LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED

Sermon Of The Week #200748- December 9, 2007

In the gospel according to John he records the words of Jesus when he said: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.” This statement of Jesus was very appropriate for Simon Peter because the last statements of John 13 were the answer of Peter to the Lord’s declaration: “Whither I go, thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” Peter said, “Why cannot I follow thee now, I will lay down my life for thee;” and Jesus said, “The cock shall not crow till thou hast denied me thrice,” so Peter must have felt very depressed, and Jesus said, “Let not thy heart be troubled.”

Paul would say later for the benefit of all who trust in their own strength in living the Christian life in 1^st Corinthians 10:12, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.”

In spite of his boast Peter denied the Lord three times, but when he repented, he was restored to his former place after the resurrection at the fireside on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. Then the Lord reminded Peter when he was young he girded himself, and went where ever he pleased, but when you grow old another will gird thee, and carry you whether thou wouldst not. This he spake concerning what manner of death he would glorify God. From thereon Peter lived every day under the shadow of the cross.

Then as an old man he reminds us in his first epistle that the putting off of his tabernacle was coming swiftly upon him. Peter finally got his wish. Jesus said, “Thou canst not follow me now, but thou shalt follow me afterwards.” He was referring to Peter’s crucifixion, which some say was at his own request upside down on the cross. Peter at last made good his boast. “Lord, I will lay down my life for thee.” And the Lord said not now, but later. And that is why Jesus said in the first verse of John 14: “Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in God believe also in me.”    

Another reason the Lord said, “Let not your hearts be troubled,” was because Jesus also said in the previous chapter one of you shall betray me, and they looked one on another, wondering which it might be. That was enough to sadden all the apostles. Matthew records that they all asked, "Is it I, Lord?" Each one considered himself under a cloud of suspicion.

Even Judas had the nerve to ask, “Is it I Lord?” Judas knew, that Jesus knew, and his conscience was so dead he did not care whether the Lord knew it or not, and he got up and left, and John adds this chilling statement, AND IT WAS NIGHT! His conscience was completely deadened, and there was no longer pain in committing the world’s greatest sin.

Many of us have had the experience of going to the dentist, and having our gums deadened for the pulling of a tooth, so there will be no pain. Many today have a conscience that is deadened to pain. We read every day in the news about the most horrible crimes committed by people who have no remorse, because their conscience is dead. And there are many also today who have resisted the truth of the terms of obedience to the gospel so long that their conscience is just as dead as Judas, and they also commit the worlds greatest sin, and for them it is also true, AND IT IS NIGHT. You don’t have to live in the dark.  Paul speaks in Colossians 1:13 of the Christians being called out of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son of his love. 

And now notice also when Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled,” he was speaking of the heart, and this is important when we consider that Jeremiah said in Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it.” According to this it can be said that we all have heart trouble, and that is why Jesus said in Matthew 22:37, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” Let not your heart be troubled.

Those words let not your hearts be troubled would mean very little if spoken by anyone but Jesus. On the news I saw a sports fan hold up a banner after his team won the game and the banner said, “Now I can die happy.” I doubt that he will really find any happiness in that banner in the death of a loved one or himself. There are times in the great trials of life when the voice of Jesus is the only voice that comforts us. Let not your heart be troubled.  

 And then Jesus said, “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.” Sometimes we sing the spiritual, "Just Give Me a Cabin In The Corner Of Glory Land." We are prone to think that if we could just go to Heaven we would settle for the most humble place there. Actually because of the grace of God we don't have to settle for a cabin, we can hope for the abode in another gospel song, "I've Got a Mansion Over the Hilltop." Actually both songs are a little out of sync. Jesus said, "In my Father's House;" the House of the Father has many mansions, or rooms in it. It would be better to think of our place of residence in Heaven as a room in the Father's House.

Think of that, Jesus will prepare a room for me in the Father's House. Now isn't that something, my own private room in the Father's House? When Jesus was born there was no room for Him down here in the inn, but He will prepare a room for me in the Father's House. I won’t have to sleep in a celestial manger, with celestial sheep, and celestial donkeys. He will give us a better reception in Heaven than we gave Him down here on earth.

Remember Jesus said it was a prepared place; it is a permanent place. In this world there is no permanent dwelling. The Christian lives like Abraham as a sojourner who spent his life living in tents because he looked for a city that hath foundations whose builder and maker is God. In this world we live in a motel. I have been in the worst of motels, and I have been in the best motels, but after a couple of days even in the best, I am ready to leave, and head for home.  

When I approach the Father's House at the end of life and see the lights of glory, I will not see a NO VACANCY sign hanging outside. Jesus has said that He is not only going to prepare a place for me, but if it were not so I would have told you. If there were no hope after this life for the Christian, he said, I would have told you. We can be just as sure of this room in the Father's House as we can be sure that Jesus told the truth.

What a view we will have from that room that Jesus has prepared for us in the Father's House. I would suppose that those who have really suffered for their faith such as the martyrs who were burned at the stake, as well as modern day Christians who are tormented and dying for their faith even as we speak in many parts of the world; they may very well have a room in the front of the Father's House looking down Glory Hallelujah Boulevard all the way down to the intersection of the, Praise God Circle Freeway.

Others like us who suffered nothing as we drank coffee and ate donuts so that we might endure the Sunday morning service will probably have a room in the back of the Father's House over looking Ebenezer Alley. But we shall not complain, considering the alternative, I will be satisfied with what ever it is considering that the Lord is the One who has prepared it for me.

Then Jesus said,”If I go and prepare a place for you, I come again, and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.” We can be assured that the place Jesus had prepared for us is the place where he is, and that is good enough for me.

I know not the place of my mansion so fair

I know not the crown that I then there shall wear.

But I know that my Saviour will welcome me there

And that will be glory for me.

He said: “If I go and prepare a place for you I come again.” Some times it may look like there is no order in the lives of the people of this planet. No matter how chaotic the world may seem we have the assurance of Jesus in this statement that this world