The Cure for A Troubled Heart, Part One

In order to trust God, we must always view our adverse circumstances through the eyes of faith, not of sense. And just as the faith of salvation comes through hearing the message of the gospel (Romans 10:17), so the faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone. It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God’s relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances. It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity. Trusting God, 1988, Jerry Bridges

As we move ever nearer to the cross, the disciples will come to know suffering and hardship in ways that they have never known before. Recent events have done nothing to instill peace and calm in their hearts. In fact, as Judas leaves and Jesus turns to his disciples, he is going to address their troubled hearts.

As we move into chapter 14, let’s review some context.

Chapter 11

Lazarus dies.

Jesus raises him.

The Jews seek to kill Jesus because people are believing and following him.

Jesus has to flee.

Chapter 12

Mary anoints Jesus feet

Judas’ indignation over it.

Plot to kill Lazarus in addition to Jesus because people were believing in Christ because of him.

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem

Jesus teaches we must lose our lives to be a servant of Christ

Jesus teaches he will be lifted up.

Unbelief of people

Jesus comes to save the world.

Chapter 13

Jesus washes disciples feet

Reveals betrayer, Judas leaves

Command to love one another

Jesus foretells Peter’s denial

Chapter 14

Talks of leaving and going away

Sermon Body

John 14:1-14.

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.

Jump to the end of John 16.

John 16:33.

John 16:33 ESV

33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Begins with command to not be troubled and ends chapter 16 with this...I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

Chapters 14-17 encompass Jesus final words to his disciples before his betrayal. The entire section is Jesus building them up, giving them what they will need to live in peace through tumultuous times that are coming. Chapter 17 is too, though this is Jesus prayer in which he prays for them that the Father might guard and protect them for the coming difficult times.

The entire section is about finding peace in the midst of trouble. It is about the cure for a troubled heart.

Throughout chapters 14-16, we see nine cures that Jesus lays out. Today we consider only the first.

First cure – command

An Imperative – Believe in God – John 14:1.

Let not your hearts be troubled – Imperative

Hearts – Whole range of inner man, thinking, grieving, rejoicing, desiring, understanding, and decision making; CENTER of spiritual life – temptation, faith, doubt, devotion flow from here.

Troubled – As water; to agitate, to terrify, to fear, to unsettle, perplex

Same as used in John 11, with Lazarus and in John 12 when he spoke of his being lifted up

E.G. – Used in John 5:7 when the crippled man said that there was no one to put him in the water when it was stirred up.

When you think about this command, don’t you see a problem? Problem is…HOW DO YOU COMMAND YOUR EMOTIONS?

I know NO ONE who has ever been able to command their emotions at will.

Emotions cannot, will not be commanded.

This is not to say that emotions are not important. They are. But they flow from the roots of who we are.

And the roots of who we are are composed of our belief’s, values, and thoughts.

Thus, the way to deal with emotion is to trace them back to the root, to our thoughts, to our thinking.

This can be challenging because our emotions are powerful and, for some, throughout our lives we have even been taught to ignore, suppress, or reject emotion.

Others have been taught that emotion is the pathway to truth.

But in truth, emotions are often not truth. Nor do they lead to truth. However, they can. Emotions are like a sensor on the dash of a car that alerts us to a problem or something going on. In order to find out what the issue is, we have to diagnose the problem and find the root problem. Too may times have I paid for repairs on a car only to find out that it was not the root issue. So often that is true of our emotions as well. We can wrongly diagnose the problem and not solve it. But when we are able to follow it back to the root, there is where can deal with the problem provoking the emotion we sense.

I am for one, have discovering that dealing with emotions rightly does not come easy for me…as I am sure many of us can relate to.

SO, how do we deal with emotion? How DO we command our hearts not to be troubled?

Jesus gives us the solution in the very next word.

BELIEVE.

The first cure for our troubled hearts, is a command to BELIEVE, to change our thinking

And when we do, our emotions will follow....eventually. Emotions follow thinking.

Believe in God, Believe in Me – Can be either indicative (You believe in God) or imperative. Context, imperative.

Believe - To consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one’s trust. To entrust oneself to another in complete confidence, with total commitment.

To be convinced of something.

You see what happens here....WHEN you believe something to be TRUE, you will consider that thing/person worthy of your TRUST. And when you consider them worthy of your trust, you will COMMIT yourself to them with total commitment.

E.G. - Probably few of your even questioned getting in your car and driving here today. You have come to trust that your car safe and reliable and would get you here safely. You just did it, without must, or any, consternation.

E.G. - Same with the seat you sat on when you got here. No one did a thorough and extensive search of the seat to make sure it was safe.

You believed your car, the seat was reliable and worthy of your trust AND you committed yourself fully to them.

THAT is what God is commanding here.

Problem is....there may well be some here today who cannot be comfortable with that.

