John 14:1-14 – The Gospel of John

Our reading today is from John chapter 14, verses one to fourteen.

John 14 · chapter mention

I am the way and the truth and the life.

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, and you know the way to where I am going.

Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.

How can we know the way?

Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my Father also.

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

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.

Jesus said to him.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, Show us the Father?

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 authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or else believe in account of the works themselves.

Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

And so reads God's word.

Welcome to you if you've joined us.

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Mark, and uh I'm one of the leaders here.

Please, uh, if you have a phone or a hard copy Bible, if you could turn up John 14 and have that with you.

Because John 14, it's quite dense.

There's a lot going on, and so it's good to have it in front of you just to uh have a little bit of uh of an idea where we're where we're going.

We are in John's Gospel, really, until after Easter.

And this is the uh the longest uh teaching section in all of the Gospels where Jesus now has his disciples and he's about to die, and he heads off.

Uh he's heading off to the cross, to the resurrection, his ascension to his father, and he's teaching his disciples uh what it means to follow him.

And the text this morning uh begins uh with the words that are often read at funerals.

Uh, if you've been to one you may have heard them, begin with these words, let not your hearts be troubled.

Now you might be the kind of person who, as soon as you heard that, or indeed have heard it in the context of grief, and kind of thought, well, easier said than done, Jesus, eh?

Uh I think, well, that sounds that sounds great, but it seems like a uh a fairly Jesus-y thing.

Oh, don't don't be afraid, don't let your hearts be troubled.

Well, you don't know what's going on.

Maybe you're that kind of person.

Uh it there's often much for our hearts to be troubled over.

Uh, Peter picked up some of them in our prayers, didn't he?

There's been a a year now, tragically, uh, of war uh in our continent.

Uh to say nothing of the uh financial uncertainty that many of us face, the job uncertainty that even uh this week some of you have felt, uh, I am sure.

There's the troubled heart that comes from worry about a family member who is perhaps sick or ill.

There's anxiety over studies, exams, future that seems to be a constant battle.

There's a constant troubledness in our hearts, it seems sometimes.

And then the most troubling and terrifying thing of all, our own imagination.

We catastrophize things, don't we?

We let play things, we let things play out in our imagination.

And we never by default, and maybe this is just me, we never by default think of the best case scenario.

We always think of the worst thing that could possibly happen.

There's only one thing worse than going to the dentist and feeling the the prick of the hypodermic needle into your gum.

There's only one thing that's worse than that when you go to the dentist.

It's the anticipation of going to the dentist.

It's the walking in, saying your name, I've got an appointment, okay.

Go and wait over there, and it feels like you're waiting for six days while they call you.

They eventually call your name, and you have to walk down this sterile corridor that just seems like it's something out of the shining.

It's just gets longer and longer and longer.

If you haven't seen the shining, don't worry about that.

Uh, I haven't either.

Um uh and you find you sweet you swing open the door and you see some bamasked ghoul and some torture chamber chair, and they're there with the lidacidant of welcome, take a seat.

And you've all thought it through in your head and say nothing more uh than that.

Well, after they've inflicted the pain on us, they then mug us and take our money.

We pay them for the privilege.

A troubled heart is not an uncommon condition.

We are all people who are finite, weak, we don't know the future.

But there's something else you need to know right at the top of it.

Is that not just is a troubled heart not uncommon, it's not unworthy either.

You think, oh, I must be a really bad Christian if my heart is troubled.

It's not unworthy either either.

Jesus himself, two chapters previous to this, said that his heart was troubled.

The Gentiles had had come to him, they were seeking Jesus, that is, the non-Jews were wanting to come and put their faith in him.

And in chapter 12, verse 27, he says, Now is my soul, my heart, troubled.

And what shall I say, Father, save me from this hour?

But for this purpose I have come to this hour.

What love in light of these words, that he himself is troubled, and he's Jesus.

He's omniscient, he knows what's about to happen to him, he knows the purpose for which he was sent.

He knows that the cross is about to arrive, he knows that darkness has fallen on his final day, that soon the full horror of Calvary would be upon him.

He knows that by the time the sun sets again, the Father will have poured out his wrath upon him against a sinful world.

And yet, Jesus in his trouble looks at his followers and says, Don't let your hearts be troubled.

