John 14:1-31
Open your bibles to John chapter 14. Our focus this morning will be on v 27 but we’ll cover the chapter because it’s all relevant. Well, actually about chapter 13 v 31 through 17 are relevant contextually so I guess a more accurate statement is that’s all we’ll have time for. This section of scripture is popularly know as Jesus’ “Farewell Discourse” or the “Upper Room Discourse”. He’s essentially summing up his ministry and preparing the disciples with marching orders for after He ascends to the Father.
John 14:27
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Of this verse, Oswald Chambers writes:
There are times when our peace is based upon ignorance, but when we awaken to the facts of life, inner peace is impossible unless it is received from Jesus. When Our Lord speaks peace, He makes peace, His words are ever “spirit and life.” Have I ever received what Jesus speaks? “My peace I give unto you”—it is a peace which comes from looking into His face and realizing His undisturbedness.
There is more but I want to save it for when we get there.
John 14:1
“Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
I don’t know about you, but I struggle with this, “let not your heart be troubled” part. Quite frequently actually (that falls under the heading of “man I’m dumb”). Not only is the instruction given but its followed by how to follow it. I mean, how much simpler can this be stated? Now, we all know
2 Timothy 3:16
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,” I’m not so sure chapter breaks were inspired of God because they are inserted in some strange places. If you finish chapter 13 because that’s your stopping point for the day, when you pick up at 14 you won’t miss that Jesus is speaking, or that he’s speaking to His disciples, but you might miss that Jesus is still answering Peter, whom he just told would deny him 3 times.
John 13:36-38
“Simon Peter said to Him, “Lord, where are You going?” Jesus answered him, “Where I am going you cannot follow Me now, but you shall follow Me afterward.” Peter said to Him, “Lord, why can I not follow You now? I will lay down my life for Your sake.” Jesus answered him, “Will you lay down your life for My sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied Me three times.”
For a guy like me, who has denied Jesus way more than 3 times, His words in chapter 14, especially v 1 & 27, are extremely significant.
1) because He tells Peter, don’t worry about it. Fred, you’re going to fail Me. You’re going to carry burdens you don’t need to. You’re going to get stressed out by the things of this world. You’re going to go through times where I’m only in the back of your mind, if at all. But you believe in God, believe also in Me because I laid My life down for you.
2) because He doesn’t leave it at “because I said so”. Anyone ever told their children that? I hated that statement. Heard it a lot growing up. Swore I’d never use it. I failed. Everyone has those moments when they realize they just sounded exactly like their mother or father. That was one of many. But Jesus never said “believe in me because I said so”.
3) because this is a proof text that Jesus did in fact claim equality with God.
Here’s Peter’s answer:
John 14:2-4 “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Our hope for eternity is found in no one else, Jesus says here in chapter 14, what is summarized in
Acts 4:12
“Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” You can’t gain entrance to this mansion without believing in Jesus. There is no other way. I wish we had time to hop down that rabbit hole. Anyone ever say, “there are no dumb questions” or “the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked”? Have you READ the bible? Peter just asked one and now Thomas, Philip and Judas are going to ask a few more. They didn’t want Peter to feel left out apparently.
John 14:5-7
“Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me. “If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.”
“I am The Way”. Can’t get any clearer than that and that’s one of many things I love about the Gospel. It’s simple, it’s concise and there is only one. I appreciate that Jesus doesn’t tire of repeating Himself even when He speaks plainly. Jesus is nearing the end of His ministry and His time on this rock we call home way too often. Jesus just said he’s going to prepare a place for us to spend eternity with Him. He said you know where and you know the way. Now I see the patience of Jesus that I just do not have for dumb questions because what Thomas asks, is probably the same question I’ve asked in different ways cuz, “man I’m dumb”. Jesus answers plainly but kinda digs a little when He says, “had” you known Me. Ouch. This is one of the disciples! This isn’t the first time Jesus has told them what’s up; they apparently just weren’t listening. I get that. Jesus said a lot of stuff before now and I am a squirrel chaser; especially if I try to take notes when listening to a sermon. I can’t do that anymore, I miss more than what I thought was important to write down. But at least we have the advantage of being able to go back and read it again.
Have you ever texted someone and they’re response is “what?”. I want to text back, “um, pretty sure it’s in print, not a voice text, READ it again”. Man I’m dumb… I’ve got all the answers right here in front of me AND I have Google. I can’t poke too much at these guys and their questions because I have a book full of dumb ones myself and I’ve got the manuscript.
Ok, so if you agree that the last 2 questions were dumb, or even if you don’t. Here comes a whopper.
John 14:8
“Philip said to Him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is sufficient for us.”
What?!! Jesus just said to Thomas.
