I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life: Making Room

 Thank you, Blake. It's the joy of you with the journey and to see all the exciting things that have being privileged to do worship with you in this space. Uh, which the, that the Lord has given to you. Most importantly, as your witness, your witness. Hope that we have in

and they didn't in have a little connection to the state of Oklahoma coming back. Brings back, uh, some childhood memories, uh, in the, in the seventies. So it 12 to be back here, um, in Oklahoma, but.

Uh, serving there since 2021. And you may not know this, but seminary is the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America. And I know not everybody who Presbyterian around here, but since is a Presbyterian church and we are your seminary and we want train, uh, you, we wanna train our future pastors, ministry leaders, bible study teachers and counselors.

A and you can do that by. Moving to St. Louis and, uh, taking classes in residence are also through our many online programs and our hybrid funded program, which, uh, your new course are. Nathan, um, just completed this study to go, I'm grateful that he's a graduate. Blake is a graduate, uh, from Covenant and our Bacteria program, and we just through it, uh, uh, for your partnership.

With your denomination seminary and you can't hear more about that than I we're gonna be talking about that and I'd love to share more about that, but me to preach and, um, I believe you guys are on that sermon series on the I'm statements of Jesus and my passage comes to us from John chapter 13 last.

Verses of Chapter 14. So count on your way, it does work. Please do so. I think those, uh, verses are also printed in your worship guide as here God's Word. Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me, in my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, but I told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

If I go and prepare a place for you, it'll come again and will put you to myself. That, that where I'm, you may be also. And you know the, the dates to where I'm going. I said, Lord did do not know where nothing, you know the way you can still heaven away. True. Well, if no one told you, the Father except through me.

If you had known me, you would've known my father. Also from all you do in

it is the word of the Lord that is heaven. Father, we call recognizing that you and your holy spirits of the doubt, the truth. Pray that that same spirit you would guide us into the truth that this your word that we would not only hear and.

All should have called us to believe and do for the sake of the Gospel, Daniel Grace and in the name of Christ.

But I said, uh, just a moment ago that I was a church planter that was given the privilege of beginning Redeemer Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, Texas, and along. Had the opportunity alongside a number of different church planters in various rules. One of those rules was urban as an assessor, uh, with Mission of North America, the whole mission agency of the PCA.

And that agency would set up on gifting. Blake and Lauren went, did church planning assessment in or some, uh, we're evaluated. You got be evaluated.

Plant the church. None of us are really fit, are we? But that's what we would try to determine. And, um, one of the, um, responsibilities or connect that the church planner candidate had to do was to give an evangelistic sermon that to, so that we could evaluate their evangelistic capacity to be perfectly funny.

Most of those messages were period. Um. And, uh, we knew everything was gonna be a future for most of these church planner, but, but one I remember was really spectacular. It was by a Vietnamese church planner kid that had gone into plant church in Georgia and he was part of the story of how he met his, um, future wife, who was the Southern in George Hunt.

They were out in their first day and at typical teenager swapping stories, and she was telling her experience of growing up and. It was just a simple thing, you know, she had a television at her room and you know, headphones and, uh, had a telephone, you know, in her room and she had her own room and he was just ugly.

Never heard of anything like that because growing up as an he in the room that he slept in. Siblings that bubbled at the common room doing today before they would sleep within the night. And he said that he had grown up all that he had ever wanted. All that he'd ever dreamed about was King Ru.

And then he said his mind was blown again then to Christ study in the scripture and then come into these verses in John chapter 14 verses one through six, but realizing the God of the universe. Committed himself to making room for the simple and broken people of this world and a entirely new in different ways.

His name was built was late Archbishop William Temple. He said that this had built the tre's, the only organization that exists primarily for the benefit of those who met here. Sink, counter, intuitive, but may a little bit disturbing, but. Biblically on Target. The church is the only organization that exists primarily for the benefits of its non members.

Wait a minute. See? Get, you see, it really does capture the sentiment for, did that come for himself? It came for you. He came from me and we were not yet part of the play, but we were not yet part of the membership Communion. And yet he came for us. Jesus' mission was a making room mission that Jesus came to make room for his people.

And as we think about that, that recognizing that, that extends the context for this verse six that we love, and I think maybe that's why we skip over versus one and two in Florida. We raised for the bla verse six and the grand theme of Jesus being the way, the truth and life. And we forget what he needs to do by being the way of the truth and life.

