These questions that were asked so long ago are still relevant to us in these days because people are still wrestling with the same kinds of questions and problems that the disciples raised in that period of private conference with the Lord when He drew them away together alone and talked to them about His departure.

John 13:33-38  

Little children, yet a little while I am with you. Ye shall seek me: and as I said unto the Jews, Whither I go, ye cannot come; so now I say to you. Anew commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Simon Peter said unto him, Lord, whither goest thou? Jesus answered him, Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now; but thou shall follow me afterwards. Peter said unto him, Lord, why cannot I follow thee now? I will lay down my life for thy sake. Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.”

In the hours that Jesus spent behind closed doors with His disciples He went through that great ceremony and symbolic action of feet washing, demonstrating exactly how we come to greatness and what God calls greatness. In that same hour He gave to His disciples what is called a new commandment – that we love one another even as Christ loved us.

Then He began to say some things that caused the hearts of the disciples to be troubled. There were reasons for troubled hearts that night. One was because a disciple walked out into the night to betray the Son of God. Betrayal always leads to sorrow and grief. Another disciple would deny Jesus three times that night. That was another reason for troubled hearts. Then Jesus announced that He was going where they could not follow and that meant He was soon to be separated from them, out of their sight, away from them. That was certainly reason for troubled hearts.

Following that announcement come one right after another questions that are just boiling up in the hearts of these disciples – questions that Jesus gives an answer to. Those answers are thrilling indeed and we want to look at them. We will just talk about the first question in this lecture and then consider the other questions in the next lecture.

All the questions that these disciples ask are based on seeing. They want to be able to understand clearly. They want to be able to see. They want to be able to know. They don’t want any questions. They don’t want any worries or any fear left in their minds.
That is just purely human. We would like it that way too. Wouldn’t you like to live in a situation where you never had any worries or doubts or fears or questions but where you understood everything about your life? Oh, that would be wonderful. That seems to be what they wanted. But in this case and in every case, that does not seem to be the will of God because sometimes He wants to teach us how to walk by faith one step at a time.

(John 13:36) Jesus said, “You can’t follow me now where I’m going,” meaning, “You can’t share the cross with me that I’m about to go to. You can’t follow me really to Golgotha and there die and go on and ascend with me now. But you will follow me later.” What He is saying here in prophetic warning in a way is that Simon Peter will walk the road of suffering and sorrow and humility and service later on. He will learn what it means to take up his cross and follow Jesus a little later on.

a. Suffering In I Peter
Simon Peter really learned that lesson well. He learned what it meant to follow Jesus. He learned what it meant to lay your whole life on the altar of Christian service and walk in the path of duty and righteousness and to follow Jesus Christ. All you have to do is read his first letter – the Epistle of First Peter – and you will see there the beautiful, organized, portrayal of the ministry of suffering.
Simon Peter uses that word ‘suffering’ fourteen times in the book of First Peter. Seven times it has to do with the suffering of Jesus Christ. Seven times it has to do with the suffering of Christians who would follow Him. Yes, he learned what it meant to follow Jesus later. He learned what it meant to carry loads of grief and sorrow. He learned what it meant to live under pressure in a day when there was trouble and sorrow and having people turning their backs upon you. He learned what it meant to suffer for Christ.

b. Peter’s Over Confidence in Self
But he was overcome with his own self-confidence in this case. I suppose he felt a little bit too sure of himself because he argued back and said, “Lord, I’m ready to go with you now. As a matter of fact I would lay down my life for you now.” Jesus looked at him and asked him a question. I think sometimes the Lord touches us the deepest when He asks us questions that have to do with whether or not we will obey Him and serve Him fully.
He said, “Oh, you want to lay down your life for me now do you? You’re ready now to lay down your life?” He said, “Simon, before this night is over you’ll deny me three times.” This man that Jesus himself had nicknamed the rock ‘Cephas’ which means by interpretation a stone – this man that they looked upon as the rock man – this stable, staunch man would crumble like sand in grief and in the pressure of temptation before that night was over.
It is a dangerous thing to be too sure of yourself because you see, our real faithfulness and our ability to overcome is not based on our laying down our lives forJesus but it’s based on the fact that He laid down His life for us. That’s where our strength comes. That’s where our victory comes. That’s where our power comes. That’s where our boasting comes. Not in what we can do for Him but for what He has done for us, hallelujah, in tha t He laid down His life for us.

