This special “throwback” episode is pulled from the Vintage Joe Vault. It was originally preached in 1994, but shares timeless truths. 

In John chapters 14 through 17, Jesus mentions preparing a place for his disciples, and that in his Father’s house, there are many mansions. But what many believers interpret as a discourse about the second coming, heaven and our future home there is actually Jesus’ portrayal of how his Father will abide in his followers, here on earth.Pastor Joe gets into the Greek (spoiler alert: the Greek translation for “mansion” is actually “an abiding place”) and paints a picture for how we are designed to be God’s abiding place, his new temple (mansion) here on earth.

• How have we missed God’s intention for a closer-than-close, loving relationship with us NOW by writing off portions of scripture as for our future life in eternity?
• How have we misconstrued the nature of God? (I.e., Jesus’ loving nature prevents a harsh God from wiping us all out)
• What do other people have to do with how we abide?
• How does Father God redeem any earthly distortions we have when thinking of fathers?
• How does a right view of Father God help us move from works-based faith to a relationship- and trust-based faith?

Listen to episode 16 here.

Additional Resources

Abiding In the Father’s Love (1994) – Full MP3 Series

Abiding in the Father’s Love – Paperback book

Full Transcript

Now, I believe we’re coming into a time of tremendous authority for the body of Christ for those who have ears to hear. And part of the foundation that needs to be laid in our lives, is a real revelation of our God, our Father. Now, I want to read to you from John chapter 13. Near the end of the chapter, I said 14, because we’re just going to back up a few verses here. Verse 33, now this is the upper room discourse before the cross. This is Jesus giving his last instructions to His disciples to prepare them for what’s going to happen after the resurrection. “Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek me and as I said to the Jews, where I am going, you cannot come. So now I say to you, A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

One of the things that will help us is to realize that love is a weapon of spiritual warfare. To walk in love, forgiveness, humility, meekness, gentleness, and kindness is one of the strongest ways to overcome the devil’s work in your life. One of the main ways the devil robs us is by getting us into some kind of relational difficulty that cuts off our faith because we’re in unforgiveness. You can’t receive from God in unforgiveness. Your faith life is stifled if you refuse to walk in love. The new commandment is the key to victory. Taking the commandment of love seriously. “Well, you don’t know what they did to me.” Well, I don’t but they didn’t do to you what they did to Jesus. And He forgave him. “Yeah, but he was Jesus.” Yeah. And he lives in you. He lives in me, and expects us to live like Him. “Oh, man, I don’t know if I could ever do that.” Well, if you’re looking to yourself, you couldn’t. But John said, “Greater is he that’s in you, than he that’s in the world.”

See, we’ve got to learn to yield to the indwelling presence of the living God. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Greater is he that’s in me. He who is in me is the love of God. The love of God has been poured out in my heart by the Holy Spirit. It’s like Jerry was saying. I’ve got it. It’s just needing to learn how to walk in it. “Oh, God, give me love.” Why should he? He gave you the Holy Spirit. “Oh, God, I need to love.” Oh, now that’s true. “Oh God, I need to learn how to love.” That may be true, but don’t ask God to give you love. You have him who is love dwelling within you. What you need to do is renew your mind and apply the truth to your life. Because love isn’t a feeling that makes it easy to do the right thing.

Love is the setting of our will, empowered by the Spirit, to do what’s right regardless of how we feel. “Well, I just feel so much love.” Well great. What do we do tomorrow when you don’t? See, you can’t go by a feeling of love. That isn’t love at all. You think Jesus felt like dying on the cross? “Oh, this is no problem. I’ll just float up to the cross here.” No, his love was centered in his will. It was a choice he made before God, and by the grace of God, He did what he needed to do. And it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t easy and neither is obeying God. Always. It’s setting our will to obey. That makes us qualify for the grace and empowerment to do it. Don’t do it willpower. Willpower won’t cut it. I’m getting off on a lot of little tangents here today. But that’s alright.

By this will all men know that you are my disciples if you have love one for one another. Simon Peter said, “Lord, where are you going? Jesus answered him, where I’m going, you cannot follow me.” What’s the next word? “You cannot follow me now. But you shall follow me afterward.” You cannot follow me now. But you shall follow me afterward. Peter said to him, “Why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake.” Jesus answered him and said, “Will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow until you have denied me three times.”

