The Time Has Come | Week 4

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And now, here is this week's message.

I haven't been able to make this connection over my lifetime, but for some reason, people used to stop at gas stations for directions.

It's hard to even find a gas station when someone's outside anymore, so I don't think it happens as much before.

But at our little station in New Egypt, New Jersey, we got so many people who would stop and ask for directions.

Now you can't drive in New Jersey, at least then you couldn't get your license until you were 17.

And so when you drive, you generally know your way around.

So having not driven around, I I had a hard time knowing what roads went to what places in our town.

Now, my dad knew everything.

My dad could tell you how to get from our little town to any of the seaside towns.

He could tell you how to get to 295, Route 1, Route 9, Garn State Parkway.

He could just tell everything there was to know.

And he with the disappointment in his face when I would come in and say, Dad, they're looking for.

And he just, and you don't know?

No, I don't know.

I don't remember.

And he'd have to go out and tell them how to get to such and such a place.

Um, I don't know why getting from point A for point B was always very challenging to me, but this was always a course before GPS.

Um now I'll tell you what I was really good at.

I could really read a map.

I was really good at that.

Some of you don't even know what a map is.

Um, and then when you had a lot of maps together and they were bound, it was called an atlas.

And um, so when I drove off to college, I didn't have a car my freshman year.

So any of you parents don't feel guilty if you send your kids off without a car freshman year.

Um I did survive, barely, but I did survive.

Uh I got out the map and we drew a map.

We drew the line of how to get from New Egypt, New Jersey, to Southeast Tennessee.

And it turns out it's not all that easy.

I had to navigate the loops around Baltimore.

I had to navigate the loops around Washington, D.C.

Then I had to head west in order to cut down across the entire state of Virginia from the south, from the northeastern corner to the southwestern corner.

I got pulled, speaking of tickets, I got more speeding tickets in the state of Virginia than in any other state in my history.

Going across the whole state and then down eastern Tennessee.

But I was a little unnervy, it was a little mechanical my first time, you know, always looking for the road signs, always looking for the towns, making sure I'm in the right place, going the right directions.

Fortunately for me, that my adventurous spirit was just a tick greater than my fear of getting lost.

Like, like it was there, it was lit, it was legit, it was real, but it but it just was a little bit lower than my adventurous spirit.

Um and that has served me well.

As well as having a live-in GPS.

So my live-in GPS is Gina.

She is the Gina positional satellite.

I still sometimes will hit Mac Hatcher and go, which way do I go?

I have never been able to figure out loops, like which way is north?

Every way.

Right?

Until you get, I mean, so it doesn't make any sense to me.

So um, so this um this is the place that I think we find ourselves in Jesus' farewell discourse in the Last Supper.

That he's been with the disciples three and a half years.

For the most part, they've been able to follow pretty well, but there is a sense now that something is changing, and they don't know quite what to do with that.

That they they're they're getting a little directionally lost.

Um, they're not sure what the next steps are, they're losing their sense of direction.

Like, um, where is Jesus actually headed?

Anybody ever asked that today to yourself?

Where is he headed?

Where is he taking me?

Where is he going?

How do I get where he's going?

Can you just show me a sign of what you're up to?

And so this discourse I think rings two particular bells.

Jesus is going to answer questions regarding their faith future and their faith now.

Faith future.

What happens after this life is over?

Faith now.

How do I navigate today?

And that's what I hope to extrapolate today.

How do I navigate today?

What is the destination of my faith future?

Let me pray one more time.

Lord, when we when we find ourselves in this place of kind of disequilibrium, not quite knowing what's next, um, but maybe even knowing that now is changing, like the next is inevitable.

Lord, you know how much we need you.

And Lord, you know how much the future, our future, our our our living, breathing future can be so certain one day and so uncertain the next day.

So, Father, show us today, like you did the disciples so many years ago.

Show us which way to go.

Amen.

So here's here's the discourse you find at the end of John chapter 13 and the beginning of chapter 14.

John 13 · chapter mention

That's not where your Bibles will mark the the the um the break, um, but but God never ordained the breaks, just the words.

