Heaven Guaranteed

If Jesus Christ is infinite God, if He's totally trustworthy and reliable and if He lives forever, which He does, and if He's promised to come and take us to live with Him, then our future is according to His own words forever and forever and forever. It is guaranteed permanently. Whether you are weak or strong in Christ this morning, whether you are mature or immature in Christ as His disciple, whether your faith is large or little, whether you have been a Christian for decades or just last week you came to faith in Christ, you are guaranteed a place in heaven.

How many things can you think of that come with an absolute lifetime guarantee? What would you say if someone offered you an eternal guarantee? Well, that's exactly what God offers you and Stephen Davey is going to teach us more about this today. This is Wisdom for the Heart. With this broadcast, Stephen begins a series entitled, Healing for Troubled Hearts.

This first lesson is called, Heaven Guaranteed. Our age has been called the age of anxiety. The cray of society is probably best summed up by John Margolis of the Chicago Tribune who once penned these words tongue in cheek. He said, I have seen the future and it doesn't work. Even Charlie Brown got into the foray with that little cartoon. He announced one day to his little friends, he said, I have a new philosophy in life.

I will now begin dreading only one day at a time. Well, in our last discussion, we left the disciples in that upper room where they were in the process of becoming extremely troubled. They had seen the future. They had heard it from the lips of their savior and it was not working like they thought it was supposed to. For the sake of review, we need to understand why they were so troubled before we dive into John chapter 14. So if you have your notes, this may be helpful, especially if you weren't with us last Lord's Day. The disciples were troubled.

They were anxious for a number of reasons. First of all, because Jesus had just announced that one of them would be a traitor. All of the gospel accounts give us the record that all of the disciples responded by saying, Lord, is it I? Lord, is it I?

Is it I? Lord, is it really me except Judas the scariot? For Matthew records that Judas looked at the savior in the eye and he said, Lord, surely it is not I. The second reason the disciples would be troubled is that Jesus had just warned Peter that he would deny him three times. Now we'll look at it closer later, but for now look at what John records for us in chapter 13 verse 37.

Remember this conversation taking place. Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you right now? I will lay down my life for you. Jesus answered, will you lay down your life for me?

Truly, truly I say to you, the cock shall not crow until you deny me three times. Just as Peter is beginning to talk like a hero, Jesus announces that he will become a casualty by means of fear. And this in and of itself would strike fear to the other disciples as they heard this news.

Peter would abandon ship. I read this past week of the Potomac Light Infantry that was supposed to fight the early outset of the Civil War. But as the skirmishes broke out, this band of men by unanimous vote decided to go AWOL. And there on the banks of some river, historians record for us that one man proposed a toast that has sort of become famous. The toast is the Potomac Light Infantry, invincible in peacetime, invisible in wartime. Peter, you talk a good talk, and you're talking tough. But when the war breaks out, you will be invisible. Now, I'm sure that his prediction of Peter's denial not only shocked Peter, but the other men.

Why? Because Peter had been the one most likely to succeed. He was the only one willing to risk death by walking on the water.

You remember, no one else climbed out after him. He would become one of Christ's closest confidants and friends. Peter is the bold one.

He's the courageous one. If he is going to abandon Jesus, then what will the rest of us do? Their hearts are troubled by the thought. The room is filled with deniers then, and the betrayer is among them.

A foreboding moment. The third reason, I think, by far the most devastating factor that would rip the disciples' heart apart was the message that Jesus was going to leave them. Look at verse 33, little children, I am with you a little while longer. You shall seek me. And as I said to the Jews, now say I to you also, where I am going, you cannot come. You remember our last discussion, Jesus used that word technia to refer to his little sweet little babies, his little children, the only time he used the term in reference to his disciples.

Why? Because he was about to give them a message that would be terrifying to the heart of any child, and that is, I'm going to leave you alone, and you can't go where I'm going. And it indeed would strike fear into their hearts. That's why he talks so tenderly for them, because at this moment, in their little hearts as little children, there is this creation of confusion and fear, just as it would be in the life of a little child. He's telling them he's going to leave them, and they are immediately filled with questions.

Questions that ripple through the next several verses, question, answer, question, answer, question, answer, just like a child. This past week, Marcia and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. We're a little late, but we took a trip to Wilmington, where they got this wheel-driven ferry boat, like the old-fashioned is.

The only place in North Carolina, so the commercial says, where there's a wheel-driven boat like this. And when I dated her in college, I took her on a dinner like that, and she never forgot it. And I thought, well, I'm going to score some points here, and I'm going to take her on a dinner cruise. And so we went, and of course, we had to leave at about 12 o'clock in the afternoon, and we wouldn't be back until midnight.