You know, here’s the amazing grace of God. God calls us. God instructs us, and God even gives us vision and plan, knowing full well we’re going to go out and fall on our face, disobey God, get mad and quit. It’s what he did with Peter. And one of the other gospels, he says, “Peter, Satan has desired to have you that he might sift you as wheat. When you’re converted, strengthen your brethren. When you’ve turned back to me, strengthen your brethren.” He knew what was going to happen to Peter. Satan was going to come against him. And you know what, when we get a fresh commission from God, Satan will come against you to try to rob you of that obedience, and try to discourage you and try to make you believe it’ll never come to pass for you. But don’t let your faith fail. Interesting thing Jesus said, I prayed for you. Not that you won’t fail. But that your faith won’t fail. That your faith won’t fail.

“Let not your heart 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 to Myself that where I am, you may be also.” You remember, Jesus said you can’t follow me now, but you should follow me afterward? And he said where I am, you may be also.

Now I want to just bring something before your mind. That verse is often referred to as a, you know how you read a lot of books on the coming of the Lord, and they often quote John 14:3 and they say, “I will come again.” Okay? I want to suggest to you that that’s not a second coming verse. And think about this. Now the disciples are on the eve of Christ’s death, they’re going to lose him. He’s telling them in his upper room discourse, that he’s going to go away, he’s going to send them the Holy Spirit. And he said, I go to prepare a place for you. And just think about this. Jesus knows he’s not returning for a couple thousand years. What comfort would it be to the disciples for him to tell them he was coming again? “Oh, great, Lord.” He’s already told His disciples that many of them are going to be martyred. And what comfort would it be to say, I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, you will be also if what he was talking about was the second coming?

Now Jesus was practical. Now I realize Jesus word is eternal, and he talks to us, even as he talks to the Lord, but we have to realize that all of the Scripture have an application to the people that are being talked to as well. And an application to ourselves is secondary. You see, Paul wrote the epistles to churches that actually existed and dealt with problems that actually were and the first and primary meaning of those epistles was to their situation and circumstances, even though it has application to us in principle. Right? How many know that, you know, the idea of what we do with our slaves is not applicable to our cultural situation today. But we transfer it to our work situations and transfer the principles to modern society and we benefit from it, but yet it’s speaking of situations in that culture in that time. Well, so are the rest of the scriptures. They all speak to situations to real people that Jesus loved and was concerned about their circumstances and helping them endure what they faced.

Now, let me just point out something to you. It says, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” Now, what is the father’s house? Let’s look in John chapter two for a moment here. I want you to see something. When we plow across the field of tradition, sometimes it’s a rough field for a while. Because you’ve got furrows going two different directions. But in John chapter two, verse 16, it says, “And he said to those who sold doves, take these things away, do not make my father’s house, a house of merchandise.” Now, what was he talking about? The Temple in Jerusalem, which was the place ordained by God, for the people of God to come and meet God, worship God and offer things to God. It was the center of the religion of Israel, the place where God inhabited and where they could come together to meet God. Right?

Alright, now, Jesus says in verse 17, “Then his disciples, remembered that it was written, zeal for your house has eaten me up. So the Jews answered and said, What sign do you show to us since you do these things? And Jesus said to them, Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up. Now what just happened? Temple just got transferred from a building in Jerusalem to the Lord Himself. Now, the last thing he said to the Pharisees was, your house is left unto you desolate. That was no longer the father’s house. All right?

Now. They said in verse 20, “Then the Jews said, it has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days? Tut he was speaking of the Temple of his body. Therefore, when he had risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this to them, and they remembered this Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.” Now, what is the new temple of God? The body of Christ. Who are we? The body of Christ. What’s the new temple? The body of Christ. So what’s the father’s new house, the body of Christ. In my Father’s house, are many mansions. “I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself that where I am, you may be also.”

Because he rose from the dead, you have a place in the body of the Messiah, in the body of Christ. In God’s new temple, you have a mansion. But you don’t have to wait till you die to live there. In fact, if you don’t live there now you’re going to be miserable. Let’s look for just a moment, to confirm we need another voice and another witness here to show that I’m not just reading something into this that the scriptures don’t teach. Turn to Ephesians chapter two, verse 19. “Now therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.” In other words, this new temple has as a foundation. “Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

What’s the father’s new house? The church, the Body of Christ, the temple of God. Now, do you think Jesus as he stood there before his disciples trying to prepare them for what was going to happen after the cross is going to be talking about a building of stone in Jerusalem? Or a place in heaven? If John 14, My Father’s house is talking about heaven in the sense of where we go when we die, that’s the only place heaven’s ever referred to by that terminology. All right? In my Father’s house are many mansions God is building a temple, a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. We’re it. But notice we’re built together. Notice that a fractured, strife filled, disharmonious people cannot contain the presence and fullness of God. We are not a habitation of God in the Spirit when we walk in doubt and strife and unbelief and contention, and all these things. A new commandment I given to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you. What will cause God’s presence to be manifest in his people? People who have faith and walk in love.

