The Father's House

JOHN 14:1-3

INTRODUCTION

The Bible gives us many ways to think about Heaven.

All the descriptions of our Home in Glory are metaphors or images, I think, because it is impossible to describe such a glorious place.

Jesus spoke of a Banquet, where all the righteous would sit down in his kingdom with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and all the saints.

To the thief on the cross beside him, Jesus promised that today he would be with him in “Paradise.” Paradise is the translation of a word that means a beautiful pleasure garden.

John, in the Revelation wrote of a great throng of people and angels gathered around a throne waving palm branches and praising God.

John also tells us in his Revelation of the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, with gates of pearl and streets of gold and walls of precious gems.

But today I want to tell you about how Jesus described our heavenly destination as “The Father’s House.”

This is what Jesus said:

“Let not your hearts be troubled;

believe in God, believe also in me.

In my Father’s house are many dwelling places;

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 take you to myself,

so that where I am, there you may be also.”

Jesus says these words to his disciples because he is preparing to leave them.

The disciples he is talking to have left everything to follow him.

They have left their businesses and trades with the expectation that the Kingdom of God is soon to come. They have—as we say—“burned their bridges behind them.”

Jesus knows that what is about to happen will be a shocking experience and a great disappointment.

Their faith will be shattered.

So in this chapter we see Jesus preparing his disciples for his death.

As he says later, as recorded in v29 of this chapter: “And now I have told you this before it takes place, so that when it takes place, you may believe.”

I. Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me.”

A. “Let not your hearts be troubled.”

The word translated here “troubled” means to be stirred up, upset, terrified.

Jesus was no stranger to this emotion. In John 12:27 we heard Jesus say, “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father glorify thy name.”

And later in the garden, Jesus would say, “My soul is deeply grieved, even to death.”

B. Jesus says, “…Believe in God; believe also in me.”

Sometimes faith is hard.

If you have given all to Jesus. doubts will shake you. But you hang on. You decide to believe in spite of your doubts.

When difficult things happen, you may be distressed and wonder if you can keep your faith.

You keep your faith by living “as if” it were true. That sounds crazy, but that’s the best way I can say it.

You tell yourself, “I am going obey God and live for God, whatever the devil whispers into my ear to make me doubt.”

The test of faith is not what goes on in your mind but how you live.

When people say, “I believe in God,” they usually don’t think about what they are saying. They think they are merely expressing an opinion.

But to believe in God is serious business. It means you bet your life that God is real

It means that if there is no God—or if God is someone other than the one Jesus told us about—you are the big loser. You have lived your life for a lie.

II. Now we’ll talk about “The Father’s House.”

A. Jesus tells us that “In my Father’s house are many dwelling places.”

You are probably familiar with the old translation: “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”

Today a “mansion” is a big fancy house like Brucemore.

Four hundred  years ago when the King James Bible was translated, “mansion” simply meant a dwelling, any ordinary house.

When Jesus says that in his Father’s house are many “dwelling places” he is simply telling us that when we get to our Father’s “house”—that is, where God lives—there will be plenty of room for everyone.

Jesus is preparing a place for us. He’s getting everything ready for us to move in.

It’s going to be a wonderful place—wonderful beyond our imagining.

B. We will be with Jesus.

When the disciples saw Jesus die on the cross they thought they would never see him again.

But they did see him again. Three days later on Resurrection Sunday they saw him and talked with him and knew that he would never really be taken away from them again, but he would come again and take them to himself, so that where he is they would be also.

The promise Jesus gave to his disciples that day is also for us.

We have said good-bye to many loved ones who Jesus has taken to himself, and someday he will take us too.

It is a comforting thought, isn’t it?

CONCLUSION

I was drafted into the army in 1952, almost a year before the Korean War ended.

After basic training I was sent to Korea into the war.

I had never lived away from home or my mother and father and sisters and brothers for more than a few weeks at a time.

I missed my old friends and family. In Korea I walked guard for four hours every fourth night.

It was dark and lonely. I had a lot of time to think.

And the thing I thought about during those long dark nights was going home.

I used to imagine myself walking up the walk, up to the front porch, opening the door and being greeted by my family.

And the day I was discharged from the army and got on the train to come home from Camp Carson, Colorado, was the happiest day of my life.

But there’s another “home” I’m looking forward to now; that home that is my Father’s house.

It was good to get home from Korea. I got a welcome when I got home.

But that is nothing like the welcome I will get when I arrive at my Father’s house.

Jesus will be there.

Dear friends will be there who have arrived before me, and they will be glad to see me.

It will be a party.

And as the ages of eternity roll on the pleasures will increase: the pleasure of conversing with Jesus, the pleasure of my new resurrected body, the pleasure of the friendship of fellow believers, and the pleasure of worship with the angels.

I can only imagine what it will be like to “enter into the joy of the Lord.”

In an old book I read the saying of an old saint. He said, “Here drops of joy enter into us. There we will enter into joy.”

I have read that on the grave of a Christian named Atticus, buried somewhere in what is now modern Turkey. On the gravestone is carved this epitaph: “My soul dwells in goodness.”

We know nothing else about Atticus. Was he rich? or poor? prominent? or insignificant?

We don’t know. We only know the one thing that’s important. He loved Jesus.

And one who knew Atticus and knew his love for Jesus, wrote this testimony for him on the stone: “My soul dwells in goodness.”

Believe this. Think about it. Pray about it. Imagine it.

If you belong to Jesus, someday you will dwell in goodness.

Someday you will “enter into the joy of the Lord.”