!

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