BECAUSE you are not yet convinced that God is totally true.

Some of you are totally aware of your lack of trust.

Others of you, may not even be aware of it yet, but your lack of complete surrender to him may well be the symptom of it that you have not yet discerned.

And yet you sense in yourself a reservedness, a hesitancy.

You go to great lengths to self protect yourself.

You isolate from God and others.

For some of you, the trouble in your life has cast too much of a shadow of doubt over God and your are not convinced he is true or good.

Oswald Chambers noted...

When once you are rooted in Reality, nothing can shake you. If your faith is in experiences, anything that happens is likely to upset that faith; but nothing can ever upset God or the almighty Reality of Redemption; base your faith on that and you are as eternally secure as God. When once you get into personal contact with Jesus Christ, you will never be moved again. My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers

This, then, is the problem for many. Our theology is built upon the shifting foundation of experiences rather than on the rock of truth.

How then, do we arrive there? How do you get to the place of total trust?

Begin by praying and asking God for help.

Show me.

Convince me.

Commit to being teachable and open.

Are you willing to be convinced that God is true and trustworthy? That is he Good?

Too often, we have closed our hearts off to ever listening or hearing. We have so convinced ourselves OR we so desirous of protecting ourselves, that we are not willing to even learn or see truth.

Consider that just perhaps you have allowed your experiences to dictate your theology rather than your theology dictating your emotions.

Consider that perhaps, just perhaps, your experience has deceived you and what you have believed to be true is not. Be willing to see that God is good and true despite your emotions and feelings on the matter.

Spend time in His word.

Make a log of every time God was faithful, every time God kept his promises, every time God came through, every time God was PRESENT with and for his people in the midst of adversity.

Make a list of every time God used pain and trouble for good.

Make a list of every time God lied or broke His word (will be a non existent list)

Make a list of all the ways God has shown Himself faithful and true IN YOUR LIFE. Be specific. Include every small thing as well as every large.

Spend time around God fearing people.

Now, we are not perfect.

BUT, in theory, a people committed to God, sold out to God, will make effort to love like God.

God often uses HIS BODY, the CHURCH, to manifest Himself tangibly to us and to the world.

And despite imperfection, we can learn the trustworthiness and faithfulness of God from a body wholly committed to living and loving like Jesus, albeit imperfectly.

Separate your personal experiences from the true nature of God. Realize that your experience does not necessarily speak truth about who God is.

Do NOT build your theology off of your personal experiences.

Interpret your experiences off the theology revealed to us by the living word of God.

Our experiences and our emotions will mislead us.

The living word will not lie.

It is my prayer for you, for me, for us, that we would come to BELIEVE in God, without reservation and without hesitation.

Here is what happens to our emotions WHEN WE DO reach that point of believing God is true and therefore worthy of our trust and therefore we willingly and in faith put our ourselves TOTALLY in his hands.

Our emotions WILL follow.

When we come to HAVE THIS LEVEL OF CONFIDENCE AND TRUST, our emotions WILL follow.

It may not be immediate, but they will follow. Our emotions take their cues from our beliefs, from our thinking.

We cannot let emotions decide. They are not wise. They are not foolish either. They are just emotions.

Emotions flow from roots. Emotions are to be a guide to draw us back to the roots so that we can address them.

We feel what we feel because we think what we think.

The first cure for a troubled heart is an unshakable trust in God.

What does an unshakable trust in God look like practically?

We take God at His word and obey in complete trust that all the promises of God are as sure for as the rising of the sun.

It means we live in complete submission and obedience to Him.

We do not do as Abraham and Sarah did, devise their own plans to aid God in the fulfillment of HIS promise to them.

We do not run away from pain, hardship, or difficulty but trust God to keep His promises to us THROUGH them.

Psalm 6:6-10 and Isaiah 43:1-3 were in my morning meditation time this week.

Psalm 6:6–10 ESV

6 I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. 7 My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes. 8 Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping. 9 The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord accepts my prayer. 10 All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.

This picture, drawn by Christopher Powers (Fullofeyes.com) depicts that despite David’s weariness, his thread of hope is that GOD HEARD HIM.

When you connect that with Isaiah 43....

Isaiah 43:1–3 ESV

1 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.

I WILL BE WITH YOU....THROUGH THE RIVERS, THROUGH THE FIRE.

When we come to see that God is good and trustworthy, we will not fear the fire or the water, because we know that God is walking with us through it…His arms are under us, keeping us safe.

This is why I put these words on Christophers picture...

In the midst of trouble, God, not relief, is my hope and joy. He is more than just a means to an end. He IS the end. His presence is the thread of hope I cling to.

Practically speaking, when we come to trust God, we fear nothing for we endure nothing alone.

We align our lives with the priorities of heaven.

We can sacrifice with joy because we know we are sacrificing to the one who is trustworthy and good.