The second answer to the question is to believe in Christ. Jesus said, “Believe also in me.” Oh, what a beautiful, wonderful experience it is to have God touch your mind, heart and whole being with divine illuminating, enlightening power. Suddenly you realize who you are and your need and you cry out to Jesus Christ and you take Him as Saviour. Then you go further and you take Him as your Lord and pretty soon, your whole life is involved with Jesus Christ and you’re wrapped up in Him and He’s in you and your whole life centers around Jesus Christ.
Oh, He is the center of everything. He is the center of the Holy Word. He’s the center of history. He’s the center and heart of a church and He is the center of our lives. I thank God tonight that Jesus stands at the heart of it all. If you study about Him and you read this Bible and New Testament enough, you will see that one day He will be the center and God will bring unto Him and gather into Jesus Christ all and all. He will be the center of the entire universe.
Because already by Him “things consist” Colossians says. That means they hold together like a great force of gravitation that is universal in its scope. Jesus stands at the very heart of all time and all eternity in our whole universe and the whole systems we know anything about. He is the center of it all. Thank God! It all revolves around the Son of the living God who loved us and who gave Himself for us.
When I get to thinking of His greatness and the greatness of His love, I get beside myself. Pardon me today if I seem to get beside myself. But I want to tell you, It thrills my heart to know what Jesus Christ means to us. He said, “If you’ve got questions, if you’ve got a troubled heart, just believe in me.”

In the next place He said, “Believe in a place – Heaven. I’m going to prepare a place for you.” We’re being bombarded these days with all kinds of philosophies and ideas that deny any kind of future existence. Eastern philosophies are running all across our land and talk about an everlasting nothingness. I remember sitting in classes and studying Eastern philosophies, Hinduism, Buddhism and others, and the absolute emptiness and vagueness of any life to come. No wonder there is such hopelessness. No wonder that on the foreign lands where Jesus Christ is not known well people live like machines.
I believe tonight in heaven. I believe there is a place after this world. I believe there’s life after death. I believe that this is the only the beginning of our development. When you’re touched with eternal life from above that is only the beginning of your potential for developing forever.
Jesus said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you.” Oh, hallelujah! There is a place of pure delight and the Lord is preparing it. Thank God I can believe in heaven. Thank God for the hope that we have through Jesus Christ the Lord.

Finally, He said, “If I go to prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you unto myself.” Oh, the message of His return. Believe He is coming. I know we hear it often and we sing about it often, but there are times when your heart really gets troubled and you really feel like this world’s not your home. You know, like those days when you can even be among friends on Main Street downtown and yet you feel like a stranger in a strange land in a strange world.
The hope of the return of the Lord comes alive in your heart then and it brings comfort and it brings strength. This is the good news for troubled heart who’s worrying about the Lord going away. This is the good news even for our troubled hearts in these times. Believing in God with an unwavering faith standing on His word and His promises. Believing in Jesus Christ the Son of God our Saviour and our Lord. Believing in a place that He has prepared, a heaven of righteousness and beauty that we cannot even fathom and understand. It has to be revealed by the spirit before we begin to understand what it’s like and to believe that Jesus will come again. That will answer some of the questions of any troubled heart. A living vibrant faith in God’s word and in the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

But this man is troubled with the idea that God will manifest Himself to them, the disciples, and yet somehow the world won’t know it. People won’t see it. They won’t understand it. What he really wants is a kind of real dramatic manifestation of God and His power and His presence so the whole world will be aware of where God is. They can look in any direction and say God is there. His power is here. His glory is here. What he wants is a kind of religion and a kind of worship that everybody can see.

I think most of us at some time or another have had that kind of a desire – to have a religion that everybody could see and recognize when they saw it. You know down through the ages, through history, people have tried to build all kinds of systems that would do just that.

They’d say now when you see a certain style of architecture in a church you’ll know that’s where God is; or, when you see people dressed in a certain fashion, you’ll know that’s where God is. When you see people acting a certain way, you’ll know that’s where God is. They say, “That’s the manifestation of God in the world.”