And so we had two stages of babysitters lined up, one for the afternoon shift, and then one for the evening shift. And we were explaining this to our little kids, and my little six-year-old daughter immediately began asking kinds of questions, I've shared with you in the past, that's the way she's wired. But anyhow, she starts asking question after question. The one that stuck with us, and we kind of chuckled all the way to Wilmington was the question, now, Mommy, what happens if the boat shrinks?

We're not sure what would be worse, for the boat to sink or for the boat to shrink, but that was, in her little mind, a concern. Well, look again at verse 36, Lord, previous chapter, chapter 13, where are you going? Verse 37, Peter said to him, Lord, why can't I follow you right now? Skip to chapter 14, verse 5, Thomas chimes in with the question, Lord, we do not know where you're going, how do we know the way? Verse 8 is really the form of a request, Lord, will you show us the Father, and it will be sufficient. Skip to verse 22, Judas, not ascariot, said to him, Lord, what then has happened that you're going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world?

Question, question, question. And John chapter 14 is nothing more than a series of answers to their childlike questions. You're going to leave us alone?

What do we do now? And they have troubled hearts. What else can explain the first phrase of chapter 14, where Jesus says, let not your heart be troubled. You see, we can read our way glibly through the New Testament, and we can sort of say to ourselves and to them, big deal, Peter, don't worry about it. Matthew, don't sweat it. We know the ending.

It's all going to work out wonderfully. Well, if we do that, when it comes to interpreting and applying the scriptures, we are imposing on our minds a blindness in our hearts. Unless we are willing for the moment to crawl back into this upper room, and as one professor used to pound into us, see what they saw, feel what they felt, smell what they smelled, wear what they wore, you get back in there to try to discover why. Because unless you and I really understand the problem, we will not appreciate the solutions.

And chapter 14 is nothing but a series of solutions. And the first statement is very powerful. Now, as we traveled to Wilmington, you know how it's been storming, and we were with another couple that we were doubling, the other fellow wanted to make some points too, so I said he'd go along with us. So anyhow, we're traveling to Wilmington, and we could see up ahead these billowing black clouds, and we were driving right for it. And it was quite a display of power as the lightning just shattered the darkness repeatedly. And we drove into that, and sure enough, finally arrived, and torrential rain began sweeping us in sheets, and the wind kind of pushed our van from one side of the lane to the other.

And I even had to slow down to 65 just to be safe, I mean 55. But when we arrived in Wilmington, the weather was absolutely beautiful. Just what we had wanted. And we could appreciate it.

Why? Because we'd just driven through this very terrific storm. The point is, ladies and gentlemen, unless we understand the storm, we don't appreciate the solution.

And they were in the midst, in this upper room right now, filled with terrifying storm-like feelings. So let's go to John chapter 14 with that in mind, and verse 1, as Jesus says, let not your heart be troubled. Now you could translate this phrase with the word stop. Stop letting your hearts be troubled. The word trouble, terassa, means to be distressed. It means to be filled with anguish and fear.

It's a troubling term. Now Jesus says, stop being troubled. You don't tell a child to stop crying right now unless you give them a good reason to stop, and that's exactly what the Lord will do. In fact, get your pen out, because I want you to write into your text two exclamation points. It's in the phrase there in verse 1. He says, let not your heart be troubled. Now here's the first imperative in the original language. Believe in God, exclamation point. Believe also in me, exclamation point.

You could very woodenly translate this verse, stop letting your hearts be troubled. Keep on believing in God, exclamation point. Keep on believing in me, exclamation point. Now remember, this continual believing here has nothing to do with salvation. Keep on believing and you might make it to heaven. Don't waver.

Oh no, absolutely not. This believing has nothing to do with making it to the shores of heaven. It has everything to do with making it through the storms of life. Keep on trusting in me.

Why? Because you can see the billowing black clouds and you can see the fireworks of lightning. Now Jesus is suggesting here something interesting. Believe in God, exclamation point, as if to assume that's easy. He says then keep on believing in me. Now he had taught them that he was God incarnate, but he's reminding them in an interesting way I believe this way. Keep on believing in God and you have never laid your eyes on him. And keep on believing in me, God in the flesh, because what you will see is going to trouble you even more. For you will see God drugged through the streets brought before a mock jury, flogged, beaten, abused, jeered, and ultimately nailed on a cross. Keep believing God you've never seen and keep believing in me even though what you do see is unbelievably confusing.

Exclamation point. Jesus says stop agonizing in your hearts verse 1 and the first principle is this, I am completely trustworthy. Now the next few verses have been considered through the ages to be the most comforting words in all of the Bible.