And that is to make room for us,

make room for us.

I guess as many of you in this room have already come to faith and trust place.

Blessed being the same grace that he has given to you, but that a name of restriction on his verse doesn't look because if we have already entered into that room making mission of Jesus peace, verses not only being,

you're part of being a state person. Is becoming a sin, right? It's to join Jesus in this making room mission. That joining him in the hospitality that he offers, the relationships that we build in this country. So I told him this morning, I wanted to think about just the three things that, the hospitality that we offer, the relationships that that we build, and the passage way that.

Its most basic imagery, right? Making room about hospitality. Jesus mission is a hospitable belong,

and when you think about hospitality, you're think about 20 night gathers. You're thinking about the immigrants all across, Lord, not just. But there's displacement happening all over the world in Ukraine. I'm very close to the team in Aviv, and they are experiencing an immigrants from the eastern part of Ukraine coming into their city who have lost husbands and fathers and sons destitute on this health.

And that's the truth for all. The destitute, right? All immigrants border and so forth. We hear the stories, all of the crime or immigrants locked up in a trailer somewhere and you read those news reports too. And what the scripture teaches us is that's not just a physical condition, but rather the apart from Christ.

We're all spiritually destitute. That's the character of our fight without crime. To the church had emphasis that we are strangers to the promises of the covenant, having no hope and without God, we are spiritual and destiny. And yet Jesus says to us here in verse one, let nature heart each.

At my father's house, there are many rounds.

Not your heart speech problem for my father's house. There are many rooms that the God speech invitation is one that offers rest and refuge to descend weary traveler. In this world, Jesus is the prepares a flag for you and for me. Not only that, hospitality primarily.

Free. A free space where, where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an I love that definition. Perfect. Quality is about where I'm welcoming the stranger and indeed become a friend instead of being polarized into an MA. And I wonder if this is one of the reasons. Well, we struggle with hospitality so much because we forget that Jesus' mission is a hospitable one.

And there is, there is room in the end

it says there are many rooms and I don't know, maybe it's, maybe it's part of being a Presbyterian, I, I'm not sure, but we do struggle with kind of Jonas syndrome, right? That, that maybe there's not an experience and we need to make sure we have. Second, a joke of the apostle Peter showing around the new residents of the glorious souls of heaven was tearing around the, the Baptist and the Methodist, maybe some Orthodox or Coptics, all who had chase it in Christ.

They, they were the, the trophies of God's grace. And Peter was walking police the shut door. And on the sign there was a sign on the door. We were getting closer to the door. Peter put his finger over his mouth asking everybody to be very quiet and someone read the Presbyterians.

He said, same thing. They're the only ones here.

We, we struggled the truth. Okay, we've got our character. And we forget that the Gospel's mission of hospitality, it says that there are many rooms that the kingdom of blood. What will number that the scriptures tell us of the swords of this sky that stands of the shore. Why would we put the miser? Jesus Gospel mission is a big hearted mission.

There are many rooms Jesus did for him

there for. There are places for you personally protected. That's what blew this young church planner's mind. I couldn't imagine. It doesn't have any room for him. There's a place for you personally protected. This is the thing that Peter picked up with his, that part. Eternal arrest in perishable unfading and temp in heaven.

Reserve. It says that the blessing that Jesus has in these verses, of course, I know that we know that to some degree we've poured into this blessing. But what does it mean to join Jesus in this? What? What would it mean for us to be blessed?

I love that even this. Pastor Blake's speaking to this right now. He either be of that new person who just come in here and I can already tell that somebody that looks as a concern that you know the concern for the new person, the stranger you're saying is your cur concert. Those are so that, that you ought.

Interested and the new person that you're interested in, the, the stranger around you, that the mission of hospitality is to do deeper right, to involve our lives in a much more warrior field. And a Dutch filmmaker was killed in 2004 in the Netherlands by his

after there the churches. Um, and the Christians in that, uh, country, they, they, they went after the Islam community that the entire country erupted and put domestic terror and mass and communities were being attacked. And it was just in the midst of that chaos that, that a conservative administer, his name is Case and Brand, he did something that no one expected.

He went and knocked on the door of the mark. His community.

He was living in an immigrant community, in community, and the the door opened and at least normal people that were huddled, scared, and, and you didn't go in. He just said, I stand here until the, the tears stopped every night. I, God, this space. And then something else happened. Another, um, another group of posters joined him in network and then it did that for many, many weeks, for months in fact.