In other words, here’s what Judas was saying. “Lord, how is it that you’re going to communicate to the whole world that the Father has come in reality to visit His people. We want you to show yourself to us, sure. We want to see the manifestation of your power and your love and your grace to us, sure. But we want the world to see it too so they can recognize that you’re with us, because we’ll face those days when we’re despised and we’ll face those days when we’re lonely and we’ll face those days when we’re troubled and we’re weak and we want the world to look at us and say, ‘There go the people of God. There are the disciples of the Lord. There are the disciples who obey the Lord Jesus and God has manifested Himself with them.'”

Then Jesus moved quickly in verse twenty six to teach again about the power of the Comforter, this mighty counselor, this advocate that is to stand along side us and give guidance and direction – to give meaning into life, to give strength and comfort through the rough places, to be a teacher that will reveal to us all the mysterious yet beautiful and wonderful things of God.

So many people like to quote that text that says, “Eye has not seen ear has not heard the things that God has in store for His people,” and sometimes they just stop there. But oh, Paul didn’t stop there. He says, “For it’s been revealed to us by His Spirit” (see I Corinthians 2:9, 10). Hallelujah!

I want to tell you there is divine revelation going on in this world now. There is divine teaching that is being carried on by the Holy Ghost. There is divine instruction and divine comforting by the mighty Holy Ghost as He reveals God and reveals God’s will to hearts of people who are opened to Him in this world now.

So he is saying, “The comforter, which is the Holy Ghost whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things.” Is there a problem you face today you cannot find a solution to? Instead of frantically running to and fro pulling this one and pulling at this one and trying to reason in your mind and find the answers, why not slip away somewhere and fall on your knees before God and report for duty on your knees before God and wait there awhile and let the Holy Ghost minister to you. Let Him control your life and pray and intercede through you until you’ve touched divinity, until you’ve touched power, until you’ve touched the throne of grace.

If the church could ever learn the full impact of what it means for the Holy Spirit to minister to us and teach us, then we would bow in worship before God. We would cherish those times of getting together in a spirit of unity and fellowship and love like this. We would cherish those times of getting in the Spirit on the Lord’s day and having God reveal to us His perfect and divine will for our lives through the Holy Spirit.

I’m saying to you today, the Holy Ghost stands about your life. He wants to reach in as the comforter, the counselor, the God, the teacher and just simply brush away your doubts and fears. He wants to still the nervousness of your life. He wants to put a soothing hand of the warmth of God’s love upon you and warm you where you have cold shivers of doubts and fears.

He wants to come to your life where you’re trembling with weakness and indecision and teach you what it means to believe God and to follow Him and to obey God’s word. Let Him teach you today. Let the Holy teacher touch your life with miraculous divine power. Let Him minister to you and solve the very problems of your heart today.

Jesus is saying, “Anytime you see a person who loves me, it’s a revelation of God. Anytime you see somebody who obeys my words, it’s a revelation, a manifestation, of God to this world. Anytime you see somebody who lives in the Spirit, who has life in the Spirit, who walks in the Spirit, who is led by the Spirit, who is comforted and strengthened by the Spirit – that is a manifestation of the Almighty God in this world.” Hallelujah!

You want a religion people can see? Then get wrapped up and filled with the love of God. Let it flow through your life. Obey His Holy Word and walk on the pages of God’s Word. You want a religion somebody can see? Then get on fire of the Holy Spirit. Get filled with the Spirit and power of God and the world will know that God is at work there. Hallelujah!

Then He moves further. He talks about the fruit of the Spirit – in particular, His gift of peace and the power of love. He says, “It is my peace I give you.” Oh, the turmoil, the anguish that goes on in lives today! Oh, the destroying forces of fears and doubts and indecision – those just eat at the lives of people, even Christians, these days! Jesus wants you to have His gift of peace.

I don’t have to belabor the point. I don’t have to talk to you about all the pills we take to soothe our nerves and to help us to sleep. I don’t have to tell you about all the medicine we have – and our children see it there. Sometimes they experiment and they say, “Well, daddy and mother do this. Why should it hurt me?” I don’t have to talk about that. You live in the midst of that kind of pressure and heartache and trouble day by day.

In the last few days in the block where I live, on one side is a family, caught up in the grief of a son experimenting with drugs. Down the street a man and his wife are at each other’s throat – battling, separating, fighting. Everywhere you turn there is a spirit of unrest and a spirit of destruction and a spirit of hatred and a spirit of division that is sweeping across this land.