What selfless, self-forgetting love that he would, knowing all of that, set it aside and look at these confused, fearful, uncertain, weak, finite people and say, Don't worry.

Don't let your hearts be troubled.

And particularly in the context, I mean, what words to speak in this moment?

Because if you were here last week, you'll know that the thing that's just happened is Peter is just, you know, stormed in with all this bravado and said, I'm gonna lay down my life for you, Jesus.

And Jesus has turned to him and said, Don't be so sure, Peter.

By the time the rooster crows, you'll have denied me three times.

And then he immediately turns to his disciples and says, Look, don't let your hearts be troubled.

Why why there?

Why immediately after his prediction, his prophecy, that Peter was going to deny him?

Well, you just imagine for a second, if you're a disciple sitting at that table in that upper room, and he's just said this to Peter.

Peter, who was the first to realize that Jesus was the Messiah, to name him as the Christ.

Peter, who got out of the boat and walked on the water, Peter, who was there on the Mount of Transfiguration, that is, uh, the on top of the mountain, the kind of the veil of this world was pulled back, and Peter saw the full radiant glory of who Jesus was.

And Jesus has just told him that before the sun rises, your faith in me is going to shatter.

You imagine if you're one of the eleven, you're kind of thinking, well, if that's what's going to happen, Peter, if Peter's faith is going to falter and break, what on earth is going to happen to mine?

And so he says, Do not let your hearts be troubled.

How?

What possible remedy could there be for the troubled heart?

What comfort, what salve, what balm, what solace for the heart that is in turmoil.

Well, he gives it to us in this very same verse.

Let not your hearts be troubled.

Believe in God.

Believe also in me.

Now, that might be enough to say to a particularly mature Christian who faces trouble.

Believe in God.

Particularly mature Christian might uh when we tell them not to fear, they might immediately call to mind uh the Lord's sovereignty, his goodness, his love, his mercy, his grace, his care.

And that might steal them.

That might say, okay, all right, my heart was troubled.

Somebody said, keep trusting, that's what I'm gonna do.

God's good, he's sovereign, he's got this, right?

But I think for most of us, for Jesus to say, believe in God, I think for the disciples as well, for Jesus to say, believe in God, believe in me, it's not quite enough.

Again, like do not let your hearts be troubled, it feels a little bit like a platitude.

But before we move on and unpack it, I don't want you to miss the force of it, because it's not just Jesus saying Jesus-y things.

Belief is the remedy for the troubled heart, it is the headline that hangs over the whole passage.

And Jesus goes on to flesh it out, and I'm going to attempt to follow his lead in that in just a moment.

But belief and trust are the remedies for the troubled heart.

There is an anchor that keeps the soul.

He is the rock upon which we build our lives, he's the solid ground on which we stand when all other ground seems to be sinking sand.

So believe what?

What does Jesus want his disciples and by extension us to believe that might comfort our troubled hearts?

Well, in essence, I think that Jesus uh goes on from verse 2 onwards to basically spell out to his disciples look, there are some major advantages to me leaving you after tonight.

This is what I want you to believe.

I want you to believe that it's actually a good thing that I go.

That there are some advantages to Jesus' departure.

And I'm going to look at three of them.

The first one is significantly longer than the other two.

So if you're sitting there and you're like, he still hasn't got to the second one, don't worry.

The first one is significantly longer, basically takes the whole passage.

Um, but the first one is this believe, he says to his disciples, and to you, that if you are a believer in Jesus, you have a secure future.

Believe that you have a secure future in Jesus.

One of the things that is uh often anxiety-inducing uh is change or uncertainty about the future.

We've gone through a lot of changes uh as a church over the last year in terms of uh our growth and integrating new people, and that feels like it's just kind of stirred and mixed up the pot.

And some people are like, oh, this is great, this is really exciting.

And other people are like, where did where did where did City Church go?

Oh, it's just it's still here, it's just got bigger, it's just got fatter.

Um and uh but the change can be on said, not the people, not the people.

Some of us maybe, but that's why I'm wearing the jacket Lairs.

Um but I suspect in part that that's going on what's going on with the disciples.

Their hearts are troubled because things seem really uncertain, they're not sure about the future.

And that's not just true for the disciples, and it's not just true for us because of what's gone on in city church, it's just true in general today.