We can trust God with our emotions for we know he will never despise them, like so many of our human counterparts have.

Believing God means that HIS opinion, HIS worth (Truth), HIS will and purpose IS ours.

That despite the hurt and disappointment, the sorrow and fear this world throws at us, we continue entrusting ourselves to Him.

1 Peter 2:18-25.

1 Peter 2:18–25 ESV

18 Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. 19 For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly. 20 For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God. 21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. 22 He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. 23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. 25 For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

Believing God means that we have a cure for our troubled hearts BECAUSE we know that God is good and trustworthy, that he can be trusted with our sorrow, our pain, and our joys.

Gary Preston – Pastor shares….(Character forged from conflict: Staying connected to God through controversy)

Hurt that refines

When I was in seminary I heard a speaker make a statement that at the time I scarcely believed. Quoting A. W. Tozer, the speaker said, “God cannot use a man greatly until he has hurt him deeply.” Around the same time I read a similar observation by Alan Redpath: “When God wants to do an impossible task, he takes an impossible person and crushes him.”

Could that possibly be true? I wondered. Does God ever bring hurt to our lives—even for the purpose of refining us or increasing our usefulness?

Many years and many hurts later, I’ve come to learn that there are lessons in life that can only be learned through God’s curriculum of pain. That’s part of what Jesus was getting at in John 15:2 when he told his disciples that “every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.”

All in the waiting

I remember my first roller coaster ride as a kid. It happened at a later age for me than it did for most of my friends. Even my younger brother had ridden a roller coaster before I had. But I was cautious, even fearful. Finally, with the urging of my older brother and my father—and feeling embarrassed that my younger brother had taken the plunge first—I screwed up enough courage and allowed my dad to take me on the coaster.

My father kept assuring me that everything would be okay. His last words were, “If it gets too scary, just tuck your head under my arm, and I’ll hang on to you.” From the moment the roller coaster crested the first hill until we rolled to a stop, my head was buried in his armpit. I knew that my dad would never intentionally try to hurt me or put me at risk. If he said I’d be safe, I’d be safe. That didn’t take the fear out of the ride for me, but it did allow me to stay close to him during the ride. In a similar way, the pain of being forced out of a church led me to trust God in a way that I had never done before. Although I had no understanding of what God was doing or why, I discovered that he could be trusted completely to bring me through the ordeal. I believed and would discover again that God had not been caught off guard. He wasn’t wringing his hands and wondering, What am I going to do with Preston now? Pain was part of God’s curriculum for my life, and I needed to learn to trust him through it.

Gary Preston – (Character forged from conflict: Staying connected to God through controversy)

Do you believe that God never intends to cause you harm?

Again, this does not mean He does not mean to cause you pain. Sometimes He does.

Do you believe that when He causes you pain, that He does NOT mean it for harm, but good?

Do you?

Do you really?

Even in our pain and hurt, we must BELIEVE in God and BELIEVE in the Son.

Disciples were about to have pain. Thus, Jesus is attempting to fortify their hearts BEFORE they being to experience it, so that they will be able to look back and be confirmed in their faith.

Conclusion

BIG IDEA: A troubled heart is soothed through confident belief in God.

Nine cures for troubled hearts (John 14-16)

An Imperative – Believe in God – John 14:1.

There are more cures to come.

let me end with this…

John 12–21: The MacArthur New Testament Commentary Comfort Comes from Trusting Christ’s Presence

The presence of Christ is enough to calm the believing heart in whatever perplexing, troubling situation it finds itself. As the godly Puritan John Owen noted, “A sense of God’s presence in love is sufficient to rebuke all anxiety and fears; and not only so, but to give, in the midst of them, solid consolation and joy”

As we strive to be growing together to become more like Jesus for the glory of God, may it begin with a stalwart faith that trusts in God and is totally committed to Him in all things.

Application

What does it look like to have a troubled heart?

Worry, fear, anxiety, doubt.

It is to be controlled and consumed by these things and not allowing the peace of God to rule in our hearts.

It means to live with a constant sense of unease and fail to know peace.

What role do emotions play in our lives?

They are warning lights that ought to point us back to the heart. They are indicators that something in our hearts, our core needs attention.

How do we learn to govern our emotions?

By renewing our mind on truth.

Truth will, in time, dictate our emotions.

To believe something is to allow that thing to exercise control and authority over your life and actions. It is more than intellectual asset and agreement to facts. Belief becomes core and drives our actions and emotions.

How is your belief in God practically being displayed in your day to day life?

How is your life evidencing a lack of trust in God?

Practically speaking, how do you building trust in God?

Build on the suggestions given in the message.

Begin by praying and asking God for help.

Commit to being teachable and open.

Spend time in His word.

Spend time around God fearing people.

Separate your personal experiences from the true nature of God. Realize that your experience does not necessarily speak truth about who God is.

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