It floods us – even us, who hold on to God and attend the church. We’re not exempt from Satan and his power. Satan seeks to destroy our homes, our lives, our minds, and take away our peace and our stability and our inward strength and character and tear down principles and love.

We need to come like John and lean on the bosom of our blessed Lord and love Him and pour out our souls in weeping and mourning until they’re empty of self and confusion, until all is quite in our minds and we’re left alone with the peace of God that passes understanding. He is our peace and you take Him out of your life and you have nothing but warfare and distress and trouble.

You take Jesus out of your mind and you’ll lose your mind. Take Him out of your heart and you’ll come to pieces. But Jesus said, “My peace I give you. Not as this world gives give I unto you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” If you want to see God, if you want to see a religion, a manifestation of a religion that the world needs to see, then look at that child of God who has learned even in the face of storm and conflict to walk in the serenity – of the peace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Then Jesus capped in all off when He said, “I’m going to give you a new commandment. That commandment is that you love one another even as I have loved you.” And He said, “By this shall all men know.” “If you want them to know that you’re my disciples, if you want the world to know you’ve got religion,” He says, “By this shall all men know that you’re my disciples.”

I think some of us have never read the rest because we have thought it’s because we’ve got the biggest church or because maybe we’ve got the most money, or because our name is what it is. Somehow we set priorities and get them turned around in a way that I think perhaps it grieves God. But He said, “If you want the world to know that you’re my disciples, have love one to another.”

When you see a man who loves somebody else in word and deed, you can say, there’s God at work. When you see a life that’s dominated and motivated not by selfishness but by unselfish love to others, there’s God revealed. It is a revelation of God, friends, when we love one another.

You see, the Corinthians liked to boast of their religious manifestations and display and they could brag about gifts and prophecies and all kinds of things. But Paul wrote to them correcting, regulating, and right in the center of it he said, “All of this is no more than sounding brass and tinkling cymbals unless you have love” (I Corinthians 13:1). You must have that love that comes from God on high and flows through you.

Ephesus was a proud church. It could boast of its works and its labors and its ability to try impostors and find them out and cast them out. It had discipline. It had structure. It had strength. But Jesus said, “If you don’t repent, I’m going to remove the candlestick from you because you left your first love” (Revelation 2:5).

What then is the answer for troubled hearts? The question that comes from the troubled heart of the Apostle Peter, “Why, why, why, Lord? I don’t understand what you’re doing and I don’t understand what you want out of me.” The answer comes ringing again, “Believe on me. Believe in God. Believe in a place that I’ve gone to prepare. Believe I’m coming again.”

The answer to that troubled heart that looks at Jesus and said, “Lord, I’ve lost my way. I don’t seem to know how to move one foot in front of the other. Lord, how do I get along in this world now?” The answer still comes ringing across the ages and falls on our hearts and ears this night. Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”

And the answer of Philip who wants to understand God and he can’t unravel the mysteries of theology and he wants to understand the Father, Jesus says, “All you need to do is look on me. Believe my words and believe my works. Receive the power of the Holy Ghost and learn how to pray.

Then the answer here is, “Love Jesus, obey His words. Let the Holy Ghost work through your life. Bare fruit of peace and love.” That’s the cure my friends for a troubled heart even in this twentieth century in which we live. Believe with all your heart. Get full of the Spirit. Learn to pray. Walk with God. Live in the Spirit. Receive His peace. Bear the fruits and your doubts and fears and troubles will vanish away in His presence. 

Jesus gives answers to the disciples’ questions, which revealed their troubled hearts and ours: Let not your heart be troubled.

Jesus said, “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.” Thomas then said, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” Here he stands in the presence of the Son of God with his heart filled with doubts and fears not understanding what Jesus is saying.
Jesus has told them He is soon to leave and is going where they cannot follow. They have come with troubled hearts not understanding what He is saying, not understanding the purpose of His life and ministry.

a. The Essence of Thomas’s Question
     Thomas is saying, “Lord we don’t know where you’re going. We don’t know the end of your ministry here. We don’t understand what you’re talking about. We don’t know the destination of your life. We can’t see the end. If we don’t know where you’re going, how can we know the way? You can’t know how to get to someplace that you don’t know where it is.”

b. Thomas’ Struggle
     What Thomas is struggling with – and indeed all the questions of these four men that we are looking at – each question is based on seeing with the natural eye in the here and now. Simon Peter wanted to be able to see Jesus and be in His presence constantly. He was worried about being separated from the Lord.
     Now Thomas wants to see the end of life, the end of life’s journey. He wants to see the end now. He wants to read the last chapter in the book before he lives it day by day. He wants to turn over to the back of the book of life and read what the end is.

