Sermon Tone Analysis

Text

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 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. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

Introduction

Continuing our series of messages on the return of Christ:

We talked about:

Confidence in His Return “looking for the blessed hope”

Conditions for His Return “perilous times shall come”

Commission for His Return “occupy ‘till I come”

Point 1

Point 2

Point 3

TODAY - Comfort at His Return

Conclusion

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

Background

To study this inspiring passage of Scripture from the fourteenth chapter of the Gospel of John concerning the comfort which is founded and fulfilled in the second coming of Jesus Christ, we note the precepts for the comfort (), the prospects for the comfort (), and the promise for the comfort ().

It was a very bleak and troubling hour for the disciples.

Christ had announced that one of them would betray Him and that their leader (Peter) who was the boldest of them all would deny Christ three times before the night was over.

This was added to the fact that Christ said He was leaving them and it sounded like it was through death.

The three items of news were very discomforting to the disciples and made this time in the Upper Room a very troubling time for the disciples.

So Christ gave two precepts or commands for the disciples’ troubled hearts.

I.

The Precepts for the Comfort

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Blessings are often preceded by commands.

Promises seldom come without precepts.

If you want God to do something for you, do not be surprised if God will ask you to do something for Him.

Of course, we much prefer the promises to the precepts.

People are more likely to talk about the wonderful promises in the Scriptures than about the precepts in the Scriptures.

But do not ignore the precepts or you will be without promises.

Here in chapter 14 of the Gospel of John, Christ is giving His disciples some much needed comfort.

And it all starts with two precepts, These two precepts are be tranquil and be trusting.

1. Be Tranquil

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

This is the first precept for the disciples.

The defining of the command.

This command does not mean, “ ‘Do not begin to be troubled,’ but ‘Stop being troubled,’ or ‘Do not be troubled any longer!’

” (Hendriksen).

It was primarily an order to stop being troubled.

The command here indicated that the disciples were having a real problem with troubled hearts.

Indeed, the disciples had a lot of things at that moment that were troubling them while they were sitting around the table in the Upper Room the night before the crucifixion.

First, they had been told by Christ that one of the twelve would betray Him ().

Second, they had just witnessed the leaving of Judas Iscariot (one of the twelve) from their presence under some ominous and puzzling conditions ().

Third, Christ had told Peter in the presence of the other disciples that he would deny Christ three times that very night ().

Fourth, Christ had spoken earlier about His death (), in fact this theme (which the disciples tried to ignore) was found more and more in what Christ spoke to the disciples—and it did not sound to the disciples like the Messiah setting up His rule over Israel and running out the hated Roman government in Palestine.

Fifth, added to these recent concerns was the fact that in the past year hostility toward Jesus Christ was becoming very strong.

Everywhere Christ went He was confronted with a snarling bunch of critics.

This hostility was so evident and so bad that when Christ started to go towards Jerusalem again, Thomas said to his fellow disciples, “Let us also go, that we may die with him” ().

So the disciples had many things that were troubling their minds, yet Jesus told them to not be troubled.

When people are “troubled” they do STUPID things!

Fear causes people to act irrationally and foolishly!

When the Bible says “Let not”, it implies you have the power to stop it.

Let not your heart be troubled....

When God gives us a command, God will always enable us to fulfill that command.

Your heart does not have to be troubled

You do not have to live in fear

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Realize: We will never have complete control of all the circumstances, but we can control our responses to them.

Explain: Someone is mean to you…you have choices...

Punch them

What’s done is done

Say something mean to them

It is what it is...

Leave and pray for them

Believing in God is the Entry Point into God’s Comfort

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Peace is a fruit of the Spirit that you receive when you get saved

Verse: Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

When God gives us a command, God will always enable us to fulfill that command.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace.

In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.

Transition: Stop being troubled, Start Trusting...

The dynamic for the command.

When God gives us a command, God will always enable us to fulfill that command and duty.

No matter how difficult the command, there will always be the dynamic for doing the command.

Therefore, here in our text Jesus Christ will give the disciples in the Upper Room plenty of help to do both of these precepts.

The help will be in what He says to them.

In our text, Christ will give ample reasons for the disciples to not be troubled.

And all the help Christ gives focuses on and climaxes in the grand promise of His Return.

2. Be Trusting

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

“Believe also in me” is the second precept for the disciples

“Believe.”

Keyword: “Believe.”

The disciples were exhorted to believe God and to believe Jesus Christ.

(add more info about believe)

We note two things about this second precept given the disciples.

They are the remedy in the precept and the rebuke in the precept.

“The Greek word for believe literally means “to place one’s trust in another”; it occurs over 90 times in the Gospel of John alone.

To believe in Jesus is to believe in His person and to trust in Him completely for salvation (3:15, 16).

Many of Jesus’ contemporaries believed in Jesus’ miraculous powers, but they would not believe in Jesus Himself (6:23–26).

Others wanted to believe in a political Messiah, but would not believe in the One who suffered for their sins ().

But we must be careful to believe and trust in the Jesus presented in the Scriptures, in the Son of God who sacrificed His life for our sins (, ; )”

Earl D. Radmacher, Ronald Barclay Allen, and H. Wayne House, The Nelson Study Bible: New King James Version (Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers, 1997), .

Jesus is always testing the Disciples’ Faith

a faith that cannot be tested cannot be trusted

Feeding of the 5,000

Tranquility comes from believing what God says about things...