John 14:7
“If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also; and from now on you know Him and have seen Him.” Way to represent mankind Philip. Oh yeah, we can be all kinds of judgmental when we have the answers in front of our face, can’t we? But boy don’t we do that same thing? You know how the things that annoy us the most in other people are often the same things we do ourselves. This is exactly why Jesus said in
Matthew 7:5
“Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” But I’m so good at the one-eyed staredown at sin. How about you?
Probably one of the best wisdom bombs ever dropped on me was the idea that when you’re pointing your finger at someone else, there are 3 others pointing right back at you. I was really good at not being the one to blame. I had an excuse for everything; still do if my flesh gets in the way. I’ve never been good at admitting I’m wrong; maybe too much Fonzie growing up (see, an excuse for everything).

John 14:9–14
NKJV
Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and yet you have not known Me, Philip? He who has seen Me has seen the Father; so how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on My own authority; but the Father who dwells in Me does the works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father in Me, or else believe Me for the sake of the works themselves. “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it.
My method of study had always been very fact based prior to coming to C4. Something that has helped me a lot in my study is hearing Matt say very early on to put yourself in the scene. Where are you, what just happened before this, who are you with, are we still at the table? Why are we all on one side and where did all these chairs come from? Sorry, little art humor there.
We’re not really given a pretense for these conversations. It’s not super clear whether Jesus is speaking to them all at once in a Q&A session at the table or having little sidebars as He makes His way around the room. Maybe Philip just walked up the tail end of the conversation with Thomas and keyed in on “Father”. Either way we have to take into consideration that Jesus had never and would never speak with any tone of condemnation to His followers. And when we are reading an answer to a dumb question we may have asked, we can’t read any condemnation into what was stated or we risk missing the point or worse, misinterpreting the scripture altogether.
I believe Jesus inserted a certain measure of sarcasm in His replies over the course of His ministry. However, considering where they are and what they are doing, I don’t believe that’s the case here. It appears to me that Jesus is taking the opportunity to answer what He might consider a dumb question from Philip, but with grace that Philip’s question deserved an answer simply because it was important enough to him to ask it. Slipping in any tone of condemnation when reading this is to have the Lord answer you the same way, “have I been with you so long, yet you still don’t know me?”. Ouch again.
There is so much to unpack here with His reply but I just want to touch on a few key things:
1) questioning our beliefs can be a healthy thing. Jesus isn’t berating Philip here or calling into question his faith, but bringing belief to the forefront of His answer will highlight the key ingredient to salvation. You must first believe in something for faith to build on and grow. It is our beliefs that construct the very foundation of our salvation; faith in Jesus. If you can’t believe Jesus is in the Father and the Father is in Him, building faith that He is your salvation is challenging. If you don’t believe that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through Jesus, your faith is going to be constantly strained.
James 2:19
“You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble!”
2) what we believe determines what we do.
John 14:12
“Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” If you don’t believe Jesus commandment to love others as ourselves, you’re not going to do much by way of feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for widows.
2 Cor 13:5
“Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified.” This doesn’t say, “question your faith”. This simply poses the question, “are you in the faith”? How do you know? I’ll answer that question with a question; what do you believe? Does that belief line up with what God’s Word says? Faith grows on beliefs that do. If they don’t, what do you believe about the inerrancy and infallibility of God’s Word? That’s a big one. Take time to know what you believe because how are we disqualified? That’s easy too; Unbelief.
3) There is no reason whatsoever to question salvation. It’s kinda a pass/fail thing. My daughter Meaghan graduated from CU’s nursing program and recently passed her RN licensing exams. She’s working at St Joe’s now. The exam was a pass/fail exam and they way they do it is the system gives from 90-160 questions. It’s an automated thing and no 2 exams are the same. The purpose is not just to test your knowledge but to determine if you have gained enough understanding of the subject matter to be considered for license as an entry level nurse. If you get a question wrong, the system may keep asking you different questions until it "thinks” you can move on. You basically keep answering questions until it tells you to stop or you hit the max. At 90, she was stopped. They don’t give you your results right awiay unless you want to pay $10. At 90, she could have done really really well or really really poorly. She said near the end it kept asking questions about some medications they never covered in class. They had high level category topics but never drilled into specifics (that’s a specialty). She was 100% certain she failed. Tom and I both told her to spend the $10; either of us would have paid for it. Took her 2 days but she finally did and guess what… she passed.
My point? Jesus isn’t that complicated. How do you know if you’re saved? Here are some test questions you can ask yourself to see if you are “in the faith”
Do you believe you are a sinner with no hope of redemption apart from Jesus? Do you believe that Jesus died as a final sacrifice for your sins? Do you believe that Jesus, being fully God and fully man, has the power to forgive you of your sins? If you believe those things, your faith is about to skyrocket because the moment you confess belief that way, the Helper spoken of in v15 comes to reside in you. We like things simple, right? Not that this is overly complex but v 6 really helps cuz, man I’m dumb. Do you believe that Jesus is THE way, THE truth and THE life and that no one comes to the Father any other way but through Him? Jesus said it. I believe it. Done, saved, walk by faith, not by sight.