The world struggles, I think, uh, to give people a clear view of the future.

Uh, now that the the West has largely kind of begun to uh to get rid of and to jettison Christianity, one of the things that you lose, if you lose Christianity as a consequence, is a clear vision for the future, a clear direction of where uh history and the cosmos are going.

That one day things will be better.

Kind of we lose that.

And so all that there is is there's the there's the anxiety of the now fueled by uh by threats of war and financial upheaval and climate crisis and all of these things.

And so all of the uh all of the worries that are normally stretched out over time, it's like, well, no, the world's going to end now.

And you're like, well, I can't quite deal with that as an individual person because we've lost a clear vision for the future.

And so the first thing that Jesus does for his disciples is he promises that he's going to give them a secure future.

And he does that in a couple of ways.

Pick it up with me in verse two, he says, In my father's house there are many rooms.

If it were not so, I would have told you that I uh 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, and where I am, you may be also.

First thing that Jesus says is that in his father's house there are many rooms.

What he means by that is that God has enough space and a space just for you.

God has enough space and a place just for you.

The Christian future hope is a hope of home.

Home with God.

It's not a hotel.

You don't check in with the anticipation of one day checking out again.

The stay is not temporary.

No, it is a home with a family and a father.

What's more, it's never full.

That's what he means by my father's house, there's many rooms.

There's space for everyone, anyone.

There's space for you this morning.

Maybe you haven't claimed your spot in the father's house.

The invitation clearly is there's enough room for you.

Come home.

Come and be with us.

Have that secure future.

But also, wonderfully, one of the things that I was reading this week as I was kind of banging my head off this passage was the idea that the many rooms has this idea of particularity.

That it's not just that there's lots of room, but there's this room just for you.

That they again, it's not a hotel where you book the kind of standard generic, and you know, there's the there's the kettle in the cupboard, and everybody's got that, and all of the sheets and the bedding are the same.

No, it's a home.

You think of your uh your bedroom growing up at home, was it different to the other rooms?

Was it different to the rooms of your siblings or of your your parents?

I'm sure it probably was, because it was particular to you.

You had the posters up that you liked, you had the bedding that that you preferred, you had the the the clothes on the floor that you wore.

You had your own particular floor drobe, right?

Because uh, and some of us still have that, isn't that right, my love?

Uh it was a room particular to you.

And again, remember the context of what has happened.

Jesus is saying there's many rooms.

What's the implication?

There's a room for Peter.

Peter gets a room.

There's a room for people who are sitting here this morning who have acted faithlessly and who are coming back home.

There's a room for people who have gone out like Peter will in just a few chapters' time and be utterly broken.

There's a room for him.

There's a room like that for you.

In my father's house, there are many rooms.

There's enough space, and there's a space just for you.

The other thing that it means is that Jesus has prepared your place.

He's gone and he's got it ready for you.

That's a strange phase uh uh phrase.

Uh I go and prepare a place.

Well, how does Jesus prepare a place for us in the Father's house?

Is there some deficiency in our heavenly home?

Does the washing need to be done?

Is there hoovering uh to be done?

Dishes stacking up that the Holy Spirit has just left.

Uh is that what he means?

No, it's not.

What does I go and prepare a place for you?

Is it that the house is deficient?

No.

It's that you need to be cleaned up.

I go and prepare a place that you are able to live in.

His going is his going to the cross.

That's the preparation.

It's his death and his resurrection.

That's him going to prepare a place for you, for me.

Before we can enter eternally into that secure future, we must be made fit for that home.

And that means that we must have our sin forgiven, our sin cleansed and removed, and then we enter with joy into that Father's house, knowing that he has prepared a place for us.

And the other reason why Jesus has this secure future in mind is that he goes on to tell his disciples, he says, I'm going to go and prepare a place for you, and then I'm going to come again, and I'm going to pick it up in verse 3.

I will come again and I will take you to myself, and where I am you may be also.

The future is secure, and Jesus will bring you there.

If Jesus saves you, that is, if he prepares a place for you, forgives your sin, cleanses you from your sin.

He then also assures you, as he assures the disciples, that he will bring you to that place that he was has prepared.

You'll not be left to find your own way.

You'll not be left out.