Why is that? Because we're all little children and we all struggle with hurting hearts, troubled hearts, interrupted by brief periods of calmness. It may be the trouble of some terminal illness or some doctor's report you haven't yet heard. It might be the trouble that comes from the loss of family members. It might be the trouble that comes from a marriage on the rocks. It might be trouble that comes from a child that's away from God or a parent who's never placed their faith in Christ. It may be the trouble of finance, worries over debt, and the mounting pile of bills. There may be this troubling in your heart related to a hundred thousand things. We do not know what the future holds do we? We don't know what tomorrow holds do we? On 64 East as I travel home to Virginia, to my parents' home, and we did recently, we pass through this little community that's made up of little homes and old cars and we have to make our way through that on 64 East headed for the coast of Virginia.

And I've been doing that now with my family for almost eight years now as we travel home from Cary. And I was first drawn to this little shanty by a crude wooden sign with hand-painted letters that Sister Maria could read your palm. She could read the stars. She could tell you your future. I noticed as we recently drove through that little community again, now on that same lot, is this large palatial brick home with beveled glass doors, a driveway filled with new automobiles, and now a professionally designed sign declaring the success, so to speak, of a woman who has tapped into the resource of troubled hearts who want to know the future, who want to guarantee. You know, I've read that New York telephone alone handles just over one million calls a month on its horoscope line. The truth is every human heart craves an answer.

The only difference is where people look, isn't it? And for the one who's going to look here with me this morning, one of the wonderful things about John 14 is it tells us our future. Here's the real story. Now John 14 verse 1 begins this chapter of answers with this one premise, this basic underlying principle, and that is Jesus Christ is completely trustworthy. If you believe that, the rest of the chapter falls into line. Here's the second principle that can bring healing like nothing else. Number two, not only is Christ completely trustworthy, but our future home in heaven is a promised reality. It's not pie in the sky. It's not a crutch. It's not a cop-out for those of you that really need some help when you look at the future.

This is reality. Just as Jesus Christ is completely trustworthy, so the home in heaven with Him is as well. I always enjoy reading poll results, and a Gallup poll recently revealed that more Americans than ever believe in heaven or something like it. 78% of those polled, and 88% of those polled felt like they had a good to excellent chance of getting in. You talk to people about heaven and you'll get a variety of impressions. Listen to what a little group of children from Ohio wrote. They were asked what they thought heaven was like.

Little Eric said this, it's a place where there's a lot of money lying around and you just pick it up and you buy lots of stuff. Scott said, heaven is up in the sky and you can look down at circuses for free if you want to. Except you have to ask God for permission first. One little girl wrote, heaven will be the happiest part of my dead life.

Tommy kind of blurted out his feelings. I didn't really appreciate this, but here's a kid who lives in Ohio. He said, I know what heaven is, but I don't want to go up there. I want to go down to North Carolina instead. I thought it was heaven or hell. This kid thinks it's heaven or North Carolina. David said, heaven is kind of big and you sit around playing harps.

I don't know how to play a harp, but I suppose I'll have to take some dumb harp lessons pretty soon. Well, some honest kids out there. There are a lot of misconceptions about heaven and we can't clear them all up, but I think two misconceptions from verse two have to be cleared up. Let's read it first. John 14 two, in my father's house are many dwelling places. If it were not so, I would have told you, for I go to prepare a place for you.

Let's answer two. Misconception number one, heaven is filled with mansions. The old King James translation would read, in my father's house are many mansions, and this has sparked many imaginations along the same kinds of lines as if I win the sweepstakes kind of thinking. Gospel songs of course haven't helped a lot either to talk about the great mansion up there in the sky and our mansion and what it's going to be like. Truth is, we've grown up with this impression that heaven is going to be like this great, huge, real estate development and when we die, some angelic person is going to direct us to our mansion. He's going to say, now if you go down this street for about three miles and then you turn left and at that stoplight you turn right, there it'll be just past the lake and you think, oh boy, my own mansion. Jesus refers in this verse to his father's house.

The word is oika and it's made up of many mone rooms, dwelling places. Now to the original hearer, it made a lot of sense because that's how they lived. Jesus was saying something that they completely understood.

We don't because we live in a totally different culture, although the principle is no different while our culture is different. Jesus is basically saying that God's house has many rooms. Just as a Jewish father in that day would have a son, the son would go and marry. The son would bring his bride back and the father would add on a little wing or a little room and that's where they'd live.

Most of the sons grew up to work with their fathers and their trade just as Jesus worked in the trade of Joseph, his stepfather as a carpenter. And if they had two or three sons, they'd build on and in fact they would typically build in a circular shape and there'd be a little patio in the middle and that's where they would all live. They would literally be living in the father's house, but they'd each have their little dwelling. Now our misconception of these mansions has us living miles away from the father if we're bad. If we're good, we live within the limits and maybe we can see the father's house.