So so I I think the last piece of 13 better fits with this discourse.

So it begins this way Simon Peter asked him, Lord, where are you going?

Jesus replied, Where I am going, you can't follow now, but you will follow later.

Peter asked, Lord, why can't I follow you now?

I will lay down my life for you.

And Jesus answered, Will you really lay down your life for me?

Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows you will disown me three times.

First chapter 14.

Don't let your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me.

My father's house has many rooms.

If that were not so, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be with me where I am.

You know the place to place where I'm going.

Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where you're going.

So how can we know the way?

Jesus answered, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one who comes to the Father, no one comes to the Father except through me.

If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.

From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

Philip said, Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.

And Jesus answered, Don't you know me, Philip, even after I've been among you for such a long time?

Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.

And how can you say, Show us the Father?

Don't you believe that I am the Father?

And that the Father is in me?

The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority.

Rather, it is the Father living in me who is doing his work.

Believe in me when I say that I am the Father, the Father is in me, or at least believe on the evidence of the work themselves.

Now I don't know if Jesus just paused for a long time.

Did he just take a breath in between his teaching?

But he gave enough of a pause that Peter jumps in and asks the question.

This whole discourse revolves around three questions.

Peter asks, where are you going?

That starts everything off.

Thomas asks, how do we get there?

Philip asks, can you give me a sign?

Can you give us a sign so that we can be sure kind of that we know where we're going?

And I think that these are questions that we ask a lot now, too.

God, where what are you doing?

Where are you going?

Where are you taking me?

How am I going to even get there?

And can you can you show me, can you show me some signs along the way to make sure I get where I'm supposed to go?

So Simon Peter, Lord, asked, Where are you going?

Jesus replied, Where I'm going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.

How about him not answering the question right there?

Peter said, Lord, why can't I follow you now?

I'll lay down my life for you.

And Jesus said, Will you really lay down your life for me?

Very truly, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.

That had to shock everybody.

I mean, there have been plenty of times Peter didn't know where Jesus was going, did not fully know what Jesus was going to do.

But Peter always went.

He always went.

He didn't have to always know.

Sometimes he'd get Jesus alone and ask him a question.

But one thing you could count on was Peter was going.

So for Jesus to say, you can't follow me where I'm going now, right?

This was this would have been very difficult.

We only understand this in hindsight.

Peter, you can't go to the cross because nobody else is deaf.

No one else's death can save but mine.

So you're not going now.

And then even though he's going to say, you're going to, hey, hold on, buckaroo, because you're going to you're going to disown me here.

He says, but you will follow me later.

And we actually know by history Peter does.

Peter becomes the leader of the church in Rome.

About 30 some years after Jesus' crucifixion, Peter is crucified.

Nero was the emperor.

Nero was now persecuting Christians at such a high level and at such brutality that he would literally, history says, literally, he would hang Christians from poles in his garden and light them on fire at night so he could take his friends through and display his garden.

And Peter becomes crucified in a bunch of crucifixions.

Peter's crucified up upside down is what is what legend or history tells us that he didn't feel worthy.

You're not going to follow me now.

But you're going to follow me later.

And once again, what I love, man.

Peter, yep.

I don't know everywhere you're taking me.

I don't know what all my life's going to have.

But if you're calling, I'm going.

Now so Jesus doesn't answer still, doesn't answer the question right away.

He switches then to this.

He kind of changes the gear of you guys can't follow me now, to these verses.

14, do not let your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in me.

My father's house has many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you?

And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I am.

You know the way to the place where I'm going.

All right, so so he's sensing, he's sensing the tension in the room.

And so he leads after, after this moment with Peter.

Now kind of dressing everybody, and he's saying, Don't let your hearts be troubled.

What an odd thing to say.

You only say that if you recognize that someone is in a place of trouble.

So God doesn't look past the trouble.

In fact, we can see that nowhere in Scripture where God denies that there's trouble.

But what his promises are bringing to us is that to not let your trouble trouble you.

