Latest / The TakeAway / John 14:1-7 How Do I Know Where God Wants Me to Go?

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John 14:1-7 How Do I Know Where God Wants Me to Go? · The TakeAway

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Many Christians have wondered what God wants them to do with their lives.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: We want to follow Him, but often we find ourselves waiting for clear direction before we are willing to move.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we know where God wants us to go?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: In John chapter 14, Thomas asks Jesus essentially that same question: Lord, we do not know where you are going.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: How can we know the way?
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus does not give him the destination on that or set of instructions.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: He gives Thomas something far greater.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: He gives him himself.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: In this message, Pastor Harry examines what Jesus means when he says, I am the way, and why following God depends less on knowing where he is taking us and more on knowing the one who is leading us.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Here's Pastor Harry Barens with today's message.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome again to the takeaway where we search the scriptures to receive the reward of knowing who God is and finding rest for our souls in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, before we begin today, I want you to remember a time that you or someone you know said, I just want to know what my calling is.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'm supposed to do, and I don't know where I'm supposed to be.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: Or if he would just tell me where, then I would go.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: We have all heard it and we have all said it.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: And it is one of the most asked questions in the church and one of the most sought-after answers because we think that if we could just know the destination, if we could just know clearly where Jesus wants us to go, we would go and do exactly as he asked of us.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: But if we're honest with ourselves, the phrase often does another job also, because it lets us say that if he does not tell me, then I do not have to go.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds so reasonable that nobody could fault us for it.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it sits on the same ground as the two excuses we heard in our last episode: that if we are not gifted for something or not called to it, we don't have to go.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_01: But each of those excuses protects our comfort and assumes that if we only had the information, that we would actually move.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the very question the disciples are asking Jesus right now.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: He has just told them that he is leaving and that where he is going, they cannot come yet.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now Peter asked him where he was going and then said, I will lay down my life for you.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answered him, Will you lay down your life for me?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: And now we're going to see Thomas ask it again in his own words, where he says, Lord, we do not know where you are going.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: And underneath both of them is the same thing we hear in the church today.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: What must I do and where must I go?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus has already told these men something that surprises us just before Thomas spoke.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: He said, You know the way.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: And what he is telling them is that they already have what they need to go, and that what gets in the way of our going lives in us, and what we love and what we want to hold in our own hands.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: We tend to think the answer is on the outside, in a clearer word from God about where to be.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus points to what is on the inside, which is the same thing he brought to the surface in Peter.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: So what we're going to learn today is how to see what stands between us and going, as we look at John chapter 14, verses 1 through 7, and as we watch Thomas bring to Jesus the very thing we say to each other and to ourselves, that he does not know the way.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we're going to find out what Jesus gives to a man who says that, which is far better than giving us directions, because directions can only tell us where to go.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what Jesus gives takes us there.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: So with that, let's begin in John chapter 14, verses 1 through 4.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Let not your hearts be troubled.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Believe in God, believe also in me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: In my Father's house are many rooms.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also, and you know the way to where I am going.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now in our last episode, we heard these words as comfort, and they are, but there is so much more to them because Jesus is also answering a question that has been with them since chapter 13, verse 33, when he told them that where he is going they cannot come.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then Peter asked in chapter 13, verse 36, when he said, Lord, where are you going?