Jesus puts one condition on salvation; the only thing that is required of us. Just believe. But He doesn’t even leave that to chance:
Romans 12:3
“For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.” This might be slightly out of context here but this also doesn’t mean our faith is limited. Even with what appears to be a ginormous list of to do’s and not to do’s, Jesus breaks it down to one simple thing; love. I like simple because following the Talmud? Not for me. I was a lawbreaker from my youth; a rebel without a clue. I have a hard enough time with love. Thankfully Jesue is my example and my teacher.

John 14:15–17
NKJV
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
If you love Me, keep “My” commandments. What did Jesus say?
Mark 12:29-31
“Jesus answered , “The first of all the commandments is: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” Arguably these are His as are the rest of the commandments in the OT. But Jesus also said in
John 13:34
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.” Remember he’s preparing them for His departure and He’s putting it as simple as it gets.
Jesus doesn’t ever leave us hanging with “because I said so”. He gives us practical, tangible explanation and example after example after example. He even sends sends us the intangible, as if what He’s done wasn’t enough… but wait… there’s more. Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit to help us.

John 14:18–21
NKJV
I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you. “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”
Anyone else here an orphan? My parents are gone and I don’t have much family left that hasn’t disowned me. Don’t be sad for me, I have Jesus. He has NEVER let me down. He tells His disciples He’s not going to let them down. He already said if we’ve seen Him we’ve seen the Father. Here He reiterates that we will know on that day (his departure), how? His Spirit will be sent, once again to the upper room, where we see the Spirit descend on everyone. His promise to never leave us or forsake us is rooted in His promise to send the Spirit. He NEVER leaves us hanging.

John 14:22–31
NKJV
Judas (not Iscariot) said to Him, “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father’s who sent Me. “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’ If you loved Me, you would rejoice because I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. “And now I have told you before it comes, that when it does come to pass, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me. But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave Me commandment, so I do. Arise, let us go from here.
We don’t know a whole lot about Judas but your bible probably parenthetically states “Not Iscariot”. There is some debate on whether this Judas would be Jesus’ nephew as he’s though to be the son of the disciple James. Not of great importance but might be a fun fact for you research. Of the list of dumb questions, this might be the least dumb, though much of what Jesus says has been covered throughout His ministry.
Jesus is again driving home that love is the key ingredient in our walk with Him. Anything we do in the name of Jesus that isn’t based in love is based in lies. Whoa, wait what? Think about it. Feed the poor; if you don’t love the people you’re feeding who are you doing it for? Chances are, if’s to make you look good to whomever you’re with because chances are you’re not there alone. If you are, it’s to make you feel better about the fact that you have no love for the lost. One of the things that is essentially non-negotiable here is the requirement to be in fellowship for 6 months before you start serving. Why? Love. If you don’t love the people here, you’re not going to be any help to anyone but yourself. How can the leadership team here know you love the people if they don’t watch you. Yep, they’re watching… always watching. What did Jesus say?
Matthew 7:22-23
“Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Ouch. Why? They didn’t know Jesus at all and He didn’t know them. They practiced lawlessness (a.k.a sin). They had no love for anyone. Remember what we’ve read, Jesus said they would do the same works He did, even greater works. Why? Love. And because of love, His Spirit, His power. Even HIS MEMORY!!! Kinda cool right? I dig that cuz mine is horrendous anymore. And here we are at the crux of what the Lord has shown me in this study.
John 14:27
“Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”
Oswald Chambers continues… if you are like me, this is gunna hurt so good.
Are you painfully disturbed just now, distracted by the waves and billows of God’s providential permission, and having, as it were, turned over the boulders of your belief, are you still finding no well of peace or joy or comfort; is all barren? Then look up and receive the undisturbedness of the Lord Jesus. Reflected peace is the proof that you are right with God because you are at liberty to turn your mind to Him. If you are not right with God, you can never turn your mind anywhere but on yourself. If you allow anything to hide the face of Jesus Christ from you, you are either disturbed or you have a false security.
Are you looking unto Jesus now, in the immediate matter that is pressing, and receiving from Him peace? If so, He will be a gracious benediction of peace in and through you: But if you try to worry it out, you obliterate Him and deserve all you get. We get disturbed because we have not been considering Him. When one confers with Jesus Christ the perplexity goes, because He has no perplexity, and our only concern is to abide in Him. Lay it all out before Him and in the face of difficulty, bereavement and sorrow, hear Him say—“Let not your heart be troubled.”
Jesus doesn’t leave this planet without giving us an amazing, wonderful, joy causing, barrier breaking, heart filling gift. Peace. Not just any peace, but peace that passes understanding. But I want to understand it. You can’t, it’s a peace that passes understanding. Trifon and I had an amusing conversation about that some time ago.