There's a difference in pointing something else and saying that's trouble, than it is I'm troubled by the trouble.

But I'm impacted by the trouble.

You can point something out and say that's trouble and not be impacted.

When I mean impacted, I mean like your demeanor completely changes, your direction completely changes, your confidence completely changes, all those things.

And that's what he's trying to get them to grasp.

I know that you're in trouble, but I don't want you to be troubled in your trouble.

Here's why.

I am, if I'm going, if I'm telling you that I'm going to a place that I'm preparing for you, doesn't that mean I'm coming back for you?

Like if I'm going all to this trouble to do it and I'm going to all this trouble to tell you about it, won't I come back for you?

Now, two particular things.

See, you believe in God, believe in God, believe also in me.

There was no problem for a Jewish person to believe in God.

They believed completely in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They had studied the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

They could quote so many passages about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Very few people that I know or have encountered over my lifetime do not believe that we came from nothing and that we're going to go back to nothing.

There are a few people who believe that.

But for the most part, people believe I got here somehow, I just don't know how.

And I don't I don't know, I I can't give this higher power or name, but I gotta believe there's something bigger, someone bigger than me.

You don't have to convince a lot of people of that.

But convincing someone that Jesus is God has always been the hurdle.

And so what he's looking at the disciples saying, you guys, I've been, you have no trouble believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.

And I'm telling you, if you believe that certainly, certain with that certainty in that God, then believe in me.

Because he's going to later say to Philip, I am God.

We are the same.

Then he goes to describe a little bit about heaven when he talks about my father's house has many rooms.

Some translations, the one I grew up with, to um many mansions.

So that just led to a lot of fanciful thinking.

So my mansion is a 10-bedroom, 10-bathroom uh on the east coast, probably Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, with a pool and a golf simulator.

That's what I'm looking for.

So that's my expectation of heaven is this uh mansion.

Now, but the better translation around many rooms kind of fits into this very Jewish concept of a father's household having places for the adult children and their families to kind of have some kind of separation.

It's kind of like the ancient version of an in-law suite, maybe reversed, whatever.

But but but here's the thing.

We can spend, and there is, I don't know how much conjecture it is or what heaven's gonna look like and what it's gonna be like.

And I will tell you that we have no, we have no idea what heaven's gonna look like.

That it's gonna be so far beyond any of our imaginations.

Why is that?

Because the value of heaven, the principle of heaven, I'm not denying it's a real place, but hold on.

The principle of heaven is that we're going to be face to face in a real-time, reunited relationship with our Father God, the creator of the universe.

That this is how everything was supposed to be.

Always.

And we messed it up.

And the rest of history was putting that back together that we would be with him in real time.

I'll tell you why we don't know how to describe heaven.

Because we we mainly talk about what it's not going to be.

There will be no tears.

There will be no sorrow.

There will be no pain.

That just tells you when you can when you can only tell me what heaven's not like, what's not going to be there, that we don't have a good concept of the joy of what it's going to be to be face to face.

Because we never experienced that before.

Maybe.

When I hear that, when I read that, here's what I think about.

That the things that we value here so much, that in heaven they're relegated to building materials.

Like streets of gold?

Are you really going to pay attention to streets of gold?

Did you pay any attention to the asphalt driving in today?

Unless you were on 840.

Because there's more potholes than there was before, right?

But we don't pay a lot of attention.

Did you anybody notice the material of the doors walking in here today?

Did you pay attention to the doors?

No.

Us being in the presence of the Father is going to be so captivating that the idea of the things that we value the most here, they're just scattered around to build stuff.

That's what I think the concept of heaven is.

And that's to elevate it.

That's not to that's not to that's not to drop it.

Heaven is le living, going to be living in that face-to-face reaction.

Alright, so Jesus concludes his answer to Peter by saying, Um, I'm coming back for you.

I I do you really need to fully understand where I'm going?

Do you need really need a full description of where I'm taking you, Heaven?

Because I'm coming back for you.

And and Jesus comes back for us three different ways.

He he came back for them after the resurrection.

He came back to them.

