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I want to start by sharing a word the Lord gave to me when I was in Africa. I felt compelled to share it with you tonight as well. We're looking at John's gospel, specifically the 14th chapter—one of the most encouraging chapters in the Bible.
One of the best ways to deepen your understanding of God's Word is to understand context. Context tells us not just what the text says, but where it's coming from and who it's speaking to.
The Apostle John wrote his gospel much later than Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Those three gospels had already been circulating for nearly 60 years before John wrote his account. But John felt there was still something crucial to share—a different experience with Jesus. He wasn't just giving us more information; he was giving us a backdoor view into who Jesus truly was in his deity.
John is famous for the "I am" statements—"I am life, I am light, I am love." He reveals who Jesus is beyond just his name, showing us his oneness with the Father. His gospel begins differently than the others: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God." While others started with genealogy, John said there's no reason to trace Jesus's family line because Jesus existed before time itself.
John's goal was to help already-committed Christians go deeper in their relationship with Jesus. And that's my goal tonight: to challenge anyone here who says, "I already know God, pastor. I'm good." My question is: Are you where God wants you to be in levels of intimacy and obedience? Do you know him the way you should by now?
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John 14 is set on the night before Jesus died. He had just told his disciples, "I'm getting ready to die tomorrow and I'm going to be gone." They felt their world was falling apart.
Why? These men had left everything—their jobs, their money, their families—to follow Jesus. After three and a half years, they were waiting for him to establish his kingdom on earth. But they didn't understand the kingdom was in heaven. Now he's saying, "I'm leaving. After tomorrow, you won't see me anymore."
They were brokenhearted. It was like saying, "We left our families believing we'd build a kingdom together, and now you're changing the script on us." They were afraid. They were nervous.
Jesus starts in verse 1: "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God and trust also in me."
Notice what he's doing. He's saying, "I get it—what I'm saying doesn't make sense to your minds. But I need you to check your heart." I'm preaching to you, beloved of God. Many of us, when we don't understand what God is doing, allow frustration and doubt to creep into our hearts.
Maybe God didn't move when you thought he would. Maybe the healing hasn't manifested yet. Maybe what's happening in your family is troubling you. Instead of trying to figure God out and answer all your questions, you have to learn to still your heart. As the psalmist says, "Be still and know that I'm God."
He's not talking about being physically still. He's saying you're running so much in your mind and heart that you don't know how to trust me. And while it's easy to pretend we have it all together in the worship service, many of us struggle in here—in our hearts. I love that Jesus doesn't beat around the bush. He goes right to the issue: that heart is the thing you were supposed to be guarding.
"If you believe in God, I need you to believe in me. You believe—I know you do, because you've been following me for years."
Look at verse 2: "There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you."
Jesus wasn't saying, "I'm leaving you just to leave you." He said, "I have to get ahead of you to prepare your future." Some of you will understand this later, but this is why you go through seasons where God challenges you to press further. It's because he has to go ahead of you, making way in your future for the obedience of your steps. Wherever he's telling you to go, he's already preparing the way.
Verse 3: "When everything is ready, I will come and get you so that you will always be with me where I am, and you know the way to where I'm going."
He says, "You know the way." But they don't feel like they do. And I'm speaking to somebody's heart right now. When things don't click right away, you start to question if God gave you everything you need.
One of the biggest things I hear when counseling people is confusion. And I always say: we have to pause. Confusion cannot be from God, because God is not the author of confusion. I'm not saying confusion isn't in the story. I'm saying he's not the one who wrote it in.
If God isn't the author of confusion, we have to ask: Who wrote over God and added confusion to my story?
Jesus didn't leave any space to be ambiguous. He said, "You know the way."
But Thomas speaks up in verse 5: "We have no idea where you are going. So, how can we know the way?"
Most of us think Thomas became a doubter at the resurrection—when he said he wouldn't believe unless he saw Jesus's hands and feet. But Thomas was already a doubter long before that. By the time everybody else sees your issue, it's been there for a long time.
