Don't Be Troubled

If you were with us last fall, you know we were studying through the Gospel of John together. We are going to pick that study back up, although this morning’s message is going to get us out of order from where we had been.

Go ahead and open your Bible to John 14:1-6 this morning. That’s page 957 in the pew Bible in case you need it.

We will go back next week and resume in John 9 where we were when we took a break, but I wanted to move ahead today to look at one of my favorite passages in all the Bible.

Why resume our study here?

I was talking with someone who this week who is a few years older than I am, and they mentioned that they had never seen people as fearful as they are right now.

I bet if we were open with each other this morning, most of us would acknowledge that there is something that has us concerned today—something either right now or in what we see coming in the future that scares us.

I want us to see this morning, though, that the God we have been and will be talking about in John is the solution to all of our fears.

Don’t get me wrong—I am not trying to be dismissive of how hard life is or sit with my coffee while the house is burning down around me like the dog in the meme.

I am trying to continue what we looked at last week and point you beyond the chaos of today to the promise of a future with Christ.

Last week, when we talked about Jesus’ return, we talked about him coming back as the King who would rule the nations, and we focused a lot on who we should be right now while we anticipate his return.

However, do you ever wonder what Jesus is doing while we’re waiting on him?

There are certainly lots of answers, but here, Jesus gives us one of the answers to that question, and it is beautiful.

To set the scene, Jesus is enjoying his last meal with his disciples before he is going to be betrayed and crucified.

The next few days are going to be painful, chaotic, and terrifying for both Jesus and the disciples.

With incredible grace, Jesus has already humbled himself and washed his disciples’ feet. Now, he is telling them what to expect in the days to come.

He has told them that he will be leaving them, and he has just finished telling them that Peter would deny him 3 times.

Both of those would be confusing and unsettling, which is why Jesus comforts them with the words we read here.

Read 14:1-6 with me this morning...

Some of you might wrestle with that first statement.

To you, it feels like when friends have given you less than helpful advice like, “Oh, you’re depressed? Cheer up!” or “You struggle with anxiety? Stop worrying so much.”

That isn’t what Jesus is saying, though.

He is reframing what we are going through right now in light of what he is up to while we go through the challenges of life.

Jesus knew that the disciples were in for a wild ride over the next few days, and he was giving them an anchor, a hook to hang their hope on.

Let’s draw out four statements that show us why our hearts shouldn’t be troubled right now.

Read John 14:1-6 with me...

The first statement reason we don’t have to be troubled is because:

1) We can trust Jesus.

Look back at verse 1.

He follows the command not to be troubled with two commands of what we should do: Believe in God the Father, and believe in Jesus the Son of God.

In our study of John, we have seen that this is one of the main ideas John wants to communicate to us: We need to believe in Jesus if we want to have hope of life with God.

John 20:31 CSB

But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

In chapter 14, Jesus is drawing on everything we have already seen in the book, even the sections we haven’t covered yet.

However, let’s recap some of what we have already learned about Jesus from the Gospel of John.

We have seen in chapter 1 that Jesus is God coming to earth and taking on human flesh. We also find out that he is the Lamb of God, the perfect sacrifice who will take away the sins of the world.

In chapter 2, we have seen that Jesus is the one who is bringing the kingdom to God in all its joy.

In chapter 3, we are reminded that Jesus is the gift God has given to the world that shows the depth of his love for us.

In chapter 4, we find that Jesus is the one who isn’t afraid to talk to those the world ignores, instead wanting everyone to know how to be right with God. He teaches us that he is the sole source of the lasting satisfaction our heart wants.

In chapter 5, we find that he can heal the sick, both physically and spiritually.

In chapter 6, We see Jesus controlling nature as he feeds 5000+ people with a few fish and some loaves and then follows that up by walking on water.

In chapter 7, we are reminded that he is the one who gives the water that our souls are desperately thirsting for.

In chapter 8, we see Jesus extending grace to someone who deserved to die in her sins. He says he is the light of the world, and that those who remain in his word will be set free to live like they were made to live.

There is more we will see in the weeks to come, but here, Jesus points the disciples back to everything he has done and taught, and says, “Guys, you just have to believe in me.”

Remember, belief in the Bible is more than just knowing facts about someone—it is trusting them, following them, and committing them.

Like a climber on a glacier, we anchor our lives in Christ and hold on for dear life.

This isn’t a blind leap of faith; instead, it is a response to the God he has shown himself to be.

A God who is powerful and tender, trustworthy and just, and is far more amazing than we could fully comprehend.

We see in other passages that Jesus had the power to speak to a storm and cause it to stop immediately.

As loud as the chaos around us seems to get, Jesus pierces through all of it and says, “Just trust me—I’ve got this.”

So, then, the fact that he tells us to not let our hearts be troubled should be enough on its own because of everything we know about him.

However, Jesus goes on to give further reasons for our hearts to be at peace:

2) Jesus is preparing a place for those who are his.

Look at verse 2...

If you grew up in church around the same time I did, you might have “Big House” going through your head right now.

If you didn’t, you didn’t miss much—it was a song that talked about this very truth.

You will notice that our translation says “rooms” where others may say “mansions”. The English word “mansions” didn’t originally imply anything large or impressive; instead, it was just a dwelling (see NET Bible Notes)

He is telling us that he is going to get a place ready for us to live with him and with God the Father.

What does that even look like?

Some have suggested that this actually goes back to the Jewish wedding customs.

In those days, when a man and woman were engaged, the groom would go back to his father’s house and build on a room.