With his ascension, he left his spirit, which we'll get to more a little bit and then mainly next week.

He leaves his spirit with us.

We came back, and it says leave his spirit with us.

And then there's gonna be the ultimate coming back when his father sends him to clean up all the mess that began in Genesis 3 and puts everything right.

I mean, everything with Jesus is three-dimensional chess, and he's coming back in three different ways.

All right, so he finishes that explanation.

Thomas, we have no, we don't have any sense of a break there.

And then Thomas asks, how do we get there?

Are you coming back?

How do we get there?

So Thomas said, Lord, we don't know where you're going.

They just told him where they were going.

How can we know the way?

This is the iconic verse in scripture.

Jesus answered on the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you really know me, you will know my Father as well.

From now on, you do know him and have seen him.

Let's focus our attention on, Lord, we do not know where you're going.

How can we know the way?

And Jesus said, just said, I'm coming back for you.

Now, suppose I was taking all of you to a great restaurant downtown right after service.

You came, let's say, let, and and I said, I can tell you where it is, I can tell you all about that restaurant where it is, but don't.

I'm gonna be back in an hour, and you can all follow me there.

There are some people in the room that was that's that's plenty of information for you.

For those, for those of you that's plenty of information, you don't know anything, didn't you know anything else, raise your hand.

Anyway, all right, for some of you that's not nearly enough information.

Along with my wife, raise your hand.

Okay, Thomas is so caught up in needing to understand the process that he's completely missing out on the assurance that Jesus is giving.

Like, I'm preparing this place, and I'm gonna bring you there.

And Thomas is like, but but how?

How exactly are you gonna do that?

How exactly are you gonna do that?

It's I don't need to know.

I'm so glad there's a lot of there's a lot of things in my life.

I don't I don't need I don't need to know it.

I don't need to know.

I don't need to know.

I've I've come to the place in my life, I don't even want to know.

You tell me you got it, I just as long as I know I don't, I we're fine, right?

We're fine.

What's I mean so many times I'll lead.

Is there any what's and Gina even knows how to enter in conversations with me that's complicated.

This is all I need you to do, right?

All and every guy saying, Thank you, right?

Give me these things and I will do it.

So so I think what it's interesting because I think Jesus is obviously teaching not just the disciples, he's teaching us.

He's teaching us.

Lord, I don't know where you're going right now in my life, I don't know where you're going later.

I I can't.

Make any sense of this.

Don't don't don't let the trouble trouble you.

I'm coming back for you.

Jesus' first ask of every disciple was follow me.

And they left everything and followed him.

His last assurances if you follow me, I'm gonna take you to heaven.

It's always gonna be about following.

It's rarely gonna be about understanding the process.

If you believe in God, then believe in me.

I am the way.

I can get you there, but I am the way.

I'm the truth.

I can help you discern what's right and wrong, but I'm the truth.

I'm the standard.

Everything gets measured by me.

You want to look at any chaos, look at me.

You'll know the difference.

The life you're looking for, if you look for it outside of a life in me, you're not going to find it because the only life that there is is the life I've got.

I'm that life.

I know he had to get you to that life.

I mean, he is he is simplifying so many things.

This is why this is the barrier, the barrier for people is who is Jesus and what do I do with Jesus?

If you ever, when Holly was worrying about being a joining a cult, right?

The question is if you ever get you ever feel felt like you're being drawn into a cult, who do you say Jesus is?

There's plenty of people that will default.

He's a good teacher, he was a good man, he was a moral, he was a good moral rabbi, and none of that washes because he claimed to be God.

So unless you believe Jesus is God, there's no way to get there's no way to get the Father.

Here's the last question Philip says, Can you give us a sign?

Lord, show us the Father, that will be enough for us.

Seems like a simple request.

Jesus, if you would just show us the Father, you're saying you're the Father, he's gonna go on, I'll have to skip this.

This is the Father, and if you'll then just show us the Father, we'll believe you.

And he goes, I but I am the Father.

You've seen me, I'm here, I'm the Father.

Where do you think this is coming from?