I'm telling you the reality of God's work: Many of you are walking in private struggles, private sin. God is trying to give you the grace to get right. But you think grace is the grace to get away with it. By the time it gets exposed, it's because God had already tried to get you together for a long time. You wouldn't do it on your own.
And had you done it on your own, you would have expressed humility. But because God had to do it, it feels like humiliation.
Now everybody sees publicly what you've lived in privately for a very, very long time.
Thomas didn't just become a doubter at the end. He was already doubting here. Jesus is telling him, "You know the way," and Thomas is saying, "No, I don't." And God is saying to many of you: I've called you with purpose. I've told you what to do. I've put that assignment in your life.
But you keep saying, "I don't know what to do. I don't know the next step."
Do you know why? Because if you can play confused, you don't have to walk in obedience.
If God put an assignment on your life, why aren't you around others who have assignments? Why aren't you being trained? Why aren't you looking to be poured into? I'm talking about actual service.
Thomas is exposing old characteristics, old tendencies. Before the sin manifests, where was the desire? Before the failure happens, where was the desire inside? You didn't just stumble into anything. There had to be a desire that the enemy was able to extract and manipulate.
This is what James 1 says: "When any man is drawn into temptation, he's drawn away and enticed by his own lust." That means before you did it, there was a wrestling match inside that you lost. There was a war in there.
If we would learn to ask for help in the internal fight, it would never become external. Maybe if we could be real when we're wrestling, we don't have to be ashamed when we've fallen. We can ask for help.
It's like wrestling. When a wrestler is getting beat, slammed on his back, he reaches to the ring and someone on the side says, "If you can just touch me, I promise while I get in there, I'll help." And I can see Jesus saying, "If you would just reach for me, I can get in there and help you." But it's up to us. It's our ability to respond, to be honest, based on where we are.
There are more Thomases in this room than we think. It's easy to point at the loud doubter. But how many times did God tell you to move and you still said, "I don't know the way"? You find out everything else. You're inquisitive in every other area of your life. You're a researcher, a doctor. But the time God tells you to move, you're confused.
I'm not here to shame you. I want you to ask yourself: Am I making up reasons why I can't do what God is telling me to do? The enemy can't be that powerful when I serve a God who is all powerful. Omnipotent is his name.
Look at verse 6. Jesus says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me."
Jesus says something incredible here. He says, "Let me clear this up for you since you're still acting confused. I am the way, the truth, and the life." Which means he lays it out from every single angle. You can't try to find a way to heaven outside of him.
This is where we break away from other religions that say, "Let's all be inclusive." And Jesus says, "I'm sorry. There is no other way. I'm the way, the truth, and the life.
"No one can come to the Father except through me." The Father, the Abba—God was always there, but we didn't know him as Father until the Son introduced him.
Verse 7: "If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Jesus is checking Thomas because Thomas is doubting. If you had really known who you were talking to, you would have known that you know the Son and the Father, because you spent time with me and we are one and the same.
I've never moved on my own pretense. Everything I did, I saw God do it first. Everything I said, I heard my father saying. So when you looked at me, you were actually looking at the Father moving through me.
Now Philip chimes in—because I want to show you Thomas wasn't the only doubter. Verse 8: "Philip says, Lord, show us the Father and we would be satisfied."
But Jesus just told him: if you saw me, you saw the Father! I'm sure Jesus must have been frustrated and irritated. He's saying, "Have you seen me? You've seen the Father." And Philip says, "Well, okay. Show us then. Show us the Father."
It's so easy to point out the loud doubter, but there are a lot of quiet doubters in here. Those who sit still, never say amen, but question God in their heart the whole time. It's always easy to point out the noisy one, but just because you're quiet doesn't mean you're faithful. Sometimes the quiet one is also struggling.
I've been in church my whole life. I know the quiet one ain't always the most powerful one. Sometimes it's the quiet ones who are also struggling.
Philip is doubting just like Thomas. He's saying, "You keep speaking of the Father—could you show us the Father? We'll be satisfied." And that sounds just like us. After everything God already did, we need him to do another thing to be satisfied.
