If you would, open your Bibles to John, chapter 13. John 13. We began our study in John the week after last Easter. So we're about a year in. I feel like we've been in John 13 for 2 months, but we will finish John 13 this evening.
Jeffrey Heine:John 13, we'll begin reading in verse 36. Simon Peter said to Him, Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I am going, you cannot follow Me now, but you will follow afterward. Peter said to Him, Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow till you have denied me 3 times. Let not not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.
Jeffrey Heine:In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would 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.
Jeffrey Heine:How can we know the way? This is the word of the Lord. Pray with me. Our Father, we ask right now through Your Spirit, You would open up these words to us, that they would affect real change. We need to hear from You.
Jeffrey Heine:Lord, I pray that hearts would be ignited, minds would be open. Lord, You would unleash our hands and our feet to go and serve. You would give us a courage and a boldness in the way we proclaim our faith. Lord, in order for that to happen, people need to hear from you and not me. So I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:But Lord, may Your words remain, and may they change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Before we look at these these hopeful, joyful words, Jesus says in verse chapter 14, we we first need to look at this despairing situation that we find at the end of chapter 13. Peter asked Jesus where he is going, and Jesus says, well, where I'm going, you cannot follow.
Jeffrey Heine:And as usual, Peter feels the need to correct Jesus. Well, no, Jesus. You're mistaken. I can follow you anywhere. Even even if I have to die for you, I will I will follow you.
Jeffrey Heine:In the other gospels, Peter says, Lord, even if everybody else were to deny you, I would not do it. I mean, he essentially throws all of his friends under the bus and says, like, looking at them, I know that they might, but I'm different. I'm different and I will not deny you. It's in moments like this, and I'm so glad that Peter is in the bible. I I I relate to Peter so much.
Jeffrey Heine:How many of you have ever found yourself doing something that you said you would never do? You're convinced, I will never do this. Since my wife's here, I'll I'll just say one of the things that my wife has said. She's looking at me like, Lauren once said she would never drive a minivan, and the Honda Odyssey out there is hers. She even made a pinky promise with her sister that she would never do it.
Jeffrey Heine:How many of you who are parents said, if I have a baby, I'm not gonna be like all those other parents who are constantly taking pictures and putting it on Facebook of my child. And then you find yourself doing it over and over. Or if you're a dad, and you said, you're never gonna be like one of those other dads that tries to live relive their childhood through the way their kids play sports. And every kick, you're actually kicking it with your child. I once, almost 20 years ago, told Lauren, I don't know where we will live.
Jeffrey Heine:I just know it will never be in Birmingham. We we we've all done this, and and the funny thing is we think we will never do it again. We're like, well, I'm never gonna do that again, and then we find ourselves doing it over and over again. Peter makes 2 huge mistakes here. He even after he has followed Jesus around now for 3 years, he still does not understand who Jesus is, and he has no idea idea who He is.
Jeffrey Heine:He doesn't know what he's capable of. Peter looks at himself in the mirror, and he thinks, I'm the strong one. And he looks at his friends, and he goes, I'm the strong one of all of these. I am so much stronger than them. He thinks, I can be the one who resists temptation.
Jeffrey Heine:I can be the one who lays down my life for Jesus. Essentially, he's telling Jesus, I'm the one who could be the savior here. This could be me. Jesus has to remind Peter just who will be doing the laying down of their life. It's not Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:He says, Peter, not only will you not lay down your life for me, you will deny me 3 times. Before the morning light breaks, you will deny me 3 times. Listen, all of us have somewhere in our mind this idealized view of our self that can do just about anything. I I call it the super you. We all have this this super you that we we pull out from time to time, and this this super you is convinced that we can finally, we can finally, even though we have failed a 1000 times, this time we're gonna get it right.
Jeffrey Heine:This time, I'm gonna bow up. I'm gonna make myself strong enough, and I'm gonna get it right this time. And you pull out the old super you to do it. But I love this story here, because Jesus reminds us that no matter how strong we think we are, we cannot save ourselves. This is Peter the rock in which we're talking about.
Jeffrey Heine:Peter in which the entire church is going to be built, and he is gonna deny Jesus 3 times. He will fail in a dramatic fashion. Even though we see this, though, we keep thinking, yeah, yeah, but but, yeah, and yeah, I know I've struggled with anger, and I'm always getting angry so quick, but this time, you know, we kinda, you know, super you, da da da da, this time, I'm gonna beat this. Yeah, I struggle with lust, But not this time. This time, I'm gonna be stronger than that.