How do you how do you think I'm healing people?

This is I don't have this.

This is from the the Father is doing this.

You marvel at my teaching.

It's not my teaching, it's the father's teaching.

We're one, we're one in the same.

I I'm I'm what you're looking for.

What I think Philip's looking for, he he's looking for the Moses experience on Mount Sinai.

He's looking for a burning bush, and then and then even that wasn't enough for Moses, right?

Like Moses is saying, Can you I need to see you?

And God's response is, you're gonna die if you see me.

Here's what you can see, I'll show you my back.

Puts him in a crevice in a rock, he walks by when he gets by, he releases his hand, and Moses gets to see his back.

He's looking, he's looking for an Elijah experience where Elijah is running from Jezebel, he's tired, he's at the end of this cave, and and and God's voice pulls Elijah out of the cave and then whispers in this very low voice.

After, I mean, the tornado goes through and fire and all this stuff, then God comes through with this still small voice.

But what's interesting is God's still still small voice was, Elijah, what are you doing here?

I've been with you this whole journey to get here.

Like I was with you at Mount Carmel.

I've been with you, but while you being fed by a raven by a brook.

I've been with you that see, God will give us more signs, more signposts, more assurances than any of us would ever ask for.

Because he cares that much how deeply about us.

But but when we say, Well, God, I need to see this, and I need to see this, and I need to see this, and God's saying, You got me.

I haven't left and left you a breadcrumb, or I just drew you a sign.

You have me.

You have me, and I've sent you my spirit.

You don't need see, he's telling the disciples, you you need a mountaintop experience.

Nobody got me like you got me.

Nobody.

Yeah, God shows up for Moses, God shows up for Elijah, God shows up for Elijah, he shows up a little bit here and there.

You got me, and you've had me the whole time.

I was at breakfast with you yesterday.

You have me.

We did laundry together last week.

You have all that you need.

You have in me.

Where are you going?

How am I gonna get there?

Can you show me a sign?

These are the questions that we ask over and over and over again, especially when our trouble troubles us.

He has no issue marking out a trail for us.

He has no issue of coming through in the clutch for us, he has no issue.

We're his kids.

His love for us is can't be measured.

But when we sit back in our trouble and we say, Oh yeah, where are you now?

Where are you now?

That posture actually is not necessary.

That's not a necessary posture.

Asking God where he is, no problem.

Asking why he went away, bad question.

Because he hasn't gone anywhere.

Um I talked to multiple pilots, several in our congregation, and my cousins, a captain and count captain for Delta for a long time, and I was asking about these visual flying rules.

Come on up, team.

Visual flying rules, where um your instructor will point you to 80% of your flying, you need to be looking outside of the aircraft, not inside the aircraft at your instruments.

That you need to keep your wings level with the horizon.

And if you don't take your eyes out of the cockpit, then there's something else that starts happening.

The spatial um uh the well I was gonna say, I don't know, I don't know what the name of it is.

Spatial disorientation, where your body tells you something differently than what's actually happening.

Right?

So your body begins to feel like up is down and down is up.

Right is left and left is right.

There's something that happens in the inner ear that disorients you.

So when you when you're looking out and you can get the horizon, that becomes the mark, not your feelings in the moment, that spatial disorientation that's happening.

All right, then at night or in fog and those kinds of things, there is something in the cockpit that's an artificial horizon.

And then your eyes get fixed on that piece of equipment because keeping your wings level is going to be the key to surviving that flight.

So I asked Buddy and Alan to give me a quote around that.

They didn't know what I was doing.

I just said, tell me how important this is.

And so they both texted me back.

Captain Buddy Ross said, you can't depend on your natural senses when flying on instruments.

You must put your trust in the you you must put your trust in the instruments or the outcome will be fatal.

That was his words.

That if you trust, am I up?

Am I down?

Am I slowing down?

If you don't trust the instruments, it's fatal.

My my cousin, Captain Allen, said there's an important reason why this is the first thing we teach in primary flight instruction to new pilots.