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when we lay those verses side by side, we find that Jesus actually told them where he is going and who it is that is going to take them there.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: But he also tells them what they are to do until that time comes.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus makes it clear that he is going to his father's house and that he is the one who prepares the place and that he will come again and take them to himself.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what they are to do until then is let their hearts rest in him, because that is what it means to believe in God.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that is also what he is asking of them when he says, Believe in God, believe also in me, in verse one.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So now let's count the actions in those verses, because every one of them belongs to Jesus.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: It says, He goes, prepares, comes, and takes.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_01: Those four verses ask the disciples to believe, and they place the way and the getting there in his hands.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: And that is why I say that he did tell them, which is why when we say about ourselves, he never told us where to go, we have to ask ourselves what we're expecting him to actually tell us.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because what he told them is that he will gather them to where he is.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that is a promise that he carries out for them.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And as we see, there is a pattern in those actions that runs all through the scriptures, because the God who goes ahead of his people is the same God who is with them.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And both are true at the exact same time.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: We see it in Deuteronomy chapter 31, verse 8, where Moses stands with Joshua in front of all of Israel at the edge of a land they have never entered, and he says, It is the Lord who goes before you.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: Do not fear or be dismayed.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And then Paul shows us how far that going ahead actually reaches when he says in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that God is at work in us right now.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: And he was at work ahead of us, preparing the works we will walk in.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: So when Jesus says that he goes to prepare a place, he is doing what he has always done.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: He goes ahead.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And this is what the disciples are struggling to understand, and what we struggle to understand, that when Jesus goes ahead, we think we are no longer with him, as if going ahead meant being left behind.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: But he is with us and before us, which means that the one who goes ahead is also the one we can rest in.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that word rest is not something I am adding to these verses, because the writer of Hebrews says in chapter 4, verse 9 and 10, so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: So the rest God gives is a rest from our works, the very works we have been measuring ourselves by, and it is waiting for the people of God.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where the excuse he never told me costs us the most because it is the voice that says, Tell me where to go and what to do, and I will.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes the rest he is giving and swaps it for a job we have assigned to ourselves, which is to work out the way on our own and then feel stuck when we cannot get there.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where the answer to that excuse begins.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because in this same conversation, Jesus tells them that he will ask the Father to give them a helper, as we're going to see in verse 16.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But for now, Jesus gives the disciples more than a promise to wait on, because he gives them a guide.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: And he names that guide in verse 17 as the spirit of truth and says of him, You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that the disciples have been led all along by the Spirit who is in Jesus, the same Spirit who will be in them, and they will go on being led, because he is how we wait on Jesus and move when Jesus says to move, as he is the one who works in us and takes us to where Jesus wants us, even on the days when we do not understand where we are or why he is taking us the way that he is.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: And because going away can sound like being abandoned, Jesus says in verse 18, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that the one who leaves is the one who comes, and the spirit he sends is how we are held in the meantime, as we're going to see in verse 15 through 21.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: But for right now, it is enough to see that Jesus going away leaves them with a guide and a promise.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that brings us back to verse 2 and to the place he says he is going to prepare.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there is a great deal of misunderstanding around that place, and some of it is built into the English words themselves.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, In my father's house are many rooms, and the word translated rooms is the Greek word monai, which comes from the verb meno, meaning to abide or to remain or to dwell.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So meno is an abiding place, a place where someone remains, and it is a word about staying.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: It shows up only twice in the whole of the New Testament, right here in John chapter 14, verse 2, and then again in chapter 14, verse 23, where Jesus says that the Father and He will come to the one who loves him and make our home with him.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the verb that this word comes from is the one Jesus uses over and over in chapter 15, when he says in verse 4, Abide in me and I in you.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: Now, many of us grew up with the King James Version, which reads, In my father's house are many mansions.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: And that word comes from the Latin Bible, which has mansions, and in the English of that day, a mansion meant a dwelling, a place to stay.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, over time that word came to mean a large estate.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the picture many of us carry back to this verse: a house of our own with a better address than the one we have now.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also a second picture that goes along with it.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of Jesus as a builder at work in heaven, putting up houses.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_01: But look at how he ties the preparing to his own going when he says, If I go to prepare a place for you, because the preparing is the going, and the going is the cross and the grave and the ascension.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: So the work he describes is the work of his own going.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now I understand how easily we hear it that way, because I have heard it said to my face.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Many years ago, as a new believer, I was at a men's retreat, and a few of us were sharing a room in a dorm.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And after a few days of being in continual fellowship, I thought how great this was.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, I look forward to this in eternity.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the men in that room answered me, and I have never forgotten what he said.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: He said, I'll have my own house, and we won't be together in that sense.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: But each of us will have his own place in heaven.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_01: And it stung a little because it sounded as though my fellowship would be in the way.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: But what stayed with me was how quickly the word rooms had turned into property, and how a verse that was meant to point us to him can end up pointing us to the property instead.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's a danger in that, and it's bigger than we can cover in today's conversation.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: But what it shows us is that we take the idea of what this world rewards, and we carry it into heaven with us, so that the house we never got here, or the one we always wanted, becomes the one that is waiting for us there.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, verse two says that a place is being prepared.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: And Hebrews 11:6, which we're going to come to in a few minutes, says that he rewards those who seek him.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: So the scriptures speak of both a place and a reward.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus defines the place in a few words when he says, Where I am, you may be also.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: And everything about the place is answered by who is there.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: The size of the rooms, the address, and the view are left unsaid.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_01: And the one thing the verse names is him, because the destination has always been him, and it always will be.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now we see the same heart all through the scriptures.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: In Psalm chapter 90, verse 1, the psalmist says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And on the night he was betrayed, Jesus prays to the Father in John chapter 17, verse 24.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: He says, Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundations of the world.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that where I am, in 14, 3, is where the glory is.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what Jesus wants for us is to be with him there to see it.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And Psalm chapter 73, verse 25 gives us the heart of that longing, where the psalmist says, Whom have I in heaven but you?