Jeffrey Heine:And I'm just gonna kind of just gonna grit through this and I'm gonna change myself. Or if you find yourself coveting or envying people over and over again, you decide I need to change. And so this time, you know, once again, super you is gonna come through. I'm gonna change, but then you realize you can't change. Over and over again, you fail.
Jeffrey Heine:We cannot change ourselves. Peter shows us that the very best we have to offer, the most resolve that we can give in a situation will fail. We need Jesus. We need a Savior. There's a lot more that could be said here, but I want us to move to chapter 14, so let me just say one more thing.
Jeffrey Heine:It's concerning Judas. We've looked a lot at Judas over the last few weeks, and we we all know Judas. He's out there betraying Jesus now. But if you did not know that it was Judas, if you were just reading the gospel stories for the first time and you didn't get the parenthetical notes that we get sometimes whenever it talks about Judas. Judas, the one who will betray Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:You know, if you didn't have those parenthetical notes, and you didn't know the end of the story, and you're just reading through the gospels for the very first time, when we get to this part, do you know who you would think would ultimately betray Jesus? It's not Judas, it's Peter. You would think that Peter would be the one yes, he jumped out and he walked the water, but then he he immediately began sinking. Remember the time that Peter tried to correct Jesus again? When Jesus said he had to go to the cross, and Peter said, no, let me correct you.
Jeffrey Heine:Your theology is wrong. You're not going to the cross, Jesus. And remember what Jesus said to Peter? Get behind me, Satan. It's a pretty big hint, don't you think?
Jeffrey Heine:As to who might betray Him. Get behind me, Satan. You don't want the things that are for God. And then right here, he just says, you're gonna deny me 3 times before it's even morning. And so if you're just reading through the gospel stories and you have no clue who's gonna betray Jesus, you're convinced at this point it's actually going to be Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:You wanna you wanna know what the difference is between Peter and Judas? The difference we see in scripture between Judas and Peter. You find it in Luke's version of the story, in which Jesus tells Peter, Simon, Simon. He doesn't call him Petros, a rock here. He says, Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to have you and to sift you like wheat.
Jeffrey Heine:But I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers. This is horrific imagery. Can you imagine Satan out there demanding to sift you like wheat? This is what Jesus tells Peter.
Jeffrey Heine:He goes, Satan has demanded to sift you, and you know what? I'm gonna let him. I'm gonna let him. But Peter, I have prayed for you that your faith may not falter, and I have prayed that you would be restored. That's the difference between Peter and Judas.
Jeffrey Heine:Peter had an intercessor. Peter had Jesus pleading on his behalf, saying, Yes, this person is gonna be tempted. Yes, this person's gonna fall, but God, don't let him fall all the way. Preserve his faith. Do you wanna know why why we don't fall completely?
Jeffrey Heine:It's because we have an intercede on our behalf. Jesus is our only hope. Our hope is not that we could somehow put on a super you and we could somehow save ourselves. Our only hope is that Jesus intercedes on our behalf. We just say that Kinda makes me wanna pray.
Jeffrey Heine:Let's pray. I wanna pray. Jesus, thank you. Thank you. You are our only hope.
Jeffrey Heine:Thank you for interceding on our behalf. Thank you for saying, may our faith not falter. If you were not praying that, we would most certainly fall away. Praise you, Jesus. Amen.
Jeffrey Heine:Sermon is not over. I know it's spring break, but you are not getting out early. Let's go to chapter 14. Sometimes you just gotta pray during a message. Chapter 14 begins with Jesus saying, let not your hearts be troubled.
Jeffrey Heine:Make no mistake, their hearts are troubled when we get to this part. I mean, the chapter begins with these disciples in deep despair. Judas is left to go betray Jesus. Jesus has just said, even though I've been with you for 3 years now, I am now leaving you and you won't be able to find me. And then He tells Peter, their leader, their rock, and you are going to deny you even know me.
Jeffrey Heine:So this is their entire world crumbling. We're talking catastrophic failures happening here. The the the rug's been ripped out from underneath them. So yes, they are troubled. And Jesus says, let not your hearts be troubled.
