for the invitation to spend this week with you. And we would especially like to thank you for the very gracious and warm reception we received on arrival yesterday afternoon. In recent years, Grace and I have traveled extensively and we've stayed in hotels and motels and guest homes, but we've never received such a beautiful reception as we did yesterday afternoon. And we are very grateful to you and to the Lord. Together with my son, just a few months ago, we had the opportunity of listening to a very brilliant professor of biology from one of your leading universities. He was speaking to a class of graduate students, and he reminded them that there is no creator God. There is no purpose or design in this cosmos. There are no moral values that govern our lives, and there is nothing after the moment of death. I tried in my own way to put myself into the shoes of one of those graduate students to understand his feelings as he heard words like that, whether he had a deep sense of hopelessness or of futility. Paul spoke about the world of two thousand years ago and he said to the Ephesians, you were without hope. They had lots of religion, great place for sports, great place for learning. One of the great libraries of the world was located in Ephesus. But the average person knew there was no confident, sure hope of anything. I would like this week that we're going to be together to deal with the subject of hope. And those of us who have the opportunity of teaching, we sometimes glean from our previous studies, and we sometimes add current studies, and I would like to do that during this week. I'm going to invite you this morning to turn to John's Gospel Chapter Thirteen, John's Gospel Chapter Thirteen. Now while you're looking for the portion, let's imagine this morning that your name is Peter and that you were born in a small fishing village right on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Your father was a fisherman, probably your grandfather. It's a fishing village. And when you grew up to be a little boy of maybe six or seven, eight years of age, you were taken out one night for the first time. on that little frail fishing boat, and you spent the hours of a long night with your father as he fished. We would call it child labor today, but that's the way the world was two thousand years ago, and that's how you began to learn the trade of fishing. You were still too young to really know that there was great despair in your community, in your nation. Matter of fact, some people had given up hope altogether. The Bible calls them the Herodians. They simply followed the king and got everything they could out of every day of life. They'd really given up their traditions and their convictions and their religion. But you were too young to know that because in your family there probably was still a very quiet but deep hope. you would hear about the term Messiah when you were very young. You probably would ask your mother what it meant. And she would tell you, well, God is going to send somebody to help us. And that somebody is going to be the Messiah, the sent one from God. And as you grew a little older and you heard that babies were being born, every time you heard that there was a new baby boy in the community, you wondered. Will he be the Messiah? Will he be the one that will bring us real liberty and hope and give us the opportunity to realize our ideals and all the things that we have been wondering about and hoping for and praying for? But you'd watch that little boy for a few months, maybe a year or two, and then you would say to yourself, he's not the Messiah. And you don't want anything to do with those who grew up into the hills of Judea. And up there they train as warriors, and then they come down into the plains of Judea, and they're going to fight the Romans. And the Romans simply set in motion their great military machine and crush them without mercy. But even so, you maintain the hope. There's going to be a change. The Messiah will come. And one day your brother comes along and you expect, you respect your brother and he says to you, Peter, I think we found the Messiah. Now if anyone else had said that to you, I'm sure you would have smiled and thought, here's another way out idea, but your brother is someone you respect. And when he says, I think we found the Messiah, you pay attention, you listen. And after he talks to you a little bit about this person, he says, I'd like you to come with me and meet this man. So you leave the fishing for one day and the way you go with your brother, and I really don't know how to describe the moment when you met Jesus for the first time. I think if you were walking down the trail towards where he was, you might have seen him in the distance standing with a few men and talking, and there would be nothing special about him. He didn't wear a uniform. There was no halo around his head. He would look like an average man, among others, chatting some afternoon. And when you got up close to him, he didn't raise his voice and shout at you. And if he was near a table, he didn't bang the table to emphasize what he was saying. He was just talking, like ordinary people talk. But it's what he said. You had never in your life heard anything like this. Now you were brought up in the Sabbath schools. You had many Jewish teachers. They brought you through the book we call the Old Testament. They told you all the main stories. You'd heard it all. But you'd never heard anyone speak with such authority, not in the volume of the voice. But