The Cure for a Troubled Heart

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Fox TV host Sean Hannity ends each of his TV and radio shows with his famous tagline:

Let not your hearts be troubled.

But, in January 2021, after the presidential election had not gone his way, he changed his tune and told a Fox News associate:

My heart’s troubled. It’s aching for my country right now.

I think regardless of our politics we could all find many reasons to agree with that sentiment:

There have been well over 200 mass shootings in our country in less than six months this year

So far this year nearly a half a million pre-born children have been killed in the United States

Our national debt now amounts to almost $100,000 per person for every person living here in the US.

A significant number of people in this country actually believe that a man can get pregnant

I know all of that certainly troubles my heart. And my guess is that it troubles yours, too.

Tension

It’s not necessarily a bad thing to have a troubled heart. In fact, I hope you’ll be encouraged to learn this morning that Jesus actually experienced a troubled heart on more than one occasion. What matters is how we handle those troubled hearts so we make sure they don’t become so ingrained that they rob us of peace, joy, and hope.

Truth

Today we embark on a brand new sermon series we’ve titled “Abide”. We’re going to be studying what most Bible Scholars refer to as “The Upper Room Discourse” or “The Farewell Discourse”. Chapters 14-16 of John’s gospel account contain the words of Jesus that are not found in any of the other gospel accounts. This section gets its title from the fact that Jesus began this discourse with His disciples in the upper room where He observed the Passover with the twelve apostles.

The title “Abide” comes from the heart of this section where Jesus talks to His disciples about what it means to “abide” in Him. We’ll talk a lot more about what that means when we get to that section in a couple weeks, but I think it’s important to talk about it briefly this morning since it is really the foundation for today’s text.

The underlying Greek word is

meno =

“to remain, stay, abide, dwell

John uses that word more than any other New Testament writer. Forty of the 118 times it is used in the entire New Testament are right here in his gospel and he uses it 28 more times in the other New Testament books he authored.

My favorite description of what it means to abide in Christ comes from Scottish theologian Sinclair Ferguson:

Abiding in Christ means allowing His Word to fill our minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections.

With that in mind, let’s go ahead and read this morning’s passage:

John 14:1–14 ESV

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” 8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 12 “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 13 Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

I think it’s a shame that the majority of sermons I came across on this passage were funeral messages. I certainly understand how these words would be an encouragement to the families who have experienced the loss of a loved one. But Jesus is sharing these words with His disciples who are very much alive and who have a lot to live for even after He leaves this earth. He wants to encourage them not to let their troubled hearts keep them from fulfilling the lives He wants them to live going forward.

Jesus begins with a command. He instructs His disciples not to let their hearts be troubled. That command could literally be translated “Stop letting your hearts be troubled”. Jesus knew their hearts were already troubled - and no doubt with good reason. In fact they were probably terrified.

They had been fully convinced that Jesus was going to be the kind of Messiah they envisioned - a military hero who would conquer the oppressive Roman government. Those hopes had been confirmed - at least that is what they thought - just a few days earlier when Jesus rode victoriously into Jerusalem. But now He had been talking about dying and leaving them. What way was that for Him to treat those who had left all to follow Him? What was going to happen to them now?

As I mentioned earlier, there is nothing inherently wrong with having a troubled heart. In fact, in the previous few chapters, John had recorded how Jesus had experienced a troubled heart Himself on at least three occasions:

The first was at the death of His friend Lazarus:

John 11:33 ESV

33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled.

The second is when He contemplated His upcoming death:

John 12:27 ESV

27 “Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’? But for this purpose I have come to this hour.

The third time is when Judas was about to betray Him:

John 13:21 ESV

21 After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in his spirit, and testified, “Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me.”

So obviously it’s not wrong to have hearts that are troubled by the things of this world. We often can’t prevent the things that happen in our world that create stress and fear. So I think what Jesus means when He commands His disciples to stop letting their hearts be troubled was to not let those troubled hearts weigh them down and keep them from accomplishing God’s purposes for their lives. We know that is possible because Jesus did that. so let’s see what we can learn from His example and His words.

We’ll begin with our main idea:

When my heart is troubled I must practice the presence of Jesus

What troubled the disciples’ hearts the most is that they felt like Jesus was going to leave them. And physically, He was about to do that, just as He had been telling them. But He wanted them to know that they could still experience His presence - just in a different way.

Application

HOW TO PRACTICE THE PRESENCE OF JESUS

Trust in His promises (vs. 1-7)

The last part of verse 1 presents some translation problems. The underlying Greek verb “believe” can either be translated as an imperative, or command, like it is here in the ESV, or as an indicative - “you do believe in me”. Based on the context, I think the best way to translate it is this:

You believe in God, believe also in me.