If we're really good, we might live next door. The proper picture is the fact that you and I are the bride of his son and he's taking us home to his father and the father's built on a wing. He's put on some rooms as it were we live under the same roof with the father in the father's house. The point is we are living forever in the immediate presence of God. Misconception number two, heaven is under construction. This said in verse two, the latter part, look at it again, for I go to prepare a place for you. Now many have unfortunately concluded that in some way Jesus has a hammer and some blueprints and he's in the process of building this new city and every one of us has a home under construction and the bad news or good news is that he's making it out of the stuff we send on ahead.

So some of us can visualize little shanties and other of us can perhaps selfishly consider some wealthy palatial mansion. Well, it's a foolish thought especially as I have actually read that Jesus was a carpenter on earth so he would know what to do in heaven. Oh no, think of what he did according to Colossians chapter one verse 16. He was the creative agent of the triune God. He that is was the word of the father. He created all that there is in six days. Why would he need nearly 2,000 years to create heaven?

No. When he ascended the Bible tells us he sat down at the right hand of the father that signified completion. At that moment everything was finished and ready and it has been.

The only thing that's changing is the number of residents. All right, so what's Jesus talking about? He says I go to prepare a place for you.

Sounds like construction to me. One of the great commentators of yesteryear a man by the name of William Barclay is always a help. He did a service to me by pointing out just refreshing my memory as I will yours that often in the New Testament Jesus Christ is referred to as the forerunner. That is the one who goes before as the shepherd goes in front of the sheep. In fact, one of the Greek words that's used to describe Jesus and I believe explain this statement here in John 14 2 is the Greek word prodromos. It's translated forerunner. In fact, listen to Hebrews 6 19 this hope we have is an anchor of the soul a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil that is within the presence of God. Now listen where Jesus has entered as a prodromos as a forerunner for us. Now in the army the Roman army of Christ's day they used to have soldiers called the prodromoi from that same Greek word.

These were soldiers that would blaze the trail sort of as spies or as agents sent out ahead to make sure that it was safe for the army that would be traveling along behind. That's the idea here. 2000 years ago heaven was ready and waiting so if your heart is hurting you just remember not only is Jesus Christ completely trustworthy but you're not home yet and when you get there you will not believe it what he's created for you and for me. Now turn back to John chapter 14 once more and let me give you the third principle that will bring healing and that is to remember your future is guaranteed permanently. Verse 3 and if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you to myself. By the way did Jesus go? Okay he said that would be the sign. If I go that means I'm coming back.

So just as he went he's coming back. That where I am there you may be awesome. Now you need to know what's important here is being with Jesus Christ. We're invited not so much to a place as we are to a person even though that place is magnificent. Jesus says heavens my father's home in other words I'm going to be there I'm going to get you take you home and you're going to be with me forever. I think of what Job wrote in chapter 19 he said I know that my redeemer lives and I shall one day see him face to face and when I see him he will not be a stranger to me and I will not be a stranger to him. If Jesus Christ is infinite God if he's totally trustworthy and reliable and if he lives forever which he does and if he's promised to come and take us to live with him then our future is according to his own words forever and forever and forever it is guaranteed permanently. Whether you are weak or strong in Christ this morning whether you are mature or immature in Christ as his disciple whether your faith is large or little whether you have been a Christian for decades or just last week you came to faith in Christ you are guaranteed a place in heaven forever.

Do you have unanswered questions? Do you have fears and doubts? Well according to this word here there's going to come a day when your questions will be forever completely answered your fears will be perfectly put to rest your tears will be completely wiped dry. It's not going to happen now completely but if you want to live in this life if you want to be able to walk through the storm with perspective and with joy with a healed heart you have to remember Jesus said I am completely trustworthy your future home in heaven is promised reality and your eternal state of living is guaranteed permanently. And as the songwriter wrote just think of stepping on shore and finding it heaven just think of taking hold of a hand and finding it gods think of breathing new air and finding it celestial think of waking up in glory and finding it home. We're not there yet but if you want healing for a hurting heart he's going to tell us as we study over these next few weeks how to live.

Our salvation is rooted in God himself and he promises us a home in heaven with him forever. This is wisdom for the heart. Our Bible teacher for these daily messages is Stephen Davey. Today's lesson is entitled heaven guaranteed and it's part one in a four part series called healing for troubled hearts.

Stephen has taken this series and turned it into a book. That resource makes it convenient for you to return to this series and be encouraged anytime you need to. Call us at 866 48 Bible or visit wisdom online dot org. There's three more lessons to go in this series and we'll continue through it on our next broadcast. Join us then here on wisdom for the hearts. Thanks.