“Bible promises: I go to prepare a place for you”
John 14:2
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
It all began back in October of 1955 when the University of California--Los Angeles, started what they called their “Last Lecture” series. It’s when some of their best-known and best-loved professors like Abraham Kaplan, Kenneth Trueblood, and Coach John Wooden were given the opportunity to express their own life philosophy by sharing their interests, life lessons, and personal experiences--if it was to be their last lecture.
In time, the idea caught on at other colleges and universities across the country.
Which takes us to a place called Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It’s where a professor by the name of Randy Pausch was teaching computer science and design. And since he too was so well known and loved, his school asked him to give his last lecture. The only problem was he had just been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, so, as it turned out, it would literally be his very last lecture.
He died in July of 2008 at the age of forty-seven.
So what did he share in his last lecture? He said things like this: “Look for the best in everybody. If you wait long enough, people will surprise and impress you. And when you’re angry and frustrated with people, it might be because you haven’t given them enough time.”
He said to make time for what matters. He told the story of when he and his wife Jai went on their honeymoon, and wanted to be left alone. But since his boss demanded that there be a way for people to reach him, he recorded this greeting on his phone: “Hi, this is Randy. I waited until I was thirty-nine to get married, so my wife and I are going away for a month. Though you might not have a problem with that, my boss does. Apparently, I have to be reachable.” Then he went on to give the name and number of his in-laws and said, “If you can convince them that your emergency merits interrupting their only daughter’s honeymoon, they have our number.” And he said, “Time is all you have, and you may find one day that you have less than you think.”
Finally he said, “Let kids be themselves. Don’t make them figure out what you want them to become. Let them become what they want to become.”
What would you say if you had one last lecture to give?
The book of John chapter 14 takes to a place only a few were privileged to go. It was an Upper Room the very night before Jesus would suffer and die.
So what would He say and what would He do?
I’ll read the words of chapter 13: “Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him” (John 13:3-5).
And just as soon as He had washed their feet, He sat down again and said, “You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet” (John 13:13-14). And He said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34).
Then knowing full well all that would soon take place, He said in chapter 14, “Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in Me. 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 unto Myself; that where I am, you may be also” (John 14:1-3).
It’s one of the Bible’s most beautiful and most important promises of all!
So what does it mean?
Let’s start with the word “mansions.” As Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2).
Now when you hear that word, what do you think of? Do you think of the Chartwell Mansion, the one-time home of the Beverly Hillbillies? With its eleven bedrooms, eighteen bathrooms, twelve thousand bottle wine cellar, seventy-five foot swimming pool, secret tunnels, private gardens, and forty car garage, it was, at least back in 2018, the most expensive home for sale in the United States. That’s a mansion!
Or how about the Biltmore Estate, just outside of Asheville, North Carolina. While today it’s a museum as well as a tourist attraction, it’s also the largest privately-owned home anywhere in the United States.
And let me tell you--it’s quite the mansion! While most of our homes will range anywhere from 1,200 to 2,500 square feet, the Biltmore Estate comes in just short of one hundred and eighty thousand square feet! With its thirty-five bedrooms, forty-three bathrooms, sixty-five fireplaces, indoor heated swimming pool, bowling alley, and state-of-the-art fitness gym, probably none of us would ever mind living there!
But if that’s not enough for you, let’s take a trip around the world to a small island country called Brunei. It’s there that you’ll find the largest mansion of all!
So how big is it? Well, let’s just say that when it was built back in 1984, it cost $1.4 billion! And why not? After all, with its 1,788 rooms, one hundred and ten car garage, air-conditioned stables for your two hundred polo ponies, not to mention a banquet hall large enough to host five thousand guests, it’s probably all the house you would ever need!
So what did Jesus mean when He said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions” (John 14:2)?
Let’s look at the word “mansions” for just a moment.
Now as you probably already know, the Bible didn’t come to us in English. Instead, the New Testament was originally written in Greek. So when Jesus said, “In My Father’s house are many mansions,” the Bible didn’t exactly use the word for mansions. Instead, it used the word “mone,” a word that means “rooms” or simply “places to live.”
So how did we ever get the word “mansions”?