If a student pilot is unable to grasp this concept, they will never successfully nor safely pilot an airplane.

And then my take on all of that is that when we keep our eyes on heaven, it levels out our wings right now.

That there is a future, folks.

This life is not all there is.

I like this life.

I will I will take this life over the alternative for as long as God intends.

But this life will end, and the one later is better than I could imagine.

And I do know how to get there because Jesus is the way and the truth and the life.

I know how to get there, but I don't have to get there on my own because he's coming back for me.

I don't I don't have to know the process, I know the person, and I'm gonna get there.

In your trouble, don't be troubled.

There is a future, there's a future waiting on us, but then there's also a trustworthiness that can be had right now.

You know, I told you when I was driving first from New Jersey to Southeast Tennessee that it was a bit unnervy, very pretty mechanical, followed that map to a T, continually checking.

But can I tell you by my junior year, I didn't have to look at that map a whole lot.

And then by my senior year, I remember I had found this different way that I could cut through the heart of Baltimore and go through the Holland Tunnel, uh, and then I could that it would take me all the way through the heart of DC, and then I could pick up that was 50, it was a Gladys Noon Spelman Parkway, it was Highway 50, and I could make my way down high fifty, skip all the all that, make it down, and then cut across.

And on this particular time, the my exit that I knew was closed.

It was detoured, and I had to go on by it.

And instead of being completely discombobulated, I went, well, I guess I'm gonna see a little bit of DC.

And so I just remember, I just I was just driving.

And I remember going by old RFK Stadium where the Washington Redskins had played, and I remember just going, oh, that's cool.

I didn't know where they played that, and I'm going along the Potomac.

And then I went, well, I'm about ready to stop this detour and find out how I get back to school.

And I came back around, and then my exit was over.

I didn't know I was going, but I wasn't unnerved by it.

Why?

I'd been here before.

I've been on these roads, I knew where I was going.

I had plenty of gas in the tank, but that wouldn't have happened several years prior.

I'd pull off, crawled in a fetal position, and ball my house because there was no cell phones.

Can I assure you, the longer that you walk this faith out with Christ?

Like Holly and Jeremy, your move here from Madisonville was so much harder than your move back.

Still was trouble, but you're not nearly as trouble.

It's a whole different thing.

The more you walk this out, the more hours you log in flying, the better you are at it flying.

You can trust God with your now, and you can trust God with your future.

You these things are interconnected.

If you can't trust him for your future, you can't trust him for now.

If you can't trust him for now, you can't trust him for your future.

But you can trust them.

So as I close today, um, where are you going?

Do you know how to get there?

Are you asking God for some signs?

Ask away.

I have found that God gives me more than I ask for.

I really have.

And in fact, the ones I ask him for, he rarely gives me.

Right?

Do this.

I mean, it's usually a dictation more than it is an ask, right?

Do this and I'll know that you're doing this.

He doesn't always work real well around that part.

But showing me what's really what I need to see in order to be comfortable in that moment, he's really, really, really good at that.

So if you're in a discomfort place, a troubled place, a needing direction place, you got, you've you've heard everything you need to hear today.

Because the Holy Spirit has the ability, this is what I prayed.

Holy Spirit, take my shot at this discourse and take it and do everything necessary for the people that will hear my voice today.

So my trust is not in my evaluation of the moment.

My trust is in the power of the Holy Spirit and his care for you to give you the right word at the right time.

Over here, we're gonna have people that will hear you, listen to you, pray with you.

We call this linking and lending and borrowing faith.

You can come up here on this side.

Over here, you might want to just be kind of out of the pew, the pews, the chairs, and spend some time alone with the Father here.

Commune is on my left and on my right.

If you'll stand, I'm gonna pray and then invite you to move.

Father, I pray that our trust in you hits a new altitude today.

For my future and for my now.

Lord, do what only you can do in this moment.

This is what we ask in your name.

Amen.

I invite you to move.

We hope you were encouraged and challenged by today's message.

Again, to learn more about Gateway Franklin Church, find us online at gatewayfranklin.com.

Thanks for joining us today.