The idea here is that Jesus’ disciples had always found strength in the promises of God the Father when going through difficulty. Since, as we’ll see in a moment, Jesus is one with the Father, then it follows that they can count on Him, too. And that is certainly true for us as well.

Many of the songs that we’ve learned recently have focused a lot on the promises and faithfulness of God - how we can rely upon God today because He has always been faithful in the past. Today’s passage reminds us that we can count on Jesus the same way.

Let’s take a moment to consider the three promises Jesus makes to His disciples - and by extension to us. All three promises tell us something about how we can experience Jesus’ presence:

Three Promises:

I’m going to prepare an abode for you

Many of you are familiar with the KJV of verse 2 which refers to “many mansions”. But that is really not an accurate translation. In fact, the point of this promise has nothing to do with the magnificence of our future home itself but rather that it will be a place where we’ll dwell with Jesus. The noun that the ESV translates “rooms” is related to the verb “abide” that we’ll see a lot in chapter 15 and it merely means an “abode” or a “place to stay”.

No doubt Jesus had the ancient Jewish marriage practices in mind. When a man got married to his wife, instead of going out and building his own home, he would usually just build a room on to his family’s existing house. Jesus isn’t busy right now building us all a mansion. He’s merely preparing a place in His Father’s house where we will dwell with both of them. The size or location of the room really doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that Jesus will dwell there with us.

I’ll be back

This was likely the most important thing Jesus said as far as the disciples were concerned. Jesus made it clear that He wasn’t going to abandon them. He would come back for them when the time was right.

That is a promise we can count on as well. If we don’t die and meet Jesus first, some day Jesus will return to this earth. All of us here this morning have been waiting for Jesus’ return for our entire lives and sometimes, if we’re honest, we might wonder if He is ever going to fulfill that promise. But, as we’ll see next week, Jesus hasn’t left us here alone in the meantime. He has sent His Holy Spirit to dwell permanently in our lives so we can experience His presence in that way right now while we wait.

You’ll be with me - forever

While we might not be sure of all the details, the one thing we know for sure is that when Jesus returns, He is coming to take those who belong to Him back to that dwelling place He has been preparing. And there we will be physically in the presence of Jesus for eternity.

As soon as Jesus makes those three promises, Thomas pipes up and asks Jesus to show them the way to where He is going. We usually call Thomas “doubting Thomas”, but I’m not sure it wouldn’t be more accurate to call him “honest Thomas”. He is just asking the questions the rest of the disciples are afraid to ask.

Jesus replies with these well known words:

John 14:6 ESV

6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is essentially telling Thomas, the other disciples, and us that the way we practice the presence of Jesus is to live our lives with Him at the center. He is the way and as long as we’re abiding in Him, His presence will take care of our troubled hearts.

So when your heart is troubled, take some time to meditate on the promises of Jesus.

Trust in His person(vs. 8-11)

Now it’s Philip’s turn to ask something of Jesus. Philip is a lot like Thomas. Most of the time he is kind of in the background. But here he gets up the nerve to ask Jesus to show he and his fellow disciples the Father. If Jesus can just do that, then they will trust that things are going to be okay.

I have to imagine that Jesus is a bit frustrated at this point. He just told Thomas that if they know Him, they know the Father. But He is very patient with Philip and the others and He further explains what He had just told them.

Here in these verses, Jesus describes how He relates to the Father in both His deity and His humanity.

He claims that He is in the Father and the Father is in Him. That is just another way of Jesus claiming that He is 100% God. And therefore, as the disciples get to know Him, they are actually getting to know the Father more fully as well.

At the end of verse 10, Jesus goes on to discuss how He relates to His Father in His humanity:

…the Father who dwells in me does his works...

I want to call your attention to the verb “dwells” there. That is the very same verb that is going to be translated “abide” throughout chapter 15. Let me remind you of the definition of “abide” that I shared with you earlier:

Abiding in Christ means allowing His Word to fill our minds, direct our wills, and transform our affections.

In Jesus’ case, the fact that the Father abides in Him means that His human life is a matter of allowing the Father to fill His mind, direct His will and transform His affections. And because He did that perfectly, His works were a perfect picture of the Father’s work.

When our hearts are troubled, we need to trust fully in all that Jesus is - both His deity and His humanity. We need to consider the works that He did here on earth and find comfort and peace for our troubled hearts, knowing that everything He did was 100% consistent with the heart of the Father.

Fulfill His purposes (vs. 12-14)

To me verses 12-14 contain one of the most unbelievable statements in the entire Bible. The idea than anyone, alone this ragtag group of disciples, could ever do greater works than Jesus had done, is inconceivable.