The other questions that Philip and Judas asked of Jesus also reveal that they’re struggling with a thing called sight. They want a religion and a faith of seeing and understanding now. Oh, how comfortable and wonderful that would be. Isn’t it great when you are filled with understanding and enlightenment and questions vanish and clouds go away and darkness is pushed back and you’re filled with understanding and enlightenment and you’re able to answer questions. That’s a marvelous and wonderful experience. But God did not intend that we understand every step of the way and have every question answered even before it can be raised in our hearts.

If we could always see and understand everything that is happening to us then we would not know the joy of looking to God for guidance. We wouldn’t know the joy of experiencing that kind of faith that takes hold of the hand of Jesus and hangs on through thick and thin, when the going gets rough. We wouldn’t know the joy of preserving and fighting the good fight of faith and laying hold on eternal life. We wouldn’t know the power nor the strength that comes from being able to live by faith.

When you follow Jesus, you can expect some great things, some miraculous things. In the hour of darkness, you can expect light to burst through. In the hour of weakness, you can expect strength to flood your life. In the hour when clouds hang over, you can expect the clear sound of God’s voice reaching you and directing you. In the hour of death, you can expect Jesus to be there who is the resurrection and the life. When you follow Jesus, you don’t have to be afraid. When you follow Jesus, you don’t have to worry. When you follow Jesus, you don’t have to expect the worse. That was the first step.

Thomas can’t wait for the morning to come to see the light. He wants to know now – he is somewhat impatient. But Jesus is going to teach him that you don’t need to know the end in order to have faith in God. You don’t need to know the destination in order to have faith in God. All you need to know is the way. The way is a person – Jesus. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” Hallelujah! Oh, hallelujah!
Listen friend, you don’t have to know about tomorrow and you don’t have to know about next week and you don’t have to know about the end of the year and you don’t have to know about the end of your life and you don’t have to know what tomorrow will bring. All you need to know is the way and the way is Jesus Christ the Son of the living God. Hallelujah!
With your eyes upon Him, you can still walk even though you don’t know where the path will lead. With your eyes upon Him, you can walk in faith and understanding even though you don’t know what’s around the bend. With your eyes upon Jesus, He’s the way and you need never fear stumbling or falling by the wayside. He is the way. All you need to

Not only that, but He is the truth. We search diligently truth. We search for it in books. We search for it in speeches we hear. We search for it in people. We search for it in institutions. We search for truth. Sometimes we are almost cynical. We think we shall never find it never hear it. Our hearts are burdened and troubled because of confusion doubts. Clouds of doubts that float in on us and almost drown us with downpour of the spirit of doubts and fear.
The truth is not a book. The truth is a person – Jesus Christ the Son of God. To know Him – to have Him in your heart and mind – means to cast out of your life all doubt. To know the truth – that makes you free. Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.” Later He said, “If the son has made you free you shall be free indeed.”
To know this person who is the embodiment of truth is to be freed from ignorance about this world and the world to come. To know Him is to be freed and delivered from that haziness and confusion that seems to blanket our earth like the haze that blankets it from the pollution of our atmosphere.
This is a day when such confusion seems to reign and penetrates the hearts of the people. About the time you get faith built in one personality, suddenly it is shattered. I want to tell you, you can put your eyes on Jesus Christ and you need never have to walk in fear with any doubt with any worry in your mind because He said, “I am the truth.”