You want to know why you're sad now? Because if there wasn't another thing, you'd have overwhelming joy every single day. Why? Because if he never did another thing, he's already done enough.
I don't need another breakthrough, another miracle, another blessing. Just the fact that I'm still alive when I should have died in my mess—that's all the glory I need. I know God has me. I should be good already.
But many of us are like Philip. "Yeah, God, I'm thankful, but I've got a couple more things on my list." And here's the crazy thing: we're giving God the criteria of what we need to be satisfied. As if all the miracles he's done weren't enough. As if all the times he forgave us weren't enough. As if all the times he brought our family out weren't enough.
As if all the times I failed you, you still kept showing me grace—as if that wasn't enough.
I need you to check your heart today. Ask yourself: Am I still putting God on trial? Am I still waiting to see if he's really good? Or have I trusted his word, knowing that he is already good and has always been good to me?
Look at how Jesus responds. Verse 9: "Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am? Three and a half years—you lived with me, walked with me, even healed in my name, and you still don't know who I am."
What if Jesus was sitting next to you right now? Would he be asking you the same question? After all these years, you still don't know who I am?
There's a difference between believing and knowing. Believing means, "I believe, but I don't have experience." And my prayer for many of you is that you would transfer from believing to knowing.
Apostle John wrote it this way: "These things are written that you may know you have eternal life, not believe you have it." I need you to get to a place where your relationship with Jesus has been qualified based on your experience.
I have experience with God. I know my Redeemer lives. I know my God is real. I know he is a healer. I know he's a way maker. I know he will bring me out. I know he's a provider. Why? Based on my history with God. I don't have to believe what I've experienced.
This is what Jesus is saying to Philip. After all this time, you still don't truly know who I am. After all the scripture, after all the messages and sermons you've heard me speak, Philip, you still don't know.
We have to challenge ourselves. It's easy to look at Philip and say, "Shame, shame, shame." But what if Jesus had to say the same thing to you? "Still don't know who I am."
Why? Because it's so easy to forget how good you are, God, and to fall back into the things I said I wanted you to free me from. It's so easy to leave church on a Wednesday and go right back to the same sin you begged to be free from.
It's so easy to be in church, to learn the attitudes of just getting along. Everybody starts to learn and respect you within the institution, but still not to know the God of the institution.
It's crazy to spend all this time in church and not to know the Man that created it.
If you were to ask me what I'm saying, I pray I can speak to your heart in this moment to say: Beyond just what people know about you, do you know Jesus? Do you know him? Because to know the pastor is not to know Jesus. Believe it or not, just knowing the scriptures doesn't mean you know Jesus.
"You keep searching the scriptures because you think in them that you have eternal life. But they all speak of me. You have to come to me for eternal life." There has to be a hunger for more of Christ in your life.
Apostle Paul, at the end of his ministry while writing from prison, said: "I want to know him. I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do: I'm forgetting what's behind me and I'm pressing forward to what's in front of me." That means there is always a hunger for more of God.
Why? Here's what I've learned in prayer: Whenever we lose our hunger, the enemy will fill our plates with something else. When you lose your hunger for God, you'll find other things on your plate.
You never stop eating. You just change your diet. You're always eating. You're always consuming something. And that's spiritually true too. You have to eat to live. You have information coming at you. You have things coming at you. You have voices coming at you all the time.
And Jesus says: "My sheep hear my voice, and a stranger's voice they will not follow." He never said you won't hear it. But he said, you're in love with him so much that when you hear a stranger's voice, you say, 'I don't want that. That sounds strange to me. I want the voice of my Savior.'"
I'm challenging myself to say, "God, I want to make sure I'm protecting my hunger. I'm pouring it in, stirring up my fire, igniting that flame, and fanning the flames to make sure my hunger for you doesn't eventually die out."
Why? Because it can happen. You notice how amens go down? Everywhere we get guilty. Because if you be real, there were times in your life where you said, "God, I'll give you everything. Nothing else matters to me"—until something else mattered to you.