Until

that's creating, that's creating space. To spend that go forth. What about, how is Trinity sharing that story of Jesus making room mission? I dunno the answer to that question. Ask the question. Answer. As a church. Communion. As a church and leadership, but, but friends, it moves us not just to be welcoming here, but to be welcoming up there in sacrificial ways.

To force us to roll up our sleeve and do risky things in the name of Jesus, because his mission is in making real mission. It's a hospitable one, but it's also, it's also about the relationships that we form.

Jesus does not just come to us, but that's not is used that me.

Is all about,

I'm the son of the father and he welcomes us into the very presence of the Father. If we go and prayer close for you, he says, oh, come again. I'll take you to myself. But where I'm and where I'm you may be also in the presence of the father. That you might be with me in his presence that, that you might be welcomed into the family, that you might become part of this glorious story of grace.

How beautiful is that about Jesus talking about place? Let's not, let's not get confused. He's not talking about the geography of heaven and that's talking about some disembodied spirit home when scriptures telling. God is renewing the entire cosmos, a new heaven and a new earth. Jesus is speaking about that glory and imp eternal renewal of all things.

But, but he, he's saying that, that the core, that the core of our blessing is to be the eternal of the Father. It's about relationship that the blessing of our eternal home. It's not that the enjoyment of a renew creation, but the enjoyment of reconciled relationship

be full as that.

No one comes to the father except through me, Jesus. But with my father

through my, we've.

You've begun to process the story. Praise the blessing. Jesus inviting you into the presence of the Father where you can follow Abba. Father,

the blessed of our everlasting hope is a sin free experience and relationship with God is God,

but we have to recognize that not all of us. What that. Great thing to be shared,

and maybe we don't even want to admit it, but that's why the story of Jonah isn't because Joan just didn't wanna share it. He didn't wanna share John, he didn't want God's grace to be poured out upon the nine. Right? He didn't want that grace to be poured out all on de. That's the whole story of Jonah. He was frustrated.

He had become territorial about the intimacy that he enjoyed with Flint. He'd become trouble

and he argued, he even argued with them that, what does he say in Jonah Chapter four? Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was one of my country? This is why I may hate the.

You can just, this is why, God, I knew you were gonna do this. This is why I went away. I knew that you're a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger of drowning and set that love, relenting from disaster. I don't like that about you except for me. So

Dennis says this, older, please take.

Please take my life. It's better for me to die than live.

Jonah could not imagine a world where God in God is hated enemies and into intimate communion. He would've rather died.

Some of us struggle for this that way. Because we, we, we feel too flurry about it and the mission, entire mission of that to bring centers into the divine communion and fellowship with the father because we've got this fundamental misunderstanding of the gospel itself and we're infected of evangelisms.

Right? The tribalism,

political division, politics.

All of that, we're gonna lose. So lose purity, privilege, power, place,

we're gonna lose something. Fear and, and, and, and we just, it's like we don't understand the open down of the gospel, like the of the is different. In this world, when it reorients, it recalibrates the way that we relate to relationships all around the us. Jesus had everything and he gave it all up, and that bring you into everything and that as he gives you everything, it doesn't hold back anything or everyone else.

There is everything. For everybody whose name Jeep Christ, listen to me. The inherent

you can't lose, there is a fountain that it ever flows. It's overflowing with abundance and at the core of that abundance is our relationship it with the father. Have the calculus. If

we ever Redeemer wanted to talk about hospital family and relationships doing for others home, I would choice our congregation with this idea. Are you ready to make a new best friend? Is there room in your life or a new best friend? Is there room in your community group somebody to come in and butts up all the relationships?

So that be deeper, more significant in a way that he never anticipated because that's what James is doing with us. He's making room for us bringing to the of, because of his gray doing that. He's doing that because he was the great.

I'm, he is the one who tells us that he's the way and the truth and the life that Jonah would've rather died than see God bring his reconciling grace and redeeming grace to the Gentiles of Mother. But Jesus did die May to bring his God. Jesus did do that work. He is his grace. This is the confusion that that, that, that the disciples have yet not resolved.

Promise that whatcha talking about. We know the way we're going. Don't know the way you know what you're talking about. Jesus,

Jesus talking. Do.

