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“Astonishing
Promises”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: John 14:1-14
“If in my name you ask me for
anything, I will do it.”
DEAR SISTERS AND BROTHERS this morning is the fifth Sunday of Easter,
and our scriptures during these weeks have shown us experiences with the
resurrected Christ, they have shown us the faithful effects on new
Christians after the resurrection, and they have shown us some of
Jesus’ most fascinating teachings, a week before his death and
resurrection.
It is very interesting to me that all throughout Christ’s ministry,
which was about three years, he was constantly with his 12 disciples,
and his disciples always had questions about Jesus’ parables, and his
future as the Christ, or the Messiah, prophesied all through the Hebrew
Bible; and more deeply, they had questions just about who Jesus is.
In the passage we just read from John, timed on the very evening Jesus
was going to be arrested, Thomas tells Jesus he doesn’t know where
Jesus is going, or how to get to where he’s going. This was a
question. And Philip wants Jesus to show them who the Father is.
I remember taking a New Testament class and we came
to this verse: “12Very
truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works
that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am
going to the Father.”
And we all wondered, what does it mean that we will do greater
works than Jesus did before his death and resurrection?
Jesus did start this section with these words:
“Do
not let your hearts be troubled. Believe*
in God, believe also in me.”
Jesus knew that his torture and death were coming in a few days; he also
knew that he was going to be raised from the dead.
His death would activate emotionally serious pains for his
disciples; and even the resurrection, as joyful as that will be, it will
bring with it similar questions about its reality, like they had before.
One way to help ourselves with problems and issues in our hearts is to
believe in Jesus in the same way, and maybe even a more personal way
than we, at the beginning, believe in God.
Jesus is fully God and fully man. He is the most unique human being born in this world.
He existed as the Son of God before his was born as Jesus.
You did not exist before you were created and born.
The Son of God created you.
When the Son of God entered into the heart of humanity by being
born in Jesus, He entered into your heart.
Because the Son of God is now, as a resurrected human, at the
right side of God the Father, so are you.
By our believing in Jesus Christ as we do God the Father, we come to
know the truth of ourselves at a deeper level.
I have written a booked titled Rediscovering the Trinity in the Local Congregation.
In the introduction I tell a story that got me interested in the
Holy Trinity. When I was
first being brought into the faith, I was at a prayer meeting one night,
and someone asked the pastor, “What does the Trinity mean?”
He said, “If you don’t believe it you will lose your soul, if
you try to understand it you will lose you mind.”
We all kind of laughed, and decided we had better get back to
more practical aspects of what it means to be a Christian.
But, I started thinking to myself, that if the doctrine of the Trinity
is true, then it should have a real meaning in our lives, and it should
be so true and real that we could sit around and talk about it with
simple common langue.
If you have a husband, or a wife, children or grandchildren, parents or
grandparents, and many kinds of friends, can you sit and talk to others
about them? Can you sit and
talk, one on one, with someone about someone else you know?
Here is the real question for us: “Can we sit around with our friends
and talk about Jesus Christ, God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit in
a personal way?”
When Thomas was telling Jesus the he did not know where Jesus was going,
or how to get there, Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.
I am the only one who knows the Father, and our ministry is to
bring you into our relationship.”
That’s my translation of the last part of the verse, because
that is what it means in our words.
God is the foundation, resource, and definition of relationships.
Before God created our existence, yes God was almighty,
sovereign, divinely righteous, but all these attributes came out of the
loving relationship between God the Father and God the Son in God the
Holy Spirit. This is what
it means that God is love.
Jesus Christ is the way to God the Father.
He is our way, and whatever we may see and learn about Jesus
relationship with the Father, we are involved in it.
When we pray, that does not start with us; it starts with Christ
in us.
You may remember very important prayers in your life.
One of my first prayers, when my life was being brought into the
Christian faith, was small and simple: “Lord I don’t want my life
any more.” That was not
suicidal; it was simply a prayer about God leading in my life.
And now that I apply the reality of the Trinity to this, I
believe that Christ was already in me praying, “Father lead Tom to
know that his life is in our love through the Holy Spirit.”
After worship last Sunday, one of my brothers communicated to me how
comfortable the worship was, and that it was like a family get together.
And someone else also expressed very similar words to me.
How can that be put in Trinitarian words?
The Lord Jesus, in his resurrected humanity praises, worships,
and prays to God, because God is his Father, and our Father.
And what we experience in worship is that a divine family is
getting together.
Jesus is our life; we are hidden with him, in God.
What is really astonishing about these promises is how they have
already been completed in Christ.
Let us pray…
Amen
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