To Thomas He said, “All you need to know is – not only the way and the truth – but also the life, because I am the life.” You see, we’ve already seen the resurrection is not a day. The resurrection is Jesus. Life is not simply something you live. Life is a person you embrace. Christianity is a road you walk in the presence of the Son of God following His steps, walking by faith, living in His grace, living in His power, walking where He walked. Hallelujah!
I like the old song that says, “I don’t know about tomorrow. I just live from day to day. Many things about tomorrow I don’t seem to understand. I know who holds the future and I know He holds my hand.” You don’t have to know what the future holds. All you have to know is the one who holds future. He has His hand upon your life. He loves you. He’s going to do right by you. There will never be a day when you can bow in His presence say “Lord, you did me wrong, you let me down.”
Now I am tempted to say to Thomas, “Thomas, in your struggle for faith, I get impatient with you – your despair, your depression, your questions, your indifference, your lack of faith and vision and spirituality. Thomas, I get upset with you. Why in the world, when you’re standing in the presence of the Son of God, don’t you have a greater faith?”
But then Thomas speaks back to me and calls my name and says, “I can remember and I can point to those days when YOU struggled in the depths of depression and I can point to the days when YOU wrestled to find something to get your hand on to hold on to. I can point you to the days when your knees were shaking and your tongue was dung not filled with praises and adoration to God but filled with confusion and babbling.”
Yes, I could get impatient with Thomas if it weren’t for the fact that I know that road so well that He has walked. I know where he has stepped and I know his struggle and I understand it and so many times I want to see and I’m impatient but oh, you hear me, the message is real. Jesus is the way. Jesus truth. Jesus is the life.
No man can come to the Father but by Him. Through Jesus you can reach the throne. Through Jesus Christ you can reach God Almighty and His glorious power. He is the way you – can reach the throne. “Let not your heart be troubled,” Jesus said. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

But the story doesn’t end there. He’s going away from crowd; he somehow is not really a part of their faith just now. He can’t enjoy. He can’t rejoice. He can’t shout with exuberance that they have a resurrected Lord because he hasn’t seen him. But the story doesn’t there. The story doesn’t end with Thomas off to someplace with his buried down in his hands and sobbing out his own doubts and fears. But pays a special visit to him.
Jesus comes back and sees the group – but especially He comes to see Thomas. He says to him – He calls him by name, and He says, “Thrust your hand in my side. Look and see and feel Thomas.”
This lets me know that Jesus Christ the Son of God knows about you and He loves you and He understands you. This resurrected Lord will come across the centuries to you wherever you are in your moment of despair and gloom. You may be alone – you may not see your way – but Jesus Christ knows you.
He knows where you are. He loves you. He’ll come to you personally. He’ll come and call your name. Hallelujah! He will come with reassurance and with blessing and with grace.
You see, the Lord understands struggles for faith. He understands what doubt and fear can do. He understands how Satan beats some people up – beats up on them because of their lack of understanding and faith. So He comes. In these days of pressures and troubles, in these days of darkness, our Lord Jesus comes across the centuries so to speak and steps into our own heart and lives and He says, “Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe in me. Receive my spirit. Receive my peace.” Hallelujah!
Thomas fell on His face saying, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus said, “Blessed are you now Thomas because you have seen and believed, but oh, think about the others how blessed are they that have not seen and yet believe.” John is saying you don’t have to see with your natural eye to have faith in Jesus Christ.

This hour means not only doing the will of the Father, but this hour means also death. For He says, “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone.” He is saying that there is no way for a life to reproduce itself unless there is first death. Every seed that bears fruit and life and reproduces itself must first of all lose its own identity. It must die just as a grain of wheat falls into the ground and loses its shape and its identity and it dies only to have coming out of that very death and out of the remains of the ashes of that burned out life, a new plant of life that will spring forth and multiply itself many times and bear fruit.

Let the grain of wheat sown in weakness be sown but it will be raised in power and glory and that principle survives and lives. It’s in God’s Word. It’s in God’s will. It’s in God’s own purpose even for you and me because we can never hope to see the splendor of the new birth without first dying to self and to sin.

We can never expect to see the beauties of real yielded service to Jesus Christ unless our will is broken at the foot of the cross. We can never expect to walk in the light of truth until we have been down near the gates of the darkness of death and there thrown ourselves head long before the feet of the lovely Son of God and said, ” Lord Jesus, be the Lord of all my life.”
So He says, “..a grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die or it abides alone.” Look at that last part of that principle. A life of selfishness that refuses to bow down, a life that’s lived in selfishness that refuses God’s Word and God’s will, a life that’s lived in selfishness that refuses to surrender to the cross and to Jesus Christ, it abides alone in its own selfishness and becomes a living death failing to reproduce.