There's no one forgotten in the kingdom of God, not one that turns to the Lord Jesus who is left behind.

But notice now, between verse two and verse three, the room, the place has kind of slightly evolved.

Did you see it?

Did you pick it up?

In verse three, I will take you where?

To the place that I've prepared?

No, that's not what he says.

I will take you to myself.

The place has now become a person.

What are we to take from this?

Well, I think it is this that where we find our final rest, where we find our eternal security, where our sure and certain future lies, is not ultimately in a place, but in a person.

I will take you to myself.

You will find your rest in Jesus.

In the one who loved you and gave himself for you.

In the one who set aside all of the glories of heaven in order to make you his own.

And so he says, troubled heart, believe in God.

Your final destination is in the Father's house.

Jesus has made it so, and he will bring you there.

And if he will bring you there in the end, will he not keep you now?

If he is saying that your sec your future is secure, will he not hold you in the palm of his hand now through all of the troubles and uncertainties of life?

Is that not a balm and a comfort to the troubled heart?

Troubled heart, do you not know that because your future is secure, that you are currently immortal until the Lord is done with you and calls you home.

You are immortal until he takes you to that father's home.

And then Jesus asserts that his disciples already know the way into that secure future, into that trouble-dispelling future reality.

Verse four, he says, and you know the way where I am going.

But then Thomas has some questions.

Thomas gets a bit of a bad rap, right?

He's called doubting Thomas.

Um I like Thomas a lot.

Thomas is the one who kind of says it as it is.

Uh he's the one in chapter 11.

When they're going down to Jerusalem to raise Lazarus, who's just like, Well, why don't we all go?

We can all die together.

Yeah, he's kind of, you know, he calls a spade a spade.

Um and so uh he pipes up and he is brave enough to to kind of push back, to kind of ask a question.

And so he asks it in verse 5.

John uh Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going.

How can we know the way?

The answer to the question, apart from John 3:16, is probably one of the most famous verses uh that perhaps you have ever heard.

John 3:16

Verse 6.

And it brings us right to the core of the message of Christianity.

Jesus says to him, verse 6, I am the way and the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

What Jesus is saying is to Thomas and to the disciples and to us this morning, he said, I'm not just gonna show you the directions, I'm not just gonna point out the kind of general way that you should go, Thomas.

He said, No, no, I am the way, I am the very means by which you come to the Father.

And if you've gotten to know me over these last three years, that we've spent time together, then you know the way because you know me.

I am how you get that eternally secure future.

I am the way back to the Father's house.

For the lost and the alone, he is the way.

For those in doubt and confusion, he is the truth.

Do you see the definite article?

It's not just our truth, he is the truth.

And for those in darkness and despair, he is the life.

We read in in John chapter 5 these amazing, mind-boggling words.

John 5 · chapter mention

John chapter 5, verse 24, that as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.

John 5:24

That is, that he is the one who gives you eternal life because he has it in himself to give.

He is the life.

We find our way home in Jesus.

And we only find our way home in Jesus.

The second part is as important to the answer as the first.

That Jesus is the only way home.

The only way back to that sure and certain future.

Some, of course, feel it arrogant to make a claim as exclusive as this.

It would be arrogant if it were based on us or on our wisdom or on our strength, but it is not.

To say nothing of the fact that the way is open to all who would come by Jesus.

No, I think rather it would be arrogant to think that there are multiple ways back to the Father.

It would be arrogant to think that there are multiple paths, that there are multiple uh aspects and accesses to the Father's house, that all roads lead to God.

No, that would be arrogant, that is not humble, because what you would be saying then is that God, in seeing the lostness of human beings and the depths of our sin, sent his son, the glory of heaven, to be a sacrifice on our behalf.

It would be saying that the cross wasn't necessary.

It would be saying, God missed something.

If only God in his wisdom had thought of this path that I have found.

Do you not think that if there had been another way that God in his infinite wisdom would have found it?

What arrogance to say, no, no, I will go by this path when God gave the most precious thing in order to open the way for us?

No, it is not humble to say that there are multiple ways.

Do you not think that if there was another way that God would have taken it?

What hubris to claim that we see a less costly way back into his heaven?

No, when Jesus says, I am the way, I am the only way back to the Father, it is not arrogance, it is pleading and bleeding love.