Jeffrey Heine:I mean, how are they supposed to not be troubled by this? The Titanic is sinking, water is rising, and Jesus is like, it's okay. Don't be troubled. How does Jesus put to ease our hearts when the rug's been pulled out from us? If you lose a job and you can't pay for the mortgage, how can your heart not be troubled?
Jeffrey Heine:If you feel stuck in a marriage that by everybody's account is a disaster, how can your heart not be troubled? Darkness that has come on you that you, for years, cannot shake. How can Jesus tell you, let not your heart be troubled and your heart not be troubled? His comforting words come in verse 1. Let not your hearts be troubled.
Jeffrey Heine:Believe in God, believe also in Me. It almost seems trite right here. I mean, all this stuff's falling apart, and the big answer is, hey, trust God. I mean, how many times have you heard that? What you need to do is just trust God.
Jeffrey Heine:But but then Jesus adds this, believe in God, believe also in me. Now everybody here can tell other people to trust God. But if you tell people to also trust in you, then you're psychotic. I can't tell people to trust in me because I have failed a 1000 times. This is something that only the son of God can do.
Jeffrey Heine:Just as you are trusting God, trust in me because I am his son. I have his character. I have his power. I have his compassion. I have his love.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus is telling this to a group of people who who know they can't trust people outside of the group, but now have just learned they can't trust themselves. Judas is gone. Their rock is gonna fall. They can't trust those without, they can't trust those within. Who do they trust?
Jeffrey Heine:And Jesus says, trust me. Build your life on me. And then he tells them what they should trust. They should trust that He is going to prepare a home for them. Look at verse 2.
Jeffrey Heine: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? So these men are about to go and suffer in a way that we cannot imagine. They are going to be mocked, beaten, imprisoned, tortured. 11 of these 12 disciples are going to be killed.
Jeffrey Heine:The one who isn't killed, John, who wrote this gospel, he's gonna be sent in exile to an island for the rest of his life. And knowing that all of these horrific things are about to come upon them, Jesus says, let me give you this one thing that can sustain you. As as your worlds are about to just implode, let me give you this one encouraging word for you to hold on to and it's this, I am preparing a home for you. I am preparing a home for you. I'm preparing a home.
Jeffrey Heine:And when Jesus says these words, it goes to their heart. Just like it goes to all of our hearts because every person here has a longing for a home. It's part of being human. It's part of our nature that we long to be part of a place. Home is the ultimate comfort.
Jeffrey Heine:Homelessness is the ultimate punishment. When Adam and Eve sinned, when they disobeyed God, God punished them by kicking them out of their home. They became homeless. And for the rest of their life, they they just wanted to get back. They wanted to get back into the garden, and we have inherited that.
Jeffrey Heine:We have that same homesickness. We wanna get back in. We all long for that home. Did you know that I read this recently that foreign born Americans will spend over $1,000,000,000 this year traveling back to the place of their birth. Of all the places they could vacation, of all the places they could go, they want to go back to their origin to which they see it as home.
Jeffrey Heine:We're we're we're drawn to home. You're gonna read numerous psychological studies that all show that children who have never experienced a home, never experienced a family or a place of belonging, are going to suffer an emotional detachment from others. I read this in one of the journals. It said that they will grow up with a fundamental incapacity for attachment. This is why the ministry that we partner with, Not Forgotten in Peru, it's one of the reasons we we build orphanages there, but not just some mass building, you know, where there's a cafeteria and all the kids are together.
Jeffrey Heine:It's it's actually a lot easier to build something like that, to pay for something like that, but instead, we do little homes in which only a few kids can live, and we give them house parents because this idea of home and family is necessary. It's part of what makes us human. We all want a place where we belong. Our house where Lauren and I live, it's over 100 years old. It's older than this building here, shows its age.
Jeffrey Heine:A number of years ago, a stranger stopped by and walked up the steps and said, Hey, I grew up in this house. I was a kid in this house, and do you mind? I just kinda wanted to look around. We asked him a few questions first before we let him just in the door. He seemed legit, so he came in, he looked around for a bit, and they said, You know who would really love to come here?