"Oh God, I give you my everything. I just want to live for you." And then there's something God has to come snatch you out of. In Galatians he says: "You ran well. What hindered you? What got in the way?"
Most of the time, remember: confusion never comes from God. Which means it's always from us and the enemy. There's something we're consuming that we shouldn't be. We have to ask ourselves: Have I been faithful to the Father that saved me?
Verse 9-10: "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. So why are you asking me to show him to you? Don't you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work through me."
Two things: The words I speak are not my own, and the works I'm doing aren't actually me—it's the Father doing the work in me.
I need this to catch on. Jesus was so conscious to make sure: "I cannot speak unless I sense God speaking through me. I cannot move unless I feel God telling me to do it." Can you stick with me for a moment? I love you so much.
If the Son of God understood the danger of moving on his own will, why do you think you're safe? God's Son—the closest in DNA—said, "God, I know how this works. I don't just move on my own because if I start moving on my own, I'm subject to fail."
The closest one to the Father says this. And here we are thousands of generations beyond, and we don't understand that when I start doing my own thing, I'm in trouble.
You can't wave your hand and say, "There are times I did my own thing and I was in trouble—all while saying I was following Jesus." In sin while following Jesus. Failing while following Jesus. Lying while following Jesus. Disguising who I really am, all while following Jesus. Why? Because I started to do my own things, speak my own words.
Maybe if we'll be more cautious and say, "God, every time I open my mouth, may you prove what I'm speaking." One of the things God is speaking to me most about in prayer is this: Imagine Jesus was physically there with you. Would you still entertain that conversation? Would you still watch that? Would you still type the laughing emojis? Would you still want to be a part? Would you still think that joke was funny if Jesus was in the car with you?
Well, I know God is with me. You don't believe that? What do you mean? If you truly believed that God is with you, half the stuff you do, you wouldn't do. I love y'all so much, but I'm here to fight in the spirit. I am.
Because some of this stuff you wouldn't even do around me—and I'm just a man, your pastor. If you wouldn't do it around your pastor, how much more should you value the presence of Elohim, the presence of Yeshua, the presence of Emmanuel—God with us?
If I change my behavior for a man, but not for my Savior, I've been in idol worship and don't even know it. And so many times we find ourselves in idol worship and don't even know it.
Why? Because when we don't know Jesus, we accept the next best thing. And this is what Jesus is exposing in Philip. You've been following me and you don't even know me. It's crazy to spend all this time in church and not to know the Man that created it.
Verse 12: "I tell you the truth. Anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done and even greater works because I go to the Father."
Let's pause. Proper understanding of the Bible means reading it in context. Jesus says: "I only say what I hear my Father say. I only do what I see my Father do."
You cannot do greater works until you get into proper alignment with that. Now, we're going to preach about miracles, signs, and wonders. We claim it. It ain't gonna happen because you don't do what you see the Father do and you don't say what you hear the Father say.
When you leave church, your mouth is rancid and nasty and not nice. And sometimes the things we do—God can't be a foot close to us because we'd be all burned up if he were to judge us in the things that we're doing.
So we claim greater works. Let's start with greater obedience. Let's start with more holiness. Let's start with actually submitting our lives to him, and the greater works would naturally follow.
I've learned I don't have to pray for miracles when my obedience is just starting.
We were riding in Africa. There was a lady named Shoko. She was driving us to the next tribe to meet some of the kids we sponsored. She was wincing in pain. I asked her what happened. She said for the last 25 years she'd been in pain. She was serving God's people, got into an accident, and it slipped her disc out of place.
In Africa, there aren't a lot of health clinics or hospitals. So sometimes if you're injured, you're just injured. You just have to live with it.
I said, "Wow." And while sitting there, God said, "Do what you see me do. Say what you hear me say."
I said, "Shoko, can I pray for you? I feel like I'm supposed to pray for you." She said, "Yeah, sure. Go ahead."