That's the first one.

The second advantage, and these two are much shorter.

The second advantage that he wants to soothe our troubled soul with is the belief that if he goes, that we will fully know God.

So second, believer, you know God, take heart, do not be troubled, you know God.

Jesus again uh encourages uh trust in his disciples.

The first uh sentence of verse seven uh is uh a rhetorical question.

Let's have a look at it.

If you had known me, verse seven, if you had known me, you would have known my father also.

That's not Jesus saying, you guys are so blind.

Like if you'd if you'd just kind of uh been better, worked harder, you would have figured out that I am the father.

No, no, no.

It's it's much more of a um a kind of it's a it's it's stated as a question, but it's Jesus saying, and yeah, you do know me.

And so you do know the Father.

They do know him.

What does he mean by the phrase uh then that comes in the second half?

Let's pick up the second half.

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

What does he mean by from now on?

Well, again, he's talking about his departure.

He's talking about the cross and the resurrection.

And as we noted last week, the death and resurrection of Jesus is the full and final disclosure of the character of God to the world.

It's like, I am going to fully, as much as your minds can take, show you what God is like.

From now on, once I go to the cross and to the and to the resurrection and ascend to my Father, I am showing you what God is like.

Jesus' final act of obedience is also the full revelation of the love and the holiness of God.

But again, there's some questions.

And this time Philip pipes up.

And Philip is he's trying to make sense of these things, and he's he's he's he's groping for something substantial.

Uh, he wants something concrete to try and kind of anchor his uh his troubled heart into, uh, and he's just like us, isn't he?

We're trying, we're trying to grasp on to something solid, and so he asks this question, verse 8.

Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it would be enough for us.

Oh.

Okay, then.

Uh show us the Father.

That is, uh, Jesus, if we could see God, we'd be okay with that.

And Jesus' answer points to the complete unity that there is between the Father and the Son.

Jesus says to him, He starts, you can't um can't help but kind of read this with a little bit of a sigh.

Verse 9, Jesus said to him, Have I been with you so long and you do not know me, Philip?

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say, Show us the Father?

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 of my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.

Believe me, that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or else believe on the accounts of the on the account of the work itself Jesus' answer points to that complete unity that there exists, that that thing that we can hover around the edges of, that glorious trinity, but it is comfort for troubled hearts.

Because Philip's question again comes from a place of trauma, from a place of grief, from a place of uncertainty.

And I'm sure many of us in this room have cried out in the darkness for God to show up, for him to show himself to us and to make sense of what is going on.

We ask those questions because the world so often seems confusing and chaotic and meaningless, and we're grasping like Philip for something solid, a word of reassurance, that there's some agency in the universe, some beating heart behind the apparent indifference.

And the answer, Jesus' answer, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, is that there is something solid, something secure to hang on to.

And that the resurrection of Jesus from the dead after his crucifixion is the answer to the universe, that there is no such thing as meaninglessness, that no suffering or trial is purposeless, that peace and hope and life and joy are possible.

You've seen me, you've seen the very face of God.

You remember if you were here right at the start of our series, we talk about, we talked about John's prologue, the very first chapter, where um where John says, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

It's picking up the idea of uh of Moses.

Moses is uh in the book of Exodus, he's leading the people out of uh out of Egypt, out of slavery, and they immediately turn and they worship idols, and they bow down to this golden calf that they've made, and Moses is just, he's so, he's so frustrated and broken and downcast and downhearted, and these guys are just they are doing my head in, right?

And and God's like, look, it's gonna be okay.

I've decided not to uh not to wipe them out.

And Moses, in this, in this uncertainty and in this fear, and in this just he's just weary and he's tired, he cries out to God and he says, God, show me your glory.

Let me see something of you that will spur me on in this journey through the desert.

And Moses only catches a glimpse of the tail end of the goodness of God.

But here Jesus says to Philip, if you've seen me, if you've looked at my face, the thing that Moses couldn't do, you've looked at the face of God.

If you've heard my voice, you've heard the voice of God.

The Israelites stood at the base of the mountain and they trembled and they said, We don't want to hear it anymore because it caused them too much fear.

But he's saying to Philip, You have seen God.

Folks, one of the things that we believe in City Church is that when the Bible is read, God's voice is heard.