Jeffrey Heine:Can I get my dad to come here? I mean, my dad, he loved this house, and he would love to walk through it again, and so we said, sure. That'd be fine if if you wanted to do that. Didn't think much of more of the conversation. A few weeks later, I'm coming home from work and I noticed outside of our house there were a couple of strange cars and 3 vans, 3 really large vans, which was a little unusual.
Jeffrey Heine:And so I'm walking up the steps to our house and some kids just burst through the door and run out, kids I have never seen before. I go inside and our house is packed full of people. They're laughing, they're eating, they're telling stories, and I'm just looking like, what in the who are these people? And then somebody came up to me, and they were holding part of an old window seat we used to have. We used to have it in the kitchen.
Jeffrey Heine:I moved it down and just put it in the basement because I was I was building something else there, and they came up with part of this window seat and just go, can I have this? And I was like, no, no. No, you can't have this, and I'm looking around. I see Lauren serving food to people, and so I talked to Lauren and I just said, who the heck are these people? It's that guy.
Jeffrey Heine:He brought his dad. Actually, they decided to have a family reunion here. They just didn't tell us, so they're actually having their family reunion at our house, and somehow, without telling us, and we end up serving them food, the the day ended with everybody giving me a camera, their camera, and me taking pictures of everybody on our front porch. It was just one of those crazy things, and I'm thinking, they could have a family reunion anywhere. Anywhere.
Jeffrey Heine:Why did they want it there? Because this place felt like home to them. At some point, they all remembered going to this house. They all remembered just kind of being there, and it was this very special place. And sure enough, as I got to talk with more people after the initial anger left, and I was just talking with some people, they they would wanna show me around, and they would take me into the room, and they would say, this is this is where dad's chair was, and and he used it was right here, and they used to have 2 TVs set up right here, and he would watch.
Jeffrey Heine:And you know, granddaddy lived with us, and you know, you'll turn that into a laundry room now, but that actually used to be his room right there, and they loved walking around and just telling us what the place was like because it was home. We all feel this attachment to a home. I grew up in 1453 Womack Road, Dunwoody, Georgia. That was the address. If if I close my eyes, I can still be there.
Jeffrey Heine:I I can picture the, the orange carpet that was in the basement where I used to play. We had the green carpet that was was in the den. We had the the wood paneled walls that were there. I can I can hear my mom's feet clicking as I walk across the linoleum floor in the kitchen? I can hear the squeak, just this small little squeak that the chest of drawers would make early in the morning when my dad would open them up to get dressed.
Jeffrey Heine:I can remember all of these things, I can't remember what happened last week, I can't, but I can remember this as a child, because it was home. It became part of my identity. Jesus says that he goes to prepare for us a home. Do you know what a home is? Home is the place where you belong.
Jeffrey Heine:It's the place where you were always accepted, the place where you were known and loved. It's the place in which all of the sights, all of the sounds, all of the smells are familiar to you, and they make sense to you. You understand it. Home is where you have that chair, your chair. Everybody knows it's your chair.
Jeffrey Heine:It's where you get to sit and be comfortable. Home is where you were expected. Nobody is surprised to find you at home. It's where you were supposed to be. You're expected to be there.
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus said that He's going to prepare a place for us like that, although it's much, much greater. The home that Jesus is preparing for us is the reality. The home that we grew up in is just a shadow. The home he's preparing is the substance. He's preparing for us the real place where we belong, a place where we are completely accepted, completely known, completely loved.
Jeffrey Heine:It's a real place. We're not some disembodied spirit just floating around for all of eternity. It's a real tangible space for us. It's gonna be a place where all of the the sights, all of the sounds, and all of the smells are gonna make sense to us. And can I just say, as I was thinking through this, that if this world, as beautiful as it is with all of its its colors and its its canyons, its oceans, its mountains, its flowers, and all of its beauty, if God created this world to be home to it to His enemies, can you imagine what awaits His children?
Jeffrey Heine:There are a lot of images that the Bible uses to describe heaven. Sometimes, Heaven is described as paradise, which talks of its beauty. Sometimes, Heaven is described as a city, which I think implies it's communal living. Sometimes Heaven is described as a kingdom, which means there's a ruler, there's a king. Sometimes Heaven is described as a country which talks of its vastness, but here, we see it described as a home, a home, which means it's simply the place our hearts long to be.
