Troubled Hearts

TROUBLED HEARTS
Monday, April 11, 2022

Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. 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? 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. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:1-6).

This is one of the greatest sources of comfort to a troubled Christian soul. The disciples were distressed by all that had happened thus far in their last Passover with Jesus. Too much had been said and done for them to take in, the greatest of which had been His words about His coming death. Because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart . . . Therefore, you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you (John 16:6,22). What would we have thought or felt had we been with them in the upper room? What would we have said to Jesus, or would we have remained silent? The disciples expressed their grief and heartache through their body language and their words. They were at a loss as to what to do. But not Jesus. He proceeded to minister to them through words of comfort and hope. 

These words of Jesus were spoken while He and the disciples were still reclining at the table eating the Lord’s Supper. Many other things would be said before Jesus would finally tell the disciples, Arise, let us go from here (John 14:31). There is nowhere in Scripture a discourse so beautiful, tender, full of weighty thoughts, and so capable of producing spiritual comfort, as those found in John 14 - 16. They have brought peace and assurance to the soul that is dying, or who attends the death of a loved one or friend. In them the Lord reveals the beautiful truths of His Gospel, truths that calm every fear, silence every concern, and give desperately needed encouragement to the troubled soul. 

Let not your hearts be troubled. Jesus did not refer to the ‘heart’ as the physical organ of life. Rather it is, to the Hebrew, the seat of spiritual life, the center of feeling and faith (Romans 10:10), and “the focus of the religious life” (Marvin Vincent).  To have a ‘troubled’ heart is to have one's emotions deeply disturbed and in a state of upheaval, like a storm-tossed sea in the midst of a hurricane. The hopes and dreams of the disciples were being ripped from them. They were about to lose their beloved friend and leader in death. They had left everything - material resources, family and friends, employment - to follow Jesus, and now He was leaving them. They would be left alone to face persecutions and trials. Clearly they had not grasped the doctrine of the necessary atoning death of the Messiah. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel (Luke 24:21).

But this wasn’t about them. It never was. It never is. It is about the Christ who has come to save us from sin, death, and judgment. Our lives pale in comparison to His life and purpose. Without Him how lost we truly would be. Amen.

Pastor