Here’s the thing, how do you get this peace? You have to believe it’s there for the taking. It is. It’s a free gift from your Savior who loves you unconditionally. One of my favorite verses is
Romans 8:1
“There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” When you KNOW Jesus and accept His free gift of salvation, He pours into you so many more free gifts it’s overwhelming… but in a good way.
Now I’m pretty good about trusting that God is in control of everything. My beliefs have shaped and built my faith to the point where I can trust in Him without question. I believe without doubt that He causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him and to those who are called to His purpose (
Romans 8:28
is my life verse). Anyone who has known me through major events in my life, can testify that I can for the most part, maintain cool, calm and collected. Sometimes not so cool , calm or collected after the crisis is over… And, like many of you, I’ve been through some major stuff.
Where I cry out for mercy, for help, for relief from panic and anxiety isn’t in the big stuff. I know in my heart of heart’s God’s got whatever it is. For me it’s the small stuff. The stuff that builds up over time. The stress of daily life that culminates in frantic, anxious pleading for rescue. It’s in the small stuff where my pride leaks through and the disease, “I got this”, takes hold.
At the men’s retreat I had a breakthrough moment with a few major life events early on that lead me to discover a great deal about myself that I had kept hidden (I thought) from God. Certainly from anyone else. It lead me to understand how little I understood
Romans 8:1
which I had intended on teaching at a U-turn gathering the week following. Had to rewrite that one.... Pastor Dave didn’t see the first draft but he can attest to how powerful of a chance in me there was.
This breakthrough lead me to discovering how much these early life events shaped who I was and how I dealt with things both before and after coming to know Jesus and how those things contributed to 2 divorces and many other mistakes I can’t take back. I’m sorry for being intentionally vague but now is not the time or place for full disclosure but I’m happy to share with anyone who wants to know. I’m no longer ashamed because I now know what
Romans 8:1
means.
To be a bit more specific to my issue with pride is this example. Immediately following the mens retreat Ed started a group chat for the guys to just come together and share … stuff, pray or whatever. Many of you know that I work from home for a nationwide radio network and my job is to provide support to radio stations across the country that take our programming. Some of you knew I’m not a fan of my job anymore. Trifon gets an earful twice a week. What many of you men now know as of a few weeks ago is why. It took me getting to the point where I was so exasperated that I was seriously close to throwing my company PC and phone out the window.
I hadn’t given a second to God about this until that moment when I just felt an overwhelming need to text a prayer request to the group chat. Man I’m dumb. The very moment I did that, I was immediately calm. I was now in crisis mode. And the peace of God washed over me like it did the day I was saved. All you had to do was ask ya dummy! God talks to me much the same way He talks to Matt.
You know what the antithesis to pride is? You might say humility but I believe it’s love. Humility is a side effect. Don’t get me wrong, the prayers and texts of support that flooded in from the guys in that group… I can’t express how grateful I was. But the peace came in before. Why? Because these guys love Jesus and they love me. The love of Jesus and letting His love pour through you creates a bond between brothers and sisters in Christ that is indescribable. When Jesus is at the front of whatever, big or small, peace reigns. Belief the guys would pray, without hesitation, led to increased faith that Jesus would prevail.
My job has not changed. The pressure of the workload I have currently has not lessened one bit and will likely get worse. In fact, I’m farther behind now than i was a week ago because I took some vacation days to house and dog sit for my daughter Amanda and her husband. I intended to use that time to get some things caught up but God had other plans. Their internet was spotty and my cell service, which is usually very good there, was constantly dropping out. But I’m not stressed about it.
Oh I know I’ll get the, “I got this” fever again. I don’t have this figured out at all. All I know for sure right now is Jesus’ words in v27 have been ringing in my ears for weeks. How does the world give peace? Well, for one, it’s temporary. It comes in many forms that are all lies; drugs, alcohol, pornography, Jean Claude Van Dam movies. Webster defines peace as freedom from disturbance; tranquility (does that sound permanent in any way)? Another definition is “as state or period in which there is no war”. You know what a ceasefire is? It’s just a false sense of peace between shots.
Jesus is permanently undisturbed. In Him is pure tranquility. His peace is inexhaustible. His peace is free. If you don’t know Him, there is an open invitation to believe today. Believe He is able; believe He is for you, not against you. Believe His Word is everlasting. Believe His Word is true.
No other historical figure that ever walked the planet filled more prophecy written of them. This chapter ends with a prophecy directly from Jesus. He told them so when it happened, there would be no doubt. It happened. He ascended to Heaven with 3 eyewitnesses. John, James and Peter. He warned us of the enemy’s coming and, if we look at this world through the lens of scripture, you can’t deny he’s come. Jesus has proven He’s worthy of your faith.