2020.01.28 Hopewell @Home ▫ John 14:1-7

Read John 14:1-7

Questions from the Scripture text: What does Jesus say immediately after John 13:38 (in John 14:1). In Whom does Jesus tell them to believe? In Whom else? Where does Jesus tell them there are many rooms (John 14:2)? Why is Jesus going there? What will Jesus do later (John 14:3)? Why? What two things does Jesus say that they know in John 14:4? Who says that they do not know either of these things (John 14:5)? What does Jesus say is the Way to where He is going (John 14:6)? What does Jesus say is the Truth about where He is going? What does Jesus say is the life by which they may follow to where He is going? When does Jesus say that they know the Father and have seen the Father (John 14:7)? 

Next week’s Call to Worship, Prayer for Help, and Song of Adoration come from John 14:1-7 in order to sing God’s thoughts after Him with We Come, O Christ, to You.

We often think of this passage in terms of conversion: how one comes to know the Father (John 14:7). However, this is not the first and primary sense of the passage in its original context.

Jesus is talking to His disciples about the time of His absence, and what He is doing where He is going. He’s talking about how they will be preserved and guarded in the path to glory (John 14:1-5), and how they can connect with and serve the Father (and even Himself) in the intervening period (John 14:8-28).

It is not only through Christ alone that we are justified. It is through Christ alone that we know God. It is through Christ alone that we worship God. It is through Christ alone that we are equipped (are strengthened in grace, grow in grace) for service. And therefore, it is only according to Jesus’s Word, which He has appointed to be used by His Spirit.

When we feel (like Thomas and Phillip in this chapter) that “it isn’t working,” we are to remember His Word (John 14:26), enjoy His peace (John 14:27), and recognize that we are spiritually powerless. Christians are not to begin by Christ and move on by something else. As the apostle says in Romans 1:16-17, the power and righteousness of God for us is both from faith and for faith—by faith from start to finish.

We need not come up with new ways to feel rejuvenated spiritually, but rather to rejoice all over again that God has sent His Son and His Spirit on this divine rescue mission, and to trust that when we use His ordinary means, He is effectively and surely continuing to carry it out!

Upon what are you tempted to base the feeling that God is really working or that you are really close to Him? In Whom is God really working in you and keeping near to you? In what particular activities does His Word say that He/They are doing so?

Suggested songs: ARP1 “How Blessed the Man” or TPH288 “We Come, O Christ, to You”