It wasn't just about hospitality or even relationships, it about this unique but only equal, God's only beloved son, that the unique sin bearer, it's not just what Jesus is gonna bring to this world or bring to our lives. It's about what he was gonna do for this world. But.

These three words, the way that truth lies, that they together either penetrate one another, be torture, the, the totality of Jesus sin bearing work.

It means the way that, the way of the, which is the way of substitution, the way of the tone, the way of Semial falls. That would redeem that from all our sin. He's the manifestation. The emitting of the truth is the declaration of God's righteous, um, righteous commandments, but also his righteous sin on our son and all said the issuing forth.

Righteous declaration of truth in this way that human travel is the life that we desperately believe. The length of redemption, the life of reconciliation is the life of everlasting hope and journey. He's the life of the spirit, born into a heart. He's the of life. Giving letters. All this from genius.

For this is the passageway that we have told that, that we, we joined Jesus. Well making one mission as we tell this with what Jesus has done. Christ Gordon for for many years was the Dean of Chapel at Priestly University, starting in 1955. And, um, part of his story before that, he was a soldier in World War II in the Pacific Theater, and he became a prisoner of war.

And, um, he, he, he tells the story in his memoir of, of, of his own journey towards the cross and towards Christ. And, and he remembers being captured. Um, and, and one particular store. The prisoners of it was a work camp and they had been working away from their camp. And, uh, one of the shovels had gone missing.

So the Japanese commandment officers had produced the shovel and we were gonna start shooting. And, and, and one knew where the shovels were. The one was taking dead. Um, and. To command officer. He grabbed one of the soldiers and he was about to pull the trigger. And then another soldier, another prisoner who was set forward and said, I didn't.

And then the commanding officer, he, he, he took another shovel and he proceeded to beat that soldier to his and the rest of the prisoners of war. And the accompanied, they all went back to their camp that evening. They come out that shovels. Well, shovels were. Missing and as Gordon didn't realize that this man technical says not to save his own soldiers sold the gospel even when he did not do it.

He acted as own anyway, and I did it due sin of their brokenness. I will drink the prep of your fully right.

I might reconcile into you more

sacrifice we can saved, but you know the hell on. You're defend Presbyterian Christ. We know the story of grace. That's that the question I want you to. I want you to ask yourself this question.

Can people in this community know that that story? Are we eager to share that story with our community? This is how we join Jesus in this making mission, is not just knowing this possibility, but.

Disrupting our lives, our agenda, all of the the things that we treasure our families

as we seek to bring others into this warrior Hope Rejo from schools family.

A little longer. Um, my favorite songs is Southern Cross Us and it's, you know, lost Love and Away and Processing grief, losing that, love that, that most frequent one comes to the last stands. And we never failed to fail. It was the easiest thing to do. Love that we never failed to fail was the thing to do.

And that's true, right? It's easy to say.

Mean husband,

um, wives, easy to fail. Friends and daughters, brothers and sisters, setting the course responses and employees to fail all, what do we have to do? All we have to do to fail is do nothing for sure. Don't do anything own to me. It's easy to fail. The the interesting thing though, you know, bring up this whole topic of voting room and the work that we need to do as believers, that is that sometimes as Christians, we think that we're being the most faithful and we're most owly engaged.

And certain wars of the church, whether it's neurology or morality or, or purity or all of these things, and. And all of the time that we spent doing these things, we're actually building barriers.

We're failing even as the flood because we're not thinking it all the way through David Books and this work. The second mountain, I think shows that, you know that book, at the end of the book, he's talking about his story. Faith and trust in faith, and he was moving towards faith and trust in faith since I was on a journey towards thought, and I found out pretty quickly along the way that religious people and institutions sometimes made the journey easier by building rent and also sometimes made the journey harder by building.

This is our chart as we think about Jesus the grave. He's the bright bridge with

in and making room with the hospitality that we have relationships that in, in the passage way, the declaration, he's the way the truth lies. We can welcome soon ever lasting.

Let's pray again. Jesus, we're thankful that you are the great I am, that you're the way, the truth in my life, or if there be any WR here this morning, we just not yet trust in you with the today, be the day of that faith and trust, glorious, beginning with new life or your Holy Spirit. Make it so that Lord, we all go from here renewed and your.

To join me when you are making room mission, you're glory, and you're bringing a biting joy in Jesus name.

Sermon transcript is computer generated.