what he said... and the conviction with which he said it. To borrow from J.B. Phillips, it had the ring of truth. And you knew he wasn't joking. This was something that he knew from experience. He was talking about the kingdom of God. I don't know how long you talked with him. And then he said to you, Peter, why don't you leave the fishing? Come with me. And I'll make you a fisher of men. And you didn't need two minutes. Right then. you decided I'm going to leave everything, and I'm going to follow this person. Now you've had three great years, but you've seen people who have died. You were actually present when he stopped a funeral procession, and a young man was restored to life and given back to his mother. You saw people who were born as some of the children in my country are born and their feet are all doubled and crippled, and they can't walk. And you saw people like that lame from birth, and Jesus spoke to them, and they were healed, and they ran, and they jumped. You'd never seen anything like that. People who were blind from birth, never seen the blue of the sky, the green of the trees, The vivid colors, the flowers, never seen anything like that. And he opened their eyes. And you'll never forget the first impressions on the face when they saw those beauties. Even those who were born deaf never heard the tone of a mother's voice. And he healed them, and they heard for the first time beautiful, beautiful experiences. And yet nothing compared to what he said. and what he was teaching you about God and about the kingdom of God. The last three months have been difficult months. You know there's a conspiracy in Jerusalem. The highest authorities are determined to kill Jesus, but you're not too preoccupied. I would suggest the reason is you probably rationalize like this, if he can raise the dead. if he can heal the sick, if he can feed the hungry. We don't have to worry about a conspiracy up in Jerusalem. Now it's in that setting that you're together with your fellow disciples and Jesus is speaking to you. And down in verse thirty-three of our chapter he says, little children, and I'd like to stop there for a moment, John thirteen and verse thirty-three, little children Let's look at this group of men. Most scholars believe that they were all more or less the same age. Some would suggest that Peter may have been a few years, two, three, four years older than the Lord Jesus. John, according to some, possibly a cousin of the Lord Jesus, may have been two or three years younger, but they were all more or less the same age. And here is one. who says to his companions, little children. Now in August of this year, in God's goodwill, Grace and I are going out to the west coast of Canada to spend the month with our three families and our seven grandchildren, and it'll be a beautiful time. And I might say to my grandchildren, who range from the age of five up to about eleven, I might say to them, little children that would seem appropriate, I'm a mature man now and they're very young children. The last time I was there, one of them, a beautiful little girl with lovely brown eyes, climbed up on my knee and cuddled down and looked up to me and she said, Grandad, you're not really an old man, are you? That was once when a teacher was speechless and wasn't sure just what to answer. But when you are my age, you can say that, little boys and girls, little children. But here is the Lord Jesus saying to those who appear to be more or less his own age, little children. And the way he talks indicates he may look similar, but there is a major difference here. It is a term of love, of intimacy, but it does also speak of someone who is superior in many ways to those that surround him. He doesn't say it with arrogance. Arrogance is with tenderness. Little children. You've heard it before. And then the Lord Jesus answered, I shall be with you a little while longer. Now if a bomb ever went off in your mind, it exploded right then. And the mixed feelings of indignation. of confusion. You never asked to go with Jesus. Jesus asked you to leave everything and followed him, and you said yes. And now after three years in a moment of crisis, he says to you, I'm leaving. You may have been speechless for a moment, but Peter's temperament would indicate you wouldn't keep quiet very long. As the Lord Jesus goes on and speaks to them, He says, You will take me. And as I said to the Jews, Where I am going, you cannot come. Now I think that would provoke you to say something. And so when you come down to verse thirty-six, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going? Now that question evidently brings to our mind that Peter didn't have an idea in the world what the Lord Jesus was talking about. And the Lord Jesus simply reiterates what he has already said. Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward. And that doesn't help one little bit. That there's going to be some possible reunion later on. That does not help you because what you want is his presence right now. The last thing in the world that you want is separation from the Lord Jesus. I think Peter, deal gently with Peter, is a man committed to Jesus. He is a man passionately committed to him, a man of a deep, profound love for Jesus. And he's confused. Why, out of the blue, as far as he's concerned, the Lord Jesus would make an announcement like this? So again he speaks, and down in verse thirty-seven Peter said to him, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake. The way he speaks reminds me of an incident up in New York City. We were in New York City for six weeks with the Spanish-speaking congregations in that great city. And we had one question and answer, period. Those of us who are sometimes put behind the microphone to answer questions, and you often wonder what is coming and how you will handle it. Well, we got through the hour, and it was a good hour. It was time to close. And I said, we'll just have a word of prayer. But before I could close my eyes, here was the man on his seat with his hand. I've got one more question, sir. Well, I asked him what the question was. Well, it was kind of a long question. And when he made the question, he went right on and gave his answer to the question. And I said, I like that. So we'll just have a final word of prayer and we close the session. There are people who ask and they answer questions. I think Peter's doing that. He says here, Lord, why can I not follow you now? I think implied in the question is the thought, is it dangerous? Because then he adds, I will lay down my life for you. Now I know he denied the Lord. Just remember in passing this morning, he denied the Lord in the time of separation. But he did not want. But right now you have a man who's saying to the Lord Jesus, I would rather be with you and with death. than be without you and live. He is committed to the Lord Jesus. These men are confused as they hear what Jesus is saying to them, not just Peter, but his fellow disciples. And so when you come down to chapter fourteen, the Lord who knows their thoughts, he begins to tell them some beautiful things about life after this world. what awaits us on the coming day. He begins in verse one, Let not your heart be troubled. Now, I'm sure if I'd been standing beside you, and your name is Peter, I probably would have heard you mumble under your breath. Well, it's easy to say that, but I am deeply troubled. But the Lord Jesus says, Let not your heart be troubled. And then he adds a thought. Scholars tell us it's difficult to translate this second phrase of verse one. And some would suggest that perhaps the best way, but not the only way, is to use the imperative twice. Now in my translation it reads, you believe in God, believe also in me. If we take the other suggestion, believe in God, believe also in me, but not like this. Believe in God and believe also, no, no, that way. is to believe in God and to believe in the Lord Jesus. The Christological impact there is overwhelming. I'm not sure that the disciples understood it on that occasion, but he's telling them it's the same thing. You have confidence in God. You ought to have confidence in me. Then begin the list of beautiful things in my father's house or many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. I'm not sure what you feel about that last phrase. Some have always imagined that the Lord, like a master builder, is putting up the great mansions for his people as we wait his coming. But I remember as a young man, my father, who was a good Bible scholar, he typed on this portion once and he asked the question, where did Jesus go? And if you think it through, where he went was to the cross. And it's in that work at Calvary that he opened the door, through which we enter into the fullness of God's presence forever and ever. We'll talk about this a little farther into the week. He did all that was necessary when he gave his life, and he died for us, and in his blood we've been justified, and we are ready through God's grace. to enter into his presence forever. Then he adds, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. And now may I suggest you have one of the most tender phrases in all of John's writings, if in perhaps all of the New Testament. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. And then the last phrase that where I am, There you may be also widens the horizon before the Christian to unbelievable dimensions of majesty and glory and authority forever. It almost sounds like it's the seed thought which you find developed in the writings of Paul when he tells us that God gave us life together with Christ. and He raised us up together with Christ, and He made us fit together with Christ in heavenly places. That's what Jesus said, that where I am, there you may be also, and it staggers the imagination. I do wonder why the Lord Jesus did not stop at the end of verse three. It might have avoided for us a lot of confusing issues, But no, you have verse four, and where I go you know, and the way you know. Now we've just heard Peter say, we don't know where you are going. Asking the question, where are you going? And I think in a sense he's the mouthpiece for all of the disciples. They do not understand what the Lord Jesus is saying. But the Lord Jesus says, where I go you know. and the way you know." So the issue would seem to be that he had spoken clearly about what lay ahead, but the disciples were slow to understand. There's one portion in Mark's Gospel where he speaks about dying and to be raised against a life, and they were puzzled and they didn't tell anyone what he said. and they debated amongst themselves, what does this mean to be raised again from the dead, which to us indicates they never for a moment took it literally. So it's not that Jesus had not prepared them, there were certain things they simply could not entertain, that the Messiah of God should die That is an intolerable thought in the Jewish community, even to this present time. The Messiah of God comes into the world in power and glory and authority, and He will set