Alright now, look at John chapter twelve for a moment here. I’m laying a foundation. I’m trying not to go fast, because I want you to really hear this, because what we’re talking about here is the key to the life of faith. When you see the Father’s heart, your life will change. When you understand the father heart of God, faith will not be a struggle. I’m not saying you won’t have battles, but you’ll be rooted in something so solid, that you cannot be shaken.

In John, chapter 12, verse 23, “But Jesus answered them, saying The hour has come, that the Son of Man should be glorified. Most assuredly I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it produces much grain.” Jesus is going to plant himself as a seed in the earth to bring forth a harvest of many sons. “He who loves his life will lose it and he who hates his life in this world, will keep it for eternal life.” So there’s a principle to following Jesus in this, we must lay down our lives to take up a new life in him.

“If anyone serves Me, let him follow me. And where I am, their my servant will be also.” Follow Jesus and you’ll be where he is. Is that what it says? “If anyone serves me, him will my father honor.” Alright, now I’m wanting to just lay this foundation here and just be real slow to to say this, because for one reason, you know, if of all your life you’ve heard mansions are something we get after we die, then what I’m saying can be kind of radical and kind of shocking, and you can go “Well, gee, I don’t know about that.” Well, let me just encourage you to read John 14 through 17, and try to find any other reference to the second coming of Christ. And, and some of the things I’ll show you, as we go through this, I think will show you that that wasn’t even in Jesus thinking. He’s talking about a relationship that’s going to be possible because of the resurrection.

In fact, if we read on in that same portion, which we should do right now, to get the context, “Let not your heart be troubled,” verse one, “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 to Myself that where I am, you may be also and where I go, you know, and the way you know.” Now wait a minute. If he’s coming again, to receive them to himself, and he’s preparing a place for them, and then he tells them they know the way to go where he’s going, kind of hard to put that with a second coming, isn’t it? “Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father, except through me.”

He is going to open up away to the Father. He’s going to open up the heart of the Father to His disciples. The way is the way to the Father. Christ is the way to God the Father. And He says, “I am the Way the Truth and the Life. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. And from now on, you know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father that’ll do. It is sufficient for us. And Jesus said, 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?”

Now I want you to notice verse ten very carefully, because this is a key to the unfolding of John 14 through 17. “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” Now I want you to notice the language there. And I want you to think about what he is saying, and what he is telling us about his relationship with the Father. He’s saying, I’m on Earth, but while I’m on Earth, I’m in my father. My father is in heaven. But while I’m on Earth, My Father is in Me. I am in Him. And He is in me. We have a relationship of union and communion that I’m walking in, so that I’m in heaven and on earth at the same time. I’m in union with my father in heaven, and he’s expressed through me in the earth. And he said, I want to open up for you that relationship. “Well can you show us that that’s what he’s really talking about?

Turn to John chapter 17, verse 20, “And I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they all may be one as you father are in Me, and I in you, that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me. And the glory which You gave me, I have given them that they may be one, just as we are one, I in them, and you in Me, that they may be perfected in one, and that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me, Father, I desire that they also whom you gave me may be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which You have given Me, For You loved me before the foundation of the world. Oh righteous father, the world has not known you but I have known you, these have known that you sent me. And I have declared to them your name and will declare it that the love with which you love me, may be in them, and I in them.”

The purpose of this discourse of Jesus, in John 14 through 16, is to show them and reassure them that the relationship that they’re going to have with him and the father after the resurrection will be totally adequate to make up for the loss of him there physically. That’s what they need to know. Jesus said, it’s going to be better for you that I go away and they’re saying, “Right. What are we going to do without you.” And he’s saying you’re not. I am going to be as real to you as though I never left. But I’m not going to be limited by time and space to be in one location with one group of people at one time anymore. I’m going to go in you and you’re going to change the world because I go in you and you walk in me. Because the mystery of the gospel revealed to the Apostle Paul was us in Christ and Christ in us. A perfect parallel of what he describes of his relationship. He in the Father, the Father in him and now we in Christ, and Christ in us that we all may be one. God’s family’s being extended.

Now, what that means then, to us, is that the Father has a desire to make himself known to us in such a way. You see, when we think in terms of Jesus only; when we think in terms of the Lord, as he was manifested in the earth, we fail to realize that the father, see we understand something about God so loving the world that he sent his son, but we really believe the Son is the one who loved us. Many times it’s what people end up believing. “The son loved me and because he died for me, the Father’s not going to squish me.” Now that’s the theology of the heart, maybe not of the head, but oftentimes that’s it. “Well, if it wasn’t for Jesus, boy, God would wipe us right out.