That’s where it gets interesting! You see, four hundred years after Christ, a pastor and teacher named Jerome translated the Bible into Latin. And when he did, he used the word “mansiones.” “In My Father’s house are many mansiones.” Then about a thousand years later, another pastor and teacher named William Tyndale came along and translated the Bible into English. And when he did, he not only used the Bible’s original languages, he also got a lot of help from Jerome.
So when he came to the words of John chapter 14, verse 2, he could have written, “In My Father’s house are many rooms,” or “In My Father’s house are many resting places,” or “In My Father’s house are many dwelling places.” Instead, he wrote, “In My Father’s house are many mansions.” And thanks to him, the word has stuck ever since.
So what’s it really mean? I like the words of the New Living Translation. It says, “In My Father’s house, there are more than enough places to live. And I'm going there to prepare a place for you.”
What’s that mean? It means that it doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or what you’ve done, there’s a place for you in the Father’s house.
And what’s the Father’s house? It’s heaven--beautiful, glorious, eternal, unimaginable, incomprehensible, indescribable, unfathomable heaven. It’s what the Bible calls a country because of its vastness, a city because of its inhabitants, a kingdom because of its Ruler, a paradise because of its beauty, and a house because of its family. It’s where God dwells.
Its streets are paved with gold, its gates are made of pearl (Revelation 21:21), and its walls and foundation are built of precious stones (Revelation 21:18). And there’s a river, the water of life, flowing down from the throne through the center of the street (Revelation 22:1).
As pastor and teacher John MacArthur once wrote, “It’s a golden, diamond city. In the center of this massive, cubed, glorious, transparent, golden diamond is God’s glory and the glory of the Lamb blazing through and being refracted into the endless new heaven and new earth. And around the city are jewels, massive jewels that spin out the colors of the rainbow. And there are gates, twelve gates, each one made from a single pearl from which the light bounces and adds to the transcendence.”
It’s what the apostle Paul said was so beautiful and so incredible, he couldn’t even put it into words (II Corinthians 12:4). It’s where our names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life (Revelation 21:27).
And not only in the Father’s house is there more than enough room, Jesus said, “And I am going to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
As Keith Green once said, “If it only took God six days to create the entire universe and He’s been preparing a ‘place for us’ for over two thousand years, then our life here on earth is like living in a garbage can!”
Or as Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him” (I Corinthians 2:9).
Once upon a time, or so the story goes, there were two babies--twins--in a mother’s womb. The first said to the other, “Do you believe in life after delivery?”
The second child replied, “Why, of course! There has to be something after delivery. Maybe we are here to prepare ourselves for what we will be later.”
“Nonsense,” said the first. “There is no life after delivery. What would that life be?”
“I don’t know,” said the second, “but there will be more light than here. Maybe we will walk with our legs and eat from our mouths.”
The doubting baby laughed. “That’s absurd! Walking is impossible! And eating with our mouths? Ridiculous! This umbilical cord supplies all the nutrition we could ever need.
“Besides, no one has ever come back from there. Delivery is the end of life. After delivery, there’s nothing but sadness and darkness and a trip to nowhere.”
“Well, I don’t know,” said the twin, “but certainly we’ll see our mother and she’ll take care of us.”
“Mother?” the first baby said. “You believe in mother? Where is she now?”
The second baby calmly and patiently tried to explain. “She is all around us. It is in her that we live and move. Without her there would not be this world!”
“Well I don’t see her, so it’s only logical that she doesn’t exist.”
The other replied, “Sometimes when it’s really quiet, you can hear her, you can perceive her. I believe there’s a reality after delivery and we are here to prepare ourselves for that reality when it finally comes.”
And how is all this possible? It’s not because of you. And it never could be, not in a million years!
Instead, your reservation’s been made by Jesus’ life and death and resurrection. His blood covers all your sin. His grace covers all the cost.
And what’s the cost? Peter wrote: “Not with gold or silver…but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect” (I Peter 1:18-19).
And that’s a promise!
We thank You, heavenly Father, that this world is not our home. Through all the trials and troubles that this life so often brings, keep us strong until our time on earth is done, for Jesus’ sake. Amen