She was holding on to the handlebar because moving in the car was physically painful. I sat behind her and laid my hands on her shoulders. I didn't say anything super powerful, to be transparent, because I feel like sometimes we're trying to be powerful instead of just being like Jesus.
I laid hands on her. I just said what I heard the Holy Spirit say: to command healing to her back, to command the disc. And I knew God was healing it because the moment I prayed for her, I felt it on my left side.
I said, "Is it your left side disc?" She said, "Yeah, it's the most painful." I said, "God's about to heal it."
When we got out the car, she said, "Pastor, look!" She was able to move freely. I said, "You better dance for Jesus. You better give him all the glory you've got. You better run across this dirt—red clay Africa."
Can I say this really quickly? I want to make sure I'm telling the story correctly. It had nothing to do with me. What I'm learning is that the more we're submitted to God, he'll tell us what to do.
Even in my own life, I had it all wrong. I used to chase miracles, and he told me, "You've got it wrong. Chase Jesus." Miracle, signs, and wonders—you've got it wrong still. Because when you want miracles that bad, you'll go for the miracles even if you have to go around Jesus to get them.
But when I started to want to look like Jesus, be like Jesus, all of these greater works were hidden in him. And just being submitted to him, he wants to do it.
You are not asking him to do something he doesn't want to do. We're begging for miracles, signs, and wonders like God doesn't want to do it. It was his Word that promised it. Miracles, signs, and wonders—that was his idea, not yours.
So there has to be a gap. If it's his Word and his promise, but not our experience, we have to stop and say, "Well, we know he's not a liar. If I have to put somebody on trial, I will put myself."
I would say, God, sometimes your movement became my idol. I wanted you to move so bad I stopped looking for you and only for what I could get from you.
Maybe I wanted miracles because I wanted to validate my insecurity. I wanted to believe I was powerful. I wanted to believe I was anointed. But God's power is not to validate you. The blood of Jesus already validated you.
In Luke 10, Jesus rebukes some young disciples who come running back to him. They say, "Oh Jesus, it was amazing! Everywhere we went, even the demons were subject to us in your name!" They sounded like young power seekers.
And Jesus says, "Stop. Don't ever do that. That is not the most impressive part of the story. The most impressive part is that your names were written in the Lamb's book of life. Your names were written in the book of life.
The power is automatic for those whose names are written. I'm setting somebody free right now. It's not reserved for the preacher. It's reserved for whose names are written. Which means if you are obedient and chasing Jesus, there is an anointing already following you that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Verse 13: "You can ask for anything in my name and I would do it so that the Son can bring glory to the Father."
Jesus is inviting them to pray with authority. He says, "All right, that's what I want you to do. Ask anything in my name and I will do it."
Now, one of the things I want to help you with: sometimes we use verses like this as a get out of jail free card to ask for that thing we know God has been saying no to for a long time. And that's not how it works.
Often, when God opens a blanket statement like this, he's trying to get to what's really in your heart. Look at Solomon. God says, "Solomon, I'll give you whatever you want. Just tell me." Because God's checking his heart.
Solomon could have asked for gold, riches, authority. He could have said, "I want to be like Elijah. I want to be a young prophet with anointing." He could have asked for anything.
But he looked out and said: "I need wisdom, judgment, and discernment because God, your people are great. I don't know what I'm doing, and I want to make sure I handle them well."
If every leader would ask for this—not power, not gift of interpretation, not so that everybody could call you to preach—if you could just ask for wisdom, discernment, and good judgment so you could know how to handle God's people, the church would be better instantly.
If our prayer life was, "God, help me to handle your people," things would change. Almost all of us at some point have been mishandled by his people. Hurt by his people. Dropped by his people.
We don't need more powerful prayer warriors. We need more lovers—people that love like Jesus, pour like Jesus, forgive like Jesus, present like Jesus. It's not that we need somebody to be more anointed than the 100 years of evangelists and preachers who have already come.