up the kingdom of God. He does not come to suffer and to pass through shame and agony and to die. And they understand many Jewish scholars, and I speak most respectfully this afternoon, They read Isaiah fifty-three, and they still believe that Israel is the collective Son of God, the servant of God, and it's the nation that suffers, not the Messiah. The Messiah never comes to suffer. This is the background of these men, and they must have tried to spiritualize in some way the very clear teachings of the Lord Jesus, that he must die and then be raised again from the dead. Now Thomas is there. I also ask you to deal gently with Thomas. I do not think he's a cynic. I think he's one of those quiet men, men who listen and think and make judgment based on evaluations. He's a man like this. And he's heard all of this conversation. And he comes right up to the Lord Jesus. And he says in verse five, Now these are startling words. We would never talk this way to the Lord Jesus today. But here is man, a friend, a disciple of the Lord Jesus, and he said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. Well, that's a dogmatic statement, and it basically means, Lord, you are mistaken. We do not know where you are going. but I like the second part of this statement because he adds it's a question and how can we know the way so you put it together and he's telling the Lord Jesus we don't know where you're going but we want to know where you're going here is someone still clinging to the thought we want to be with him we do not want to be separated from him I'm glad he spoke up because Jesus answered with words that most of us learned in Sunday school, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Now I suggest again, let's not read into these men, great Trinitarian concepts of God. They are taking their first steps in what we might call today Christian theology. They certainly have not graduated. They're learning, they're beginning. And when the Lord Jesus said, no one comes to the Father, they would understand God. No one would come to the Father except through him, the Lord Jesus. Now Philip is there. He's listened to all the conversation. And Philip, I suggest to you, is thinking somewhat like this. These really have been three great years. And the things we have seen, and even more important, the truths we have heard, is just absolutely unbelievable. But there's one thing the Lord Jesus has not given to us. Now, if you go back in his life, in the lives of the disciples in the Sabbath schools, they would hear the stories of the Old Testament. They would hear about Moses. out in the desert. And out in the desert you don't have trees, you have shrubs. Not little plants, they might stand eight, nine, ten feet high. And they tell us sometimes with the intense heat of the desert you have a spontaneous explosion and they burn up. So Moses is out there with his sheep. And he looks in there's a bush and it's filled with fire. Well, it's probably not the first time he's seen something like that. But when he looks back, he realizes this tree is intact and the flames are real. He knows this is something unusual. So he decides, I'm going over to see what this is all about. And as he moves over, he hears the voice, stop, take off your shoes. This is holy ground. And he knew that God was there. in a sense of theophany. It's a partial revelation of the presence and the glory of God. You have many stories like that in the Old Testament. When King Uzziah died, Isaiah's a young man recently called by God to be a prophet, and his hopes were in the king and he died and his hopes are dashed. And whether he was actually in the temple or whether in his mind, in his heart, He saw the temple filled with the glory of the Lord. And he said, Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips. And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. There was a partial revelation of the presence and the glory of God. And Philip is thinking, we've never had that. Even in those days when Jesus lived in the world, there were men in the Jewish community who believed, if we pray hard enough, If we study the Bible long enough, if we keep all the commandments to the best of our ability, perhaps, maybe in life, we'll be granted a vision of the glory of God. Think about that when you read about the conversion of Paul. I sometimes wonder who was more dedicated to God as he understood God than Paul. and he would know about that. And I wonder if his initial reaction was, I've received the blessing. This light, not of this world, that shone down round about him and threw him right down into the dust. And he saw the person and he heard the words. But he did not know why this person was talking to him like that. And they said, Lord, who are you? And the answer came, I am Jesus. and you are persecuting me. Men long for that moment of glory. Philip knew that they'd never seen that. So he says to the Lord Jesus in verse nine, verse eight, Lord, show us the Father and it is sufficient for us. That means if you give us this blessing, we will never ask you for another thing. This will be the ultimate blessing to see the Father. the glory of God. Now what follows, one contemporary scholar has said, there is a simplicity here, and there is a depth that's overwhelming. Look at the men again. There's about a dozen of them there. They all look more or less the same age as we've already mentioned, and the Lord Jesus is one of them. He's like some of the young men here today. He's about thirty-three years of age. He's