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then in Revelation chapter 21, verse 3, John hears a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that the heart of verse 2 is the one who is in the house.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the longing that Jesus is forming in us is a longing for him.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that is the same instinct underneath that protects our comfort now and imagines a more comfortable heaven later.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the verse answers both by pointing us to him.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So when he says that he goes to prepare a place for us, he is going to reveal more of who he is, so that we may dwell with him for all eternity, knowing him more fully, and knowing him more fully produces more praise, which ultimately gives him more glory.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: And right into that, Thomas speaks in verse five and said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: How can we know the way?
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to be fair to Thomas here, because this is the same Thomas who said in John chapter 11, verse 16, when Jesus was heading toward the danger in Judea, he said, Let us also go that we may die with him.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that desire is real.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus answers him with the tenderness and gives him more than the question asks for.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the question also brings something to the surface, the same way Peter's offer did, because Thomas is holding a picture.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: He has an image of where Jesus is going and of where he and the others stand in relation to that.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: The picture has just stopped working in his own mind.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: So he asks for the information that would fix it, which is a destination, something he can hold.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, he is doing what all of us do without meaning to, because none of us chases our own glory on purpose.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: John gave us the root of it back in chapter 12, verse 43, where he says, They love the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: It is something inherent in us, below the surface, that builds an image and then lives by it, an image of God, of our relationships, of our finances, of where we think God wants us to be.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: The disciples believed they were right where Jesus wanted them.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: And in one sense, they were.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: But in another sense, they had not yet reached their final destination.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_01: And they couldn't see that he goes ahead to prepare a place and that they would follow afterward.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Thomas asks for the way so that he could be the one who walks it.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: And Peter offered his life so that he could be the one who gave it.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a kind of legalism that says, Tell me where to go and what to do, and I will, which sounds like devotion, and it keeps the doing in our own hands.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Peter shows us what the information does because he was told in chapter 13, verse 38, exactly what was coming, that he would deny Jesus three times, and in the courtyard he did.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the difference between Thomas and the excuse that says he never told me is what each one does with not knowing.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas brings it to Jesus, and that is where it gets answered.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: The excuse says it quietly to ourselves, and what it means is that if he does not tell us, we don't have to go.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: That is where it stays.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: But what Thomas asks for is information.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Peter measured by what he could do, and Thomas measures by what he can know.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: In both cases, the measure is in the disciples' hands.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: So Jesus moves it back to himself when he answers him in verse six and says, I am the way and the truth and the life.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: No one comes to the Father except through me.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_01: Now Thomas asked for the way, and Jesus answered with a person.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of saying that he will show him the way or that he knows the way, he says, I am the way.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that I am has a history in this gospel.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter 6, verse 35, he said, I am the bread of life.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter 8, verse 12, he said, I am the light of the world.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: In chapter 10, verse 9, he said, I am the door.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: And in chapter 10, verse 11, he said, I am the good shepherd.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Every time what he gave was himself.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the way to the Father's house is a person, and knowing the way is knowing him.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: That answers the question Thomas thought he was asking.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because if the way is a person, then what Thomas needs is the one who is standing right in front of him.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was never about where to place the next step or which action to take.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: The one who is the way takes us to the place that we can't go to in our own strength.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what Jesus has already told them in verse three, when he said, I will come again and will take you to myself.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now let me say that one more time.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas asked for the way, and Jesus gave him himself.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's a second sentence in verse six, and Jesus does not stop to explain it.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: He says, No one comes to the Father except through me.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: He says, No one, which includes every man who was listening to him that night, and everyone who has sat where we are sitting ever since.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And he says, Through me, which gives the Father's house one entrance.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it fits what he said in chapter 10 when he called himself the door.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now a lot of people hear this sentence as a closed door, but when it was spoken, it was an answer to a man who did not know the way, because it tells him that there is a way, that there is only one, and that he is standing right in front of him.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now that narrowness is the kindness of it, because a man who does not know the way is told exactly where the way is.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the other two words in the first sentence, the truth and the life, carry weight also.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: He is the truth, which means that what he has shown us of the Father is the Father as He is.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: He is the life, which means that the life we receive is his to give.