We need people to walk in the love of Jesus. We need you to walk in the love of Jesus. Let me make it more personal: I'm not saying people, I'm preaching to you.
We need you to walk in the love of Jesus—so that when Jesus is talking to us, can he count on you to look like him? Not to look like the preacher or the anointed one, but to look like him.
He closes with verse 14: "If you love me, obey my commandments."
I love this because Jesus gets so straight to the point. He didn't make it more "sermony"—it was just truth. If you love me, keep my commandments.
Well, yeah, yeah, of course. I've heard it my whole life. I'm going to say it again: If you love me, keep my commandments. Because my love is always expressed in what I do.
When we start saying, "Look at the heart of Jesus," let's challenge ourselves: Is my love proven by how I keep his commandments? Is my love proven not to people, but to him?
Oh yes, Lord. I come to church faithfully. I give. I serve. No—you missed it again.
His commandments are very simple:
When we talk about keeping his commandments, it's so easy to chase after the things that feel more spiritual while missing the things standing right in front of us.
I promise you, I've been around very spiritual sinners. Very spiritual sinners who can pray, preach—they've got it together. You put them on a conference, they'll turn their house upside down. Then they leave and jump in the same bed they've been telling you to stay out of.
This is not new. This is old. This is what Jesus said about the Pharisees: "My issues with you is that you put rules on the people that you yourself can't even bear."
Jesus is asking us the same thing. This is crazy that he's saying this the day before he dies—still telling his disciples, "Man, if y'all love me, can y'all just do one thing? Can y'all actually keep the word in your heart and obey it more than just lip service? Don't become like the Pharisees. Don't become like the people you detest."**
Here is my real prophetic word for you: When you look at certain people that have rubbed you the wrong way, people that have done wrong, people that have been evil in church—people who knew better and still hurt people—you can picture them. Some of you can put a face on that description.
And I want you to ask yourself: Are you a hypocrite? Are you some of what you hate? Some of what you detest? Worse—are you some of the very thing that hurt you?
It's always so easy to see the flaws of those in front of you, but it's so much harder to sit at home and say, "Lord, I'm the one. I'm the one that's messed up. I'm the one that lost my way."
This is why we talk about the story of the man right before the prodigal son. There are two men in the temple. One man stands up front and says: "Lord, I fast twice a week. I obey your word. I tithe on every single dime I get. I'm faithful to you. I'm not out here like these sinners."
Then a man comes in the back. He never even lifts his head, but he beats his chest and says: "God, have mercy on me, for I see now that I am a sinner, and I know I am."
And Jesus says: "Yeah, that guy in the back left more justified than the leader up front."
What if I were to tell you: There are some people who don't say much, don't have a big name, but they have greater intimacy with God than some of the people who stand up front. Because we think when we stand up front, what we do and how we serve will ride over how we live. And it never does.
What you do and how you serve can never float over how you live. How you live will always be the poison that kills everything you ever did.
This is why Jesus says: "If you love me, keep my commandments. Hold them close to your heart. Live by them in every waking moment."
This is my prayer, Lord: As we stand here, it's easy for us to shout and praise and run. But God, if we run back to the sin you asked us to put down, what good is the church service if the people aren't free?
As the songwriter said: "Search me, oh God. Wash me through and through." As David said: "Lord, I want to know your ways. I realize now that I'm my own worst enemy, that I get in my own way. I trip and fall over my own mistakes. But Lord, would you purge me with hyssop that I may be clean? Wash me that I may be as white as snow, God."
That we would stand before you and have a heart in a constant place of repentance, saying: "Lord, this ain't about nobody else. It ain't about proving any point to anybody. We could lie until we blew in the face and people would actually believe us, but God, you see everything we do. You know our secret places."
And my prayer is this, Lord God: As I'm preaching to your people, Jesus, I pray that you will be the one getting all the glory in what I say and do. But I believe you said that you were coming back for a spotless bride. Not a spotted bride.
So Lord, I pray that we would find time to search ourselves. That we would present ourselves faultless before you. That we would present ourselves spotless before you.
