TRUST ME
John 14:1-6 (NLT).
1 “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. 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?” 6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.
I come to today’s passage with fear and trembling. As a preacher of the Gospel, it is my responsibility to open the word of God and explain it. The most challenging texts of Scripture to properly preach are not the obscure texts buried in the lesser-read books of the Old Testament or the Book of Revelation. No, the hardest texts to preach are the ones that everybody knows – the ones they have read many times, memorized, and made into their life verses.
Such is the case with this text from the Gospel of John. Supposedly, everybody knows what its words imply. So, I have the unenviable task of coming to today’s text and explaining it. Some who hear or read my words will be offended by what I say because it will seem like I have insulted their long-cherished beliefs. Others will write me off as a fool, trying to explain away something that is all too obvious because of my false beliefs. Others will be just confused.
If we are not careful, we will read things not the way they really read but how we think they read. For example, the road sign that says, “WHAT I IF TOLD YOU—YOU READ THE TOP LINE WRONG.” Just a casual glance at the road sign, and we will read it, “WHAT IF I TOLD YOU.” We automatically make the sign say what we are used to seeing. A similar thing is happening to these first six verses of John 14.
So, to understand the meaning of today’s text, we have to try to get rid of the presuppositions. Those are the distractions that are already in our minds. We need to eliminate the presuppositions and attempt to read the words of Jesus as if we had never heard them before. That’s what I’m going to try in today’s message.
First, let’s look at what Jesus commands (1).
We have spent the better part of three years now looking at the commands of Jesus as they appear in the Gospels. Jesus gives two commands in verse 1, a negative and a positive command. The negative command is “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” This is not a general command. It relates to a particular context. To understand why Jesus tells his disciples not to let their hearts be troubled, we need to go back to the bombshell that he had just dropped, as recorded by John in the previous chapter. Jesus had revealed to his disciples that he was going somewhere that they could not come. He said, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow later” (John 13:36).
So, the experience that the disciples will have that potentially might trouble their hearts is the Master’s absence. Jesus is going away, and his followers will not be able to follow him there. They followed him throughout Galilee, Samaria, Perea, and Judea, but they would not be able to follow him when he returned to his Father.
Instead of letting their hearts be troubled by that reality, Jesus commands them to trust God and trust him. They may not understand why they will not be ascending to heaven when he does, but they do not need to understand that. All they need to do is trust God and trust Jesus. Many things have happened in our lives that we did not fully understand. Even years after they have happened, we are still confused by them. But if we are wise, we learn to trust God even in those things that we cannot understand. That is the kind of trust that Jesus is commanding in today’s text.
I warned you that today’s text has often been misunderstood and misread. In order to fully understand what is there, we need to carefully erase what people think is there but is not really there.
Let’s eliminate what Jesus does not promise (2-3).
Jesus speaks of room in his Father’s home. A long tradition of English translation has Jesus promising mansions. This can be traced back to Tyndale, who used the word “mansion” to translate the Greek word μονή here. Back in Tyndale’s time, the word mansion just meant a place to stay. That was an excellent word to translate μονή in Tyndale’s time. Unfortunately, in today’s English, a mansion means something different. It means a colossal gigantic residence that is expensive and impressive. That’s not what μονή means. It is related to the verb μένω, which means to stay or remain.
So, Jesus is assuring his disciples that there are many rooms in his Father’s house. But what does he mean by his Father’s house? This is another phrase people tend to misinterpret. The only other instance in John’s Gospel where Jesus mentioned his Father’s house was when he was cleansing the temple. He said, “Get these things out of here. Stop turning my Father’s house into a marketplace!” (John 2:16). John commented on that experience. He said that after seeing Jesus’ passionate tirade against those who abused the temple, the “disciples remembered this prophecy from the Scriptures: “Passion for God’s house will consume me.” The temple was God’s house because it represented God’s presence on earth. When Jesus assured his disciples that there was plenty of room in his Father’s house, he was not telling them that they would go to heaven. He was telling them that when God came back to earth, they would have a place in his kingdom.
Jesus could not have been promising the disciples heaven before his return, because this very text gives us the timetable for the promise’s fulfillment. Jesus says first that he is going to make a place ready. That’s step 1. What does the Bible say about heaven during step 1? It says, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven — the Son of Man” (John 3:13). That tells us that heaven is populated by a total of one human being: Jesus himself.
Then Jesus says he’s coming back again to take them to be where he is. That’s step 2. Step two (our uniting with Christ) does not begin until Jesus returns and sets up his kingdom on earth. Jesus’ promise during this stage is that he will take his disciples to be with him where he is. But where is he? When Jesus returns to earth he is not coming temporarily like he did last time. He is coming to take his permanent throne as king of kings and Lord of Lords. So, Jesus absolutely and categorically does not say what so many read into this passage. He does not say that believers go to heaven at death. He does not say it in this text, nor does he say it anywhere else.
What did Jesus say happens to people when they die? When his friend Lazarus died, he said, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep. But I am going there to awaken him” (John 11:13). Death is a period of unconsciousness that can only be compared to natural sleep. That state of unconsciousness will not change until Jesus wakes up the sleepers and causes them to rise from the dead. That does not happen when we die. It occurs at the return of Christ!
Finally, let’s focus on what Jesus does promise (2-6).
First as a student, then as a pastor, then as a soldier, then as a missionary, then as a student again, then a missionary again, then as a pastor again—I have lived all of my adult life in temporary places. I have to admit a bit of envy of those who own their own homes. I have problems relating to the idea of a permanent residence, but I understand the desire for a personal home.
The disciples of Jesus had been moving around with him, and they probably wondered if they were going to do that for the rest of their lives. Jesus promised them many μοναὶ. It would have been especially significant for these disciples at this time to know that although Jesus was leaving them when he returned, it would be to set up permanent digs.
When you remove all the extraneous elements of this passage, it reads like this: “Trust me…I will come again.” It’s not about mansions in heaven. It’s about Jesus coming again. It’s about his promise of permanent digs for us with the Father in Christ’s kingdom forever.
Jesus is promising access to a relationship with the Father starting now. He did promise to return to take them to be where he is, but that is not heaven either. When he returns, he will take his place as the rightful king on earth. When Jesus told his disciples that they knew the way, it was because they had come to know him. What they had not realized was that by coming to know Jesus, they had come to know the Father as well. Everyone who has put their trust in Christ already knows the way to the Father. Jesus is the way. Our destiny is sure not because we are going somewhere when we die. Our destiny is sure because we put our trust in Jesus.
Jesus came to his disciples that day, and he had some bad news and some good news. His bad news was that he was going away, and the disciples could not follow him. The good news was that his trip to heaven would not be permanent. He was going, but he was coming back. He had two missions on earth. He fulfilled his first mission by coming to earth to die on the cross as the Savior. Mission accomplished. He has another mission which has yet to be accomplished. He must reign over the earth supreme over all its rulers. He is coming again, not as a baby in a manger but as a warrior on a white horse, riding out to conquer. He will destroy all his enemies “because he is Lord of lords and King of kings” (Revelation 17:14).
The result of Jesus’ second mission is that he will make all things new. Then, the whole earth will once again be fit for the Father’s presence. When Jesus promised his disciples plenty of room in his Father’s house, he was predicting this great event. When all evil is destroyed, and there is no longer an enemy, even death will be destroyed. Then, we will have access to God’s presence for eternity.
jeffersonvann 