We need a renovation of our minds. When the Bible says “Be transformed by the renewing of your minds”, one of the first things that we need transformed is our concept of God the Father. Is he holy? Yes. Is he righteous? Yes. Is he the ultimate judge of all things, and will he judge every man according to his works? Yes. But my evil works have been paid for it, and if I walk in my covenant they no longer exist and I’ll never be judged for them. I’ll only be judged for reward. Well, you missed it. Missed a good opportunity to be glad! Stunned! Chew on that. Digest that. “He that believes on Me, Jesus said, has passed from death into life. Has passed from condemnation into life.

Now you can get in trouble. Through stiff necked, hard nosed rebellion, you can get out there where the wrath of God still comes upon the sons of disobedience. Don’t misunderstand. You can get in trouble if you want to. But you don’t have to. And it isn’t God’s best nor his desire for you. And God has no delight in judging anyone, eve though he’s perfectly just and compelled to do it by eternal justice. He must judge if no one intercedes and asks for mercy.

I’m going to just touch on the foundation of this this morning. We’ll take it up again next Sunday. The word for mansion is a Greek word, that means an abiding place. It’s only used twice in the Bible. And they’re both in John 14. Let’s look in John 14. I’ll show you where it is. Verse two its mansions. See, the problem is for no apparent reason the King James translators chose to put mansions in there, when it has nothing to do with anything. And it forever established a way of thinking in the church that made people think of a mansion in glory. But in verse 23, of the same chapter, the only other time this word is used, 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 mansion with him. Our home.

The best translation is abiding place or abode. And the reason I say that is that’s the noun form. The verb form is used throughout John 15, and it’s translated, “Abide in me and I in you.” He that abides is the same root word, and it’s used quite frequently for abide. So the most logical translation in John 14 for the noun would be abiding place. What Jesus said is, I go to prepare a place for you to abide. I’m going to sit down at my Father’s right hand, and you’re a branch in Me. Abide in me. Who was the temple? Jesus. He switches the picture from the branch to the vine picture, but basically uses the same terminology, abide. Abide in me, and I in you. He that abides in Me brings forth much fruit. I go to prepare a place for you, In my Father’s house are many abiding places, I’m going to prepare a place for you in me at my Father’s right hand, because Paul’s going to later cause us to see that we have been made alive, raised up and seated with Christ in heavenly places, which is just another picture of the same thing of abiding in the vine. See, if he’s seated at the right hand of God, and I’m abiding in him, Where am I abiding? If then you be raised up with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, and your life is hid with Christ in God. You see, these things fit right together.

In closing this up today, I want to just sow a seed in your heart, because we don’t have time to develop it today. I finally come to point one. I want you to think about this now very clearly. The father can only be known by revelation. No man has seen God at any time, but the Son of God who is in the bosom of the Father has declared him. Now, think about this. If you bring in your childhood images of Jesus in your adult walk with God, every time you try to pray to God, you’ll think of a picture of Jesus. And so your image of God, even of Jesus will be wrong. Because Jesus is not the humble carpenter of Galilee anymore. He’s the resurrected glorified Son of God, who’s seated in the throne with the Father. Whose glory is so majestic that John couldn’t even look on him because his face was as the shining of the sun.

Let me read a quote to you in closing. This is from E.W. Kenyon. “Satan has been very subtle in blinding our minds to the Father nature of God. The average Christian has no real consciousness of God as being his father. Man’s mind derives its knowledge through the senses of the physical body. The father has never been manifested to theses senses, as he is a spirit being, therefore man’s mind can form no mental picture of him. When a man has been born again, past sense knowledge of the life of Jesus has taken the place that the father should have had in his life. Because man could form a mental picture of Christ, he has developed the habit of praying to Christ, praising and worshiping Him alone. The renewing of man’s mind by the word of God brings the consciousness of the father to him that revolutionizes his life.”

There is something about the nature of a father that destroys one of Satan’s major strongholds in the life of a believer. And God wants you to know him as a father, so he can rid you of one of the great hindrances to faith, which is a false concept of who God is. You cannot trust a God whom you cannot trust. And if your image of a father is twisted and distorted, your faith life will always be a works life, not a faith life. Even the message of faith, even the teaching of faith, you will turn it into works. And you’ll figure if I jump through enough faith hoops, God’s got to do something for me someday. That’s not faith. And a distortion in our inner man about who Father God is, will cause us to twist what we hear and it will become bondage and legalism to us instead of liberty. God’s father heart is the key to living by faith. Abiding in the Father’s love is where faith functions. God wants you and I to become established in the Father’s love, so that our faith life abounds, our confidence in God of abound, our ability to trust His promises abounds, and our hearts become established in the grace of God. Amen. Hallelujah.