You're hearing God's voice as the scriptures are heard.

You have that concrete revelation to cling on to and to help you through those times of troubled soulness.

If Jesus goes, he will fully reveal the Father.

Finally, verse three.

If Jesus goes, he will give you power for today.

That is the third thing to soothe and to calm the troubled soul, that he gives you power for today.

Now, we're beginning here, uh, and this is verses 12 to 14.

Uh, we are beginning here to hint at something that will dominate really the the rest of the chapters up until the end of chapter 16, and that is the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.

Uh, we're going to explicitly begin to name uh him and think about him uh next week and over the next few weeks.

And so I'm probably going to park a lot of this stuff into those.

So you have to come back, right?

Go to the connect table, get connected up, and come back.

We'll do more on the Holy Spirit.

So that's just a little kind of prelude.

But for now, the comfort that comforts the troubled heart is that Jesus is not going to a cold grave.

He's going to his father.

And when he goes to his father, he will empower his disciples.

And he'll empower his disciples to do what?

To do greater works.

Let's read verses 12 and 14.

Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.

And greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

That's the that's the key thing of understanding verse 12.

That whatever the greater works is, they are a result of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension.

Because I go to my father, I will enable you, believer, to do these greater works.

Now, the question that has been freaking me out all week is what are the greater works?

What does this mean?

We, I do not think, need to get into a discussion uh about miracles, about whether or not they happen uh today and to what extent.

I think that you can sit here this morning and you can believe that all of the miracles happen today.

That's fine.

If that's you, welcome.

Fill your boots.

I don't think that that's what's going on here.

Because they wouldn't be greater.

They would be the same as.

What is the greater aspect to the works?

Well, maybe it's greater in terms of quantity, and I think it be that this begins to kind of flirt with an answer.

Greater in terms of quantity, by which I mean that, well, Jesus never saw 3,000 people converted in one day in his earthly ministry.

Uh, but just a couple of months from now, on the day of Pentecost, that's exactly what the disciples then called apostles, just means the sent ones, that's what the apostles will see.

Peter will preach a sermon of repentance, and 3,000 people will come to know and love the Lord Jesus that day.

And that's certainly part of the answer.

But uh but what I think that Jesus is hinting at is something uh slightly deeper, maybe slightly more complex.

So let's let's see if I can put my finger on it on a way that is clear.

All ministry prior to Jesus' death and resurrection was a ministry of promise.

It was a ministry of anticipation of things that will happen.

John the Baptist was baptizing people in the wilderness as a baptism of repentance, preparing the way for the Messiah.

It was all anticipation.

The whole Old Testament was anticipation of promise fulfilled, of one day that God uh that God would forgive sin, that he would redeem his people, that he would pour out his spirit on all flesh.

But now, because Jesus has gone to the Father, the ministry that we have is greater, not because we're because we're not saying God will do this, God will save people, God will pour out his spirit, but God has done it.

He has saved his people, he has forgiven them of their sins, he has cleansed them from all unrighteousness, he has brought them home, he has shown them grace.

Forgiveness is possible.

Amen.

Amen.

Not one day, but this day.

That's the greater work.

The greater work is the salvation of the human soul.

And that greater work is not just for Jerusalem, as Jesus would say at the book of Acts.

It's not just for Jerusalem, it's for Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And its arms enfold us here this morning.

That is the greater work that God now has acted.

The day of salvation is today.

We do not look forward to the day when all of the types and shadows of the Old Testament will be.

Will be fulfilled.

It has already happened in the person and work of the Lord Jesus.

And so the the work of discipleship, the work of following Jesus, the work of people turning in in repentance and faith to Jesus and having their sin forgiven, that is the greater work.

There is no greater miracle.

Whatever you believe about miracles, there is no greater miracle than the dead heart coming back to life in Jesus.

And how is all of this possible?

It's all possible because Jesus walked the road of Calvary, that he became obedient unto death, that he descended to the grave and rose again to God's right hand.

Because of his obedience, because he didn't allow his own troubled soul to derail him from his mission, but left his disciples that night and went to that cruel cross.

That our future is secure in him, that the chaos of, that in the midst of the chaos of life we can know God.

And that through him we can see and be a part of the greatest works the world has ever seen.

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