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's one more connection to hold on here, also.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: If he is the way and the Father's house is where the Father is, then the way and the house meet in him, as Jesus is going to say in verse 23.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus keeps speaking to Thomas, and in verse 7 he says, If you had known me, you would have known my father also.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: From now on you do know him and have seen him.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now Jesus says the same thing here that he cried out in chapter 12, verse 45, when he said, Whoever seems Sees me, sees him who sent me.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: Which means to know him is to know the Father.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: And he tells them that this is already true of them, that from now on they do know him and have seen him.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Which means that the answer to how do I know the way?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer to how do I know the Father are the same answer, which is to know him.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus tells us in John chapter 17, verse 3, what that knowing is, when he said, And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the place we are being brought to is the knowledge of who the Father is and of Jesus Christ, whom he sent.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that is where he has already brought us before we ever asked for directions.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has just told them that they have seen the Father, which sets up what the next man in line is going to ask.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that leaves us one more piece before we move on.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: If the way is a person, and knowing that person is knowing the Father, then what remains is where we come to know him.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_01: And Hebrews chapter 11, verse 6 gives us the answer.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_01: It says, And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Now this verse tells us that faith is what pleases him, and the reward belongs to those who seek him.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the reward is himself, which is the reward we search the scriptures to receive.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: So the questions of where to come to know him has an answer, because he is found where he is sought.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: He is found in the scriptures, which Jesus said in chapter 5, verse 39, bear witness about him, and in prayer, which he speaks to in the verses that follow in this chapter.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then he says, He is found in the walk of following him, which he speaks to when we reach chapter 14, verses 21 and 23.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: The scriptures, prayer, and our walk are the very places where he has chosen to be found, and that is where the I don't know gets answered.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to be careful here because seeking can sound like one more thing that we generate.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: Paul says in Philippians chapter 2, verse 13, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_01: What that means is that even the desire to seek him is something that he produces in us.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_01: So seeking him can be done at rest, because the desire to know him above all else is itself a gift from him.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_01: What we see is that Jesus answers the statement, I don't know the way, by giving us himself.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: Then he puts us in the places where he is found, and the finding is his to give.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: So let me bring this back to the problem that we started with, that if he would just tell us where, then we would go.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: But Jesus has already told us what he told them that he is going to prepare a place, that he will come again, and that he will take us to himself, that where he is, we may be also.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And what he said is a promise that he carries out.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that the going was never ours to do.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: The way is a person, and he is taking us to a place we can't go in our own strength.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: So what he asks for is faith in the one who is doing the work and the desire for him to work in us.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that is what faith says.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: It says, Lord, work in me to make me who you want me to be, and to take me where you want me to go.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And in that, let me see you and know you and enjoy you, and have the fullness of joy that you want me to have, so that I may praise you for your glorious grace.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, praise is what he is producing in us, and what we do becomes that praise, the fruit of where he has already brought us, which is the knowledge of who the Father is and of Jesus Christ, whom he sent.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: The destination is, has, and always will be him.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that is why Proverbs chapter 16, verse 9 can say, The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: So we can plan our way, and the Lord establishes our steps, including the ones we did not know to take.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And the faith we are asked for is trust in the one who established them, and who is the way.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: So now I have to ask, what is it that we are waiting for Jesus to tell us when he has already given us himself?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas asked for the way, and Jesus gave himself.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: So seek him in his word and in prayer, desire him above all else, and move as he reveals, and rest in the one who is doing the work.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you for sending your son to be the way to you.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: Forgive us for saying that if you would only tell us we would go, and for using it to stay where it is comfortable.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: Work in us, Lord, to take us where you want us to go, that we may know you and enjoy you and praise you for your glorious grace.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: We ask this in your precious name.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now I want to thank you again for joining us today, and I hope this message has helped you rest in the one who is the way.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if anything today resonated with you, if you have any questions or comments, please click on the text us link in the episode description, or you can visit us at thetaway.faith, as we would truly love to hear from you.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we have heard that the way is a person, and that leads us to the next man to speak, because in verse 8, Philip says, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: Thomas asked to know the way.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Philip asks to see the Father, and what Jesus says to him takes us into some of the deepest words in this whole gospel about who the Father is and who the Son is.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: God bless, and we'll see you next time on the takeaway.