After his holiday Graham is again preaching from John’s gospel. This is part 6 of a series on chapters 13 to 17. This week the text is John 14:1-4.
The sermon is available as a Podcast, downloadable PDF notes and the text of it is pasted in this post below.
Graham referred to a Government consultation on new equality law. The material referred to in the preaching is also included at the bottom of this post.
The material is made available so that any may use it, preach it or adapt it.
To download PDF of notes - DOWNLOAD
Sermon John 14:1-4
Intro
A question. Is the following referring to the future, or walking with God in this life?
Psalm 16:11
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
Answer? It is past, present and future.
“Let not your heart..” Whose? Peter’s in particular.
In his writing John is careful to record the singular (heart, not as in NIV Bible), contrary to normal Greek and Latin practice, but according to the Hebrew or Aramaic practice of the “distributive singular”. Jesus speaks to each individual.
“Troubled.”
The same word used in John 11:13
Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled.
And in John 12:27
“Now My soul is troubled, and what shall I say? ‘Father, save Me from this hour’? But for this purpose I came to this hour.
And in John 13:21
When Jesus had said these things, He was troubled in spirit, and testified and said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, one of you will betray Me.”
And in John 5:7
(A.V.) Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another steppeth down before me.
This is not addressed to the trouble-free!
What is his comfort? To look up and ahead! Jesus looks beyond the troubles the disciples will endure. He lifts their gaze to heaven and their place there.
Their comfort is not just to be in the understanding of his resurrection and the Lord’s Day celebration, but in that which is lasting, by believing.
1) Where is he going?
Home! Our Father is everywhere but he is somewhere in particular
See Psalm 139:8
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
God is in the wilderness, Gen 28:17 [After Jacob's dream at Bethel]
He was afraid and said, How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.
There is a place (or places) where his presence can be known, Psalm 84:10
Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.
There will be that special place above all others, Revelation 21:21-24
The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.
2) Where am I going?
“Dwelling place.”
Here we are strangers and pilgrims. My citizenship is not here.
See Philippians 3:19-21
But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Hebrews 11:10
For he looked for a city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.
3) Where exactly am I going?
Many rooms (or dwelling places).
Who will be there?
Luke 13:23,24
Someone asked him, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? He said to them, Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to.
He does not reply by saying how many but returns to his previous point in that passage, strive to be one who “enters in”
There is room (space) for all.
There is a room (just right) for all.
There is room (space) for all.
Revelation 7:9
After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.
There is a room (just right) for all.
“I go to prepare a place for you.” Go where? Two destinations, firstly to the cross, and secondly to his father’s house! This was the lesson to the two disciples met on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:26 “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
P.S.
He is the way, the only way. Soon we may have legal difficulties saying that in public.
While on holiday I received an email (contents below) from The Lawyers’ Christian Fellowship about Government consultation proposals to restrict freedom to witness to our faith. Consultation period ended Tuesday 4th September.
Government proposals would be the biggest ever shake-up to discrimination law.
Proposals would restrict freedom to preach and damage freedom of conscience in relation to other faiths, homosexuality and transsexuality. More below:
The Discrimination Law Review
The Government’s Discrimination Law Review (DLR) proposes the biggest ever shake-up to UK discrimination law. It proposes to take every single piece of existing legislation relating to discrimination on the grounds of sex, race, disability, religion or belief, sexual orientation and age, and put them all into a “Single Equality Act” which will be overseen and enforced by a new body called the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
In many ways it is good news that the Government are seeking to simplify and tidy up what has become very complex legislation. The aim of getting rid of unjustified discrimination is an admirable one - the Bible sets the standard for all legal codes outlawing discrimination: Jesus described the two greatest laws (commandments) as “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Jesus went on to explain that “your neighbour” is any other human: whatever their sex, race, religion or other characteristic. If everyone in society were to follow this teaching, there would be no unjustified discrimination.
The consultation is 190 pages long and is itself very complicated. It can be found at the link given below.
Although there are many positive proposals, there also elements of considerable concern to Christians who want to be able to speak freely about the Bible’s teaching.
The main concerns are:
The Government are proposing to make it illegal to harass someone on the grounds of their religion or belief. However, the definition of harassment is extremely broad, and substantially depends on the perception of the person who makes an allegation of harassment and not the intention of the person accused of harassment. So, a Christian that went to a largely Muslim area to hand out tracts which said that Islam was a false religion, could be sued if a particular Muslim felt that the tract had either ‘violated their dignity’ or put them in an ‘offensive environment’.
The Government have also brought back one of the most controversial proposals that they previously tried to bring in via the Sexual Orientation Regulations only a few months ago. They are proposing that it should be made illegal to harass someone on the grounds of their sexual orientation. Again, the problem is the really broad definition of harassment. This proposal would mean that although a Church is free under the SORs to gently refuse membership of the church to an unrepentant practising homosexual, that person, if they felt that they had been put in a ‘humiliating environment’ could sue the Church. Similarly, a homosexual could sue a church if they heard a sermon about sexual morality that included condemnation of homosexual practices.
The Government are also consulting on whether there should be a duty on public authorities to promote sexual orientation equality. This will mean that local authorities and other bodies will take active steps to ensure that all sorts of organisations do not discriminate based on homosexual practices. The danger is that this will be taken too far and will mean that Government funding is removed from Christian projects or that support is given to projects promoting homosexuality.
The Government are further consulting on whether there should be a duty on public authorities to promote religion or belief equality. There is a similar danger here that the sort of politically correct decisions (like local councils banning Christmas cards) that increasingly make the headlines, will be multiplied, with public funding being focused on promoting ‘minority’ religions like Islam and Hinduism.
Another part of the consultation paper seeks views on whether Churches should be able to treat people differently because they have had gender reassignment. If the Government subsequently decided not to allow churches to do so, then a church would not be able to object to a male member of the congregation, who had a sex change (taking on the appearance of a woman), from attending a women’s retreat weekend.
The Government are further proposing that the law should protect transsexual people from practices that require them to disclose the fact that their actual sex differs from their physical appearance. So, for example, the Government would allow a man that has had a sex change operation, to be able to keep it secret that he has had that operation.
These are just some of the main provisions of the DLR that are of concern to Christians.
The Discrimination Law Review consultation: http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/communities/frameworkforfairnessconsultation