Certainly no one, including the disciples to whom Jesus was speaking, did any works that were more spectacular than what Jesus had done. So that couldn’t be what Jesus meant here. But there certainly is several ways in which what the disciples did surpassed what Jesus had done on earth:

Geographically. Jesus never ministered outside of Palestine. But His disciples spread the gospel all around the world.

Ethnically. Jesus ministered almost exclusively to His fellow Jews. But the disciples would take the gospel to people of all ethnicities and backgrounds.

Numerically. The book of Acts begins with a few dozen people meeting together in a room. But by Acts 2, we see three thousand added to the church in one day.

Spiritually. Jesus physically raised the dead. But the disciples were able to be a part of the spiritually dead being raised to life.

We have been called by Jesus to continue that work in our world today. And frankly, when we’re busy carrying out that task that has been entrusted to us by Jesus, we don’t have a lot of time to sit around focusing on our own troubled hearts.

But Jesus doesn’t expect us to carry out that work on our own. As we’ll see in more detail next week, He gives us His Holy Spirit to guide and empower us as we carry out Jesus’ purposes in our lives.

The other way He equips us is through prayer. Jesus wants us to ask Him for whatever we need to do His work. And He promises that if our prayers are consistent with His plans for our lives, He will give us what we ask for. That’s what it means to pray in Jesus’ name.

We’ve seen this morning that...

When my heart is troubled I must practice the presence of Jesus

Action

Obviously the one big advantage that the disciples who heard Jesus speak these words had that we don’t, is that they had personally experienced the physical presence of Jesus for three plus years.

However, the way that they continued to experience His presence after He ascended to the Father is the very same way we can practice His presence in our lives today.

So let’s close our time by making this really personal and practical. Most of you are probably familiar with our church’s Discipleship Path. You pass by it each week as you enter this auditorium. I think it’s very important to occasionally take some time to review the steps on that path and consider what step or steps I need to take next.

You’ll notice that the path is a circle. There are two reasons for that:

None of us ever complete the path and “graduate”. Many of the steps on the path are steps that we need to take throughout our lives as we walk with Jesus.

It is our responsibility as disciples of Jesus to reproduce this path and these steps in the lives of others.

Let’s take a moment to briefly walk through each step and as we do that I want all of us to prayerfully consider at least one step that we can take in our individual lives.

COME

If you’re joining us today, then you’ve already take this important first step. When Jesus chose His first disciples, He invited them to “come and see”. So if you’re here today, even if you haven’t taken any of the other steps you’ve done that. But please don’t stop there. That step alone won’t help you deal with your troubled heart.

COMMIT

Jesus frequently called people to make a commitment to Him. He began by calling them to follow Him. Later, when He asked them to make a deeper commitment, many found that to be too hard, but there were a handful who were willing to do that and develop a deeper more intimate relationship with Jesus. There are three possible commitments I want to ask you to consider today:

To place your faith in Jesus Christ alone as the basis for being reconciled to God and entering into a personal relationship with Him. As we saw earlier, Jesus made it clear that the only way to the Father is through faith in Him.

To be obedient to Jesus and testify to that faith through baptism by immersion.

To commit to membership here at TFC. We believe that membership in a local church is an important step in growing and maturing in one’s relationship with Jesus.

GROW

I can’t possibly list all the possible things that you could do to grow in your relationship with Jesus, but let me suggest a few for you to consider:

If you’re not already a part of our church Bible reading plan, go ahead and join that plan right now and finish the year with us.

If you’re not already taking part in a Bible class or our Bible Roundtable each Sunday after the worship gathering, join us.

For the men, join us on Monday mornings at 6:30 a.m. for our Bible study and/or be a part of our Men’s Breakfast on the second Saturday of each month.

Download our church app to your smartphone and read the daily devotionals and share what your’e learning with our church family.

SERVE

There are all kinds of opportunities for you to serve others both here in the body as well as in the community. If you’re not already serving somewhere, we’d love to talk to you and help you find a place of service.

SHARE

Jesus has called every single one of His disciples to make other disciples. Although we often feel unprepared to do that, it is often as simple as just sharing with others what Jesus has done in our lives and starting the whole path over again by inviting them to “come and see”.

For those of you who are here with us in person this morning, I want to ask you to take one of the tan “Next Step” cards from the chair backs. If you’re in the front row, you might have to ask someone behind you to hand one to you. Then I want you to prayerfully consider what step God might be leading you to make. I am convinced that there is at least one step each of us can take.

Then go ahead and complete the card. After our final song, go ahead and give that to me or one of our Elders or place it in the box in the back of the auditorium or the one in the lobby. I promise that we’ll be in contact with you this week to help you in any way we can to follow through with that next step.

Inspiration

Let not your hearts be troubled. Not because Sean Hannity or anyone else said that. But because Jesus not only commanded us to do that, but He has also made it possible for us to experience His presence in a way that untroubles our troubled hearts.