I want to tell you that if you and I can realize the complete fullness of what it means to live the crucified life then we’ll render a service to this world and the people around us such as we have never seen before. For when people who have been to Calvary and they come away with the dripping blood of Jesus covering their lives and their wills are crushed and they’re able to say, “Lord, not my will but Thine be done,” just as Jesus said, then they can go on mission with power and authority and have the great hand of God upon their life.

Jesus said, “What shall I say? Shall I say Father save me from this hour? Oh, no, because it was for this hour that I came into the world.” Oh, hallelujah! Here He is embracing the end of an earthly ministry so that can begin a heavenly one. Here He is embracing the invitation to come to the cross and to death – going in victory and strength and grace and power for He will say, “I have power of my own to lay down my life and no man can take it from me.”
     Jesus is going in triumph and glory and victory to the cross, hallelujah, so that every man who follows Him may be able to climb that mountain side and kneel on Golgotha’s brow until he is touched with holy blood and touched with holy purging fire and he comes away from there not his own, but yielded to God completely. Oh the joy, the joy, the unspeakable joy when self is hung on that cross. The unspeakable joy when all the threshing and striving is gone out of a soul and surrender is made to the will of God.

His words in verses 27 reveal His own commitment to the passion of suffering that’s ahead of Him. He says, “Now is my soul troubled;..” That’s the same word we looked at before in chapter eleven when He stood and going toward the grave of Lazarus, “His heart was troubled within Him.” When we looked at that word and what it really meant, that troubling means a mingling of grief and also wrath.
     When Jesus stood at the grave side of Lazarus He was grieving and yet was filled with wrath because of the ugliness of death and filled with wrath because He knew that it would cost Him His life when He gave Lazarus his life. He now stands faced with the surrender of His own will and again His soul is troubled. That means a deep shaking experience – convulsions, grief and wrath. Grief over what sin has done to the people of the world. Grief for the people but wrath toward sin. Grief toward the pitiful plight of humanity but wrath toward that enemy that has sown man under.
     Oh, I want to tell you, Jesus in this hour when His soul is troubled said, “Shall I say Father deliver me? No, it was for this hour came I into the world.” Like it is in Matthew, Mark and Luke, the prayer in the garden when He prays three times, “If it be possible let this cup pass from me,” ending each prayer with that solemn commitment to His suffering and passion when He says, “Not my will but Thine be done.” This is John’s account of His surrender to the will of God.

I want to tell you that there is some heart searching and there is some grief process and there is some troubling of the heart when you come face to face with whether or not you do God’s will. Because you see, the divine will of God coming down in a vertical position from His holy Word and from God on high cuts across the will of your own life. And where it cuts across, that’s where your cross is raised up and that’s where you have to decide whether you will be crucified or whether you will say, “What shall I say of my life? Shall I save myself from this hour or this commitment? Shall I save myself from this price I pay for consecration and service?”
     That’s where you decide to say that, or, “No, this is God’s will and this is the place of God’s purpose and this is the place where God uses me and touches my life.” You hear me today, the most wonderful place you’ll ever find is that place at the altar somewhere where you lay yourself there before God and you tell him, “Lord, not my will but Thine be done.” Hallelujah!
     I want you to see something beautiful. When He said this, “Father, glorify Thy name.” When He said, “For this hour came I into the world.” When He made known publicly His commitment to death – being sown in death like a grain of wheat – the heavens opened up and the voice of the heavenly Father was heard thundering down words of approval.
     I want to tell you friends, when you obey God and when you surrender your will to God’s will, that’s when the heavens open up to you. That is when the voice of Father, you can hear it. That’s when the hand of God reaches down to you. Hallelujah! For in that surrender, you allow the will of God to flow through your life. In that surrender and the time when you quit struggling in your own strength, you allow the strength of God, the Holy Ghost to come flooding and filling your life. When you quit fighting against God, His divine power can fight through you for His glory and honor.
     It is a surrender that is victorious. It is a surrender that brings power. It is a surrender that brings glory. It pays off in this world and in the world to come. The approval of the Father – cherish that thought. It is better to have God’s approval upon your life than the approval of anyone in this world. Seek earnestly to be approved of God. The hour is come!