Jeffrey Heine:Now what makes Heaven, Heaven is not the glassy seas, it's not the pearly gates. I'll confess, if that imagery is real and not figurative, I'm gonna be disappointed because I could care less about glassy seas or pearly gates. But what makes Heaven, Heaven is the presence of Jesus. Look at verse 34. 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.
Jeffrey Heine:And when Jesus said this, I can imagine that the hairs on the back of the disciples' neck kinda stood up. I can see that they probably got chill bumps. And the reason is that Jesus is using here some incredible language. He's using the language of a wedding. In in the 1st century, when a couple got engaged, they were legally bound together, so much so that if they wanted to break apart, they would have to get a divorce.
Jeffrey Heine:You see this in the Christmas story when Joseph was gonna divorce Mary, even though they were just engaged. This was a legally binding agreement, and once they were engaged, the man would leave his fiancee and he would go off to his father's house in which he would add on a room for he and his fiance to live when they got married. He wouldn't build a whole new house. He would just attach a room to his father's existing house, and this would take some time. Those of you who are married and you know your husband's got some kind of construction project going on, it could take a week to, like, hang a curtain rod.
Jeffrey Heine:All right? So building a house is gonna take time. So this groom is gonna be off for weeks, if not months, putting this thing together, and the bride's not sure when he's gonna come back, not sure when he's gonna return, but when he does return, it is an incredible celebration. And the wedding begins. And often, if that home is close by, there would be a great processional leading this couple back to their house.
Jeffrey Heine:This is the comfort that Jesus gives these men. He says, listen. You are my betrothed. You're the love of my life. Yes, I'm leaving you, but it's just so I could get the room ready.
Jeffrey Heine:It's just so I can make sure it's all ready, and then I will come back, and I will take you to myself, and we will begin a new life together. For those of you who are married, do you remember when he got engaged? And that incredible excitement of, you're at the cusp of a new life that's about to begin, a new life with this other person. That's what Jesus is saying, that that's where we're at. You're at the cusp.
Jeffrey Heine:You're about to begin this new life together. All I have to do is go and prepare the place. This is incredibly intimate language here. I feel like the pulse was probably quickening as the disciples were hearing this, and Jesus, He doesn't give us many details as to what this house is going to look like. This was before HGTV and, you know, everybody had to know the details or before Pinterest or Martha Stewart Magazine or something like that, in which we we wanna know, visualize, what does this house look like?
Jeffrey Heine:Jesus says, let me give you the one detail that matters. I'm there. I'm there. Heaven is where Jesus is. I don't know what your view of Heaven is.
Jeffrey Heine:I don't care how glorious it is. If Jesus is not central to it, it is not Heaven. Even if it's the most glorious picture you can imagine, if Jesus isn't central, the biblical word for that is hell, not heaven. Heaven is where Jesus is, and we will live forever in His presence. Now were these 12 men comforted by these words?
Jeffrey Heine:You bet. These men would later have their homes seized. Their homes seized in this world. They'd be plundered. And when it happened, they would take that joyfully because they knew they had a better home awaiting them.
Jeffrey Heine:They could be thrown to the lions, burned at the stake, crucified, and they took that all on with joy because they knew they had a home waiting for them. Why was the Apostle Paul unstoppable? Why why could nothing faze him? We find out in 2nd Corinthians is because the he had this vision, whether it was in the body or out of the body, he doesn't know, but he was taken up to see things that he cannot see and hear things he cannot even utter. He was shown his home.
Jeffrey Heine:This is what awaits him. And when when that so captured his mind, Paul was unstoppable. What can man do to me? Because that awaits me. Listen, every human has a desire for a home, and there is no home here, no matter how great it is, that can ever satisfy that desire.
Jeffrey Heine:Your heart has the echo of Eden in it. What you're ultimately longing for is to be with Jesus. If you want to be free from worry, if you want your hearts not to be troubled, then believe in God, and believe in Jesus, and believe He has gone to prepare for you a home. Pray with me. Once again, Father, the message is so simple.
Jeffrey Heine:Believe in God, and believe in Jesus. Believe He's preparing a place for us. So simple, yet we are incapable of changing our hearts to believe it. So through your Spirit, now make these truths a reality in us. Thank You, Jesus, for through the cross and through Your Resurrection, You have prepared for us a home.
Jeffrey Heine:We pray this in your name. Amen.