In some instances, it was the bridal chamber where the couple would spend the week of the wedding feast—kinda like a honeymoon suite.

In others, it was actually the room where the new family would live, building onto the Father’s estate.

Either way, it speaks to the beauty of what Jesus is implying here.

Here, he is the groom who is going away to make things ready for his bride.

Think back to your own wedding. I hope it was a happy time for you, a beautiful time of joy and anticipation and celebration.

Do you realize that Jesus feels a love for you that is even greater than you and your fiancée shared leading up to that day?

He is preparing a place for you and I to be with him forever!

Let’s think about something for just a second.

Perhaps this is too quaint a way to think about it, but just go with me for a second.

We said last week that God relates to time differently than we do, but how long ago was it that Jesus made this promise? About 2000 years, right?

How many days do we believe it took God to create the universe from nothing? Six days, plus a day of rest.

If he could form and fill the entire known material universe from nothing in six days, then what could he do with 2,000 years?

Jesus isn’t preparing a place for us that is like some of these HGTV shows, where the finishes and furniture look great on TV but are actually cheap and shoddy in real life.

The place he is preparing for us is more incredible than anything you and I can fathom.

The Bible only gives us glimpses of what heaven will be like. Here’s one of my favorite.

We won’t experience this in all its fullness until after everything has been settled, but here is what the final reuniting of heaven and earth will be like.

Let your imagination try to soak this in:

Revelation 21:1–7 CSB

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband. Then I heard a loud voice from the throne: Look, God’s dwelling is with humanity, and he will live with them. They will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and will be their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life. The one who conquers will inherit these things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son.

Doesn’t that sound incredible?

It may feel like that could never happen now, but believe Jesus when he says that he is preparing an incredible place for you, far more than you could ever imagine.

Allow your heart to rest in that today—No matter what is happening here, Jesus is there, like a loving, excited groom, getting things ready for us.

We aren’t there yet, are we?

As we said last week, we are doing a lot of waiting while Jesus is gone.

Our hearts don’t have to be troubled while we wait, though, because:

3) Jesus is going to take us back there.

Look back at 14:3...

We talked about this some last week, but he isn’t going to leave his bride waiting at the altar forever.

In those days, some have said the groom would actually go away for up to a year to prepare the room for him and his bride.

While he was gone, she was supposed to be getting herself ready for life with her husband.

Here’s the thing, though: that was never designed to be a permanent arrangement.

The groom wasn’t going to stay gone forever!

In fact, when it was time for him to return, they would station lookouts on the houses.

The groom would lead a procession from his father’s house through town to the home where the bride lived with her father.

When the lookouts saw him coming, they would call to one another, “He is coming!” and the bride would make herself ready.

He would come to the gate of her father’s house and then take him back to his father’s house for the wedding feast and the beginning of their new life together.

The groom may take longer than the bride would want, but the reality is, he is coming to get her.

We talked about it last week, but remember that Jesus really is coming again—our groom will come for us.

There is coming a day when those who are alive then will see Jesus literally, physically return to earth.

I don’t know all the specifics of how it will look when it happens, but I can’t wait for it.

Here’s how John wrote about it elsewhere:

1 John 3:2–3 CSB

Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.

When Jesus returns, we will see him, and we will be like him.

Throughout the New Testament, the church is referred to as Jesus’ bride.

Our job, while we wait for our groom to come back for us, is to purify ourselves—to strive to live holy lives that honor him and follow what he has taught us.

Our hearts don’t have to be anxious and upset about the state of the world.

Instead, we can actively wait on Jesus return, knowing he is coming back for us when the time is right.

Here’s the thing: Jesus was talking to his disciples, his followers, when he made these promises.

In the passage we just read from 1 John, the promises are to God’s children.

Looking through the Bible, we figure out that not everyone is God’s child.

How does a person even come into a relationship with God?

That is our fourth reason our hearts don’t need to be troubled:

4) Jesus is the way to get back to God.

Read verses 4-6.

Thomas was confused, especially because a little earlier, Jesus had told them they couldn’t go where he was going.

Now, he is saying you know the way to where he is going.

Thomas’s reply is an honest one— “We don’t even know where you are going, much less how to get there!”

Jesus’s reply is one of the most pivotal statements in all the Bible.

In fact, this brings us full circle to where we started.

The way for us to get to where Jesus was going, to get right with God the Father and enjoy eternal life with him, is believing in Jesus.

At this point, the disciples didn’t have a good picture of what it would look like to come to the Father “through Jesus”, but they would start to see it in a matter of hours.

Jesus was about to be arrested and nailed to a cross to die.

He had never sinned or done anything wrong, yet while he was on that cross, he was taking the penalty for my sin and yours.

He died to make a way for you and I to be right with God.

We have all sinned and fallen short of the standards God has set, and the only way for us to be able to be right with him was for someone to take that punishment on himself.

That’s why Jesus died, and then he rose from the dead, demonstrating that he had paid our full debt and we could be fully right with God now.

If you have placed your belief in Jesus, then your greatest challenge, the most impossible problem you could never solve, has been taken care of for you already.

Jesus made the way available for you to get back right with the God of the universe, and if you have accepted him, then you are going to get to be with him after you die and enjoy life in his kingdom forever after his return!

So, then, don’t let your heart be troubled.

Instead, reframe the problems and pain you are facing. They may last the rest of your life, but they still aren’t forever.

Your Savior has promised to make a place for you, and he has promised to come get you.

Are you resting in that today? Ask him to help you to do so in greater measures in the year to come.