Just as an example, in the Pentateuch the first five books of the Bible, we have God’s relationship to the patriarchs and the establishment of the priesthood system that would set up a way by which offering for sin could be made and man could stand justified before God. In the historical books, we have the story of the kingdom of Israel. In the prophetical books, we have the messages of the prophets related to not only the abominations of the nations round about Israel but specific corrections and warnings and prophesies. We have pastoral prophecies as well as futurist predictions and prophecies as it related not only to the people of God in Israel, but also to the church that would come.
There came a time however, when the priesthood system grew utterly and absolutely corrupt and lost its efficiency. As a matter of fact, it would become the subject matter of the prophets as they would simply try to correct the abuses and the sinfulness of the priesthood system. The kingdom of Israel itself faded away into oblivion and the Hebrew people were just lost, swallowed up and scattered throughout the nations of the world. Finally the voices of the prophets themselves were silent.
But the need for all that – for God to have a priesthood people, for God to have a kingdom that could be identified as the kingdom of the Lord, and for Him to have voices of prophets – all the needs still persisted.

So because of the promise and fulfillment element that is just simply written in to the word of God, all this came to focus and center upon the person and ministry of Jesus Christ. In Him is represented indeed the great high priest. In Him is represented the voice of the greatest prophet of all time. In Him is represented the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So that everything that was seen in the Old Testament comes to sharp focus and is pinpointed on the life and death and resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.
What the gospel writers and what others would say is that the whole world hinges around Him, even all creation; that the entire people of God are closely fastened to Him; and that He indeed is the head of the church and the heart of the church. Everything revolves around Him. He becomes the center and focal point of all worship – past, present and future. Oh, hallelujah! To know that Jesus Christ is Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ is Son of God, Jesus Christ is Savior, this is the fulfillment of all that was prayed for and longed for and hoped for by the people of the Old Testament times.

When we look at the gospel of Matthew, the emphasis in that gospel is on the King – the King of the Jews, the King of Israel – because the word kingdom is used over fifty times in that gospel. It is one of the great emphases and perhaps the theological center of the gospel of Matthew. What Matthew wants people to understand is that Jesus is not only the suffering servant, but indeed He is Messiah. He is King. He is King of the Jews. He is King indeed of the whole wide world and he keeps on piling up the emphasis there.
He traces in his birth narrative the lineage of Jesus so that it will be directly connected to the Jews because His gospel seems to be a more Jewish gospel than any one of the others. So he traces the lineage of Jesus back through King David, back to Abraham so that he would tie Jesus in absolutely directly with the Jewish nation and the Jewish people and all their heritage and all their hopes and all their promises.

The gospel of Luke takes a little different aim because it seems to be written from a Gentile perspective that would show Jesus as the great prophet who would come and present His message of love to the entire world. In the birth narrative of Luke, he also traces the lineage of Jesus not only back to David, but on beyond David to Abraham and on beyond Abraham to Adam, to every man because he wants the whole world to know, not just the Jews. He wants the whole world to know that Jesus is indeed the Savior of the whole world.

But when we come to the gospel of John, the emphasis is mainly on Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God. Yes, He will be seen as the great priest and we’ll look at that. He will be seen as the great prophet of all times. He will be seen in all of the many facets of His ministry but as I have already read to you as far as John is concerned, His primary purpose is that people would believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that believing that they might have life through His name.

To the Greeks the word LOGOS meant some divine supernatural principle that they did not understand by which you measured all of your intellect and reason and understanding. It was some principle that seemed hold the whole universe together and although they could not quite identify it as Jesus and understand exactly what it was, John came along and was able to accommodate them and say the LOGOS that you mentioned, the divine principle of rationality and reason that indeed holds the universe together, that is none other than Jesus Christ the Son of God that I preach. So it had a special meaning to them.

To the early church LOGOS meant the preached word. What happens when the word is preached? To them it was like the Jews, it was also very dynamic. They never saw the word as static or necessarily as a scroll of a book. They didn’t worship a book. They worshiped a dynamic God who operated in the words of the book. Oh, I want to tell you as John used that word then, he was building a bridge to three different worlds.
So John just simply does all kinds of things to make sure that he reaches his world and they understand. So he is going to reach the Jews and the Greeks and the church by the use of this one same word and he’s going to say that LOGOS, the word, was in the beginning with God. Not only that, but it was God. That is the way he starts the story of his gospel.