not a senior citizen like the man who's speaking to you. He is a young man. And he says to Philip, have I been with you so long? Verse nine, and yet you have not known me, Philip. He who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? If you go on in the portion, you're going to find the separation came. It happened in Gethsemane. The Lord Jesus was well into that little farm in a moment of intense agony and prayer. And he heard the sounds, didn't run and hide, apparently comes towards the opening of that garden, and he met his enemies. And he said, what's wrong? I've been with you in the temple all these days. You've never bothered me up there. But then he said, this is the hour of the power of darkness. It's your hour. And they took him. And what the disciples did not want to happen, happened. There was a separation. What they did not understand then was there was something that only the Lord Jesus could do. If there's going to be any hope for anyone in the world, It comes from that moment of separation when alone he went to the cross and did what no one else could do. And he died. He really and truly died. In our beautiful communion service this morning, I sometimes think we do not have sufficient internal strength to really go back and look at the brutality and the cruelty of a Roman crucifixion. If you'd come into Jerusalem unaware of what was happening and you saw that scene, you would have instinctively turned away. He died. The disciples are in a state of absolute confusion. They're hidden. They're up in a room. There are rumors. They've heard, two of them ran, and they saw that the tomb was empty, but they really do not know what's happened. And on the first day of the week, there they are, and the Lord Jesus appeared. Beautiful term. Didn't knock in the door and ask to come in. He appeared. He was right there. And he said, Peace be to you. And they were frightened, and they were happy, and they doubted, but they wanted to believe. All the mixed emotions. And then he left them. But I think the overriding thought is he is alive. Because they went out and they found Thomas, he wasn't there. And they said to Thomas, Thomas, we've seen him. He's alive. Again, deal gently with Thomas. He said, well, if I don't see the marks of the wounds in his hand and in his side, I can't believe that. Background to that thought, he saw the way Jesus died. How can a person die like that and a few days later be alive? He was there the following time and the Lord Jesus again appeared. I probably would imagine there were two or three here, a couple over there, some here. They're talking in little groups. I don't know where Thomas was, but you read the story and the impression is given that the Lord Jesus went straight to Thomas. And I paraphrase the story. He would say to Thomas, well Thomas, if you want to put your finger in the hole in my hand, and he raised his hand, and he would open his shirt, and he would say to him, now if you want to take your hand and put it in the wound made by the lance, you can do that. And Thomas looks at the Lord Jesus. I would have thought that he would have said, now I believe in the resurrection. That's not what he said. There's a greater issue at stake. And the issue is, who is this person? And I think that's the moment when, and I use that term, a jigsaw puzzle, it all came together in his heart, in his mind. He remembered that Jesus said, I come from God, and I return to God. He remembered his answer to Philip. He who had seen me has seen the Father. He would remember the words, The Father and I are one. And looking at this person, I don't know if he was prostrate, kneeling, maybe more likely standing and looking the Lord Jesus right in the eye. He said, My Lord and My God. And he knew who Jesus was born. And all that hopeless despair of the previous days evaporated. And Christian historians tell us that this is the man who walked to India with the gospel of the Lord Jesus. And I meet people from India in my travels. I usually say to them, what part of India do you come from? Almost always the south. Who took the gospel to the south of India? And without any doubt, Thomas. The lesson would seem to be when you know who Jesus is. Under God's grace and in His power, you sometimes do almost the humanly impossible. And to go from Palestine to India was not an easy thing, two thousand years ago. So any hope that we're going to project to the world that surrounds us today is going to be anchored in this person, who he is. The resurrection for Thomas was the confirmation of all the things that Jesus had sent, and he understood. And he made a commitment to him as did the other disciples. And most of those men, confident in their hope, they served God and eventually died as martyrs in the cause of the Lord Jesus. And they did it with a song. for they knew their hope was sure it was anchored in the Lord Jesus. Our Father, as we close our service, we ask this morning among all of us who are here, if there are any doubts, any wonders about who the Lord Jesus is, even in Christian circles today, there are some who are challenging who He really is. They are telling us we've got to try and get back beyond the Gospels and find some historical person, and then we might find the real Jesus. We would like to stand today with Thomas. We would like to borrow his words, but make them our own. And in the presence of our Savior, we would like to say each one of us, my Lord and my God, and reflect in our lives a sure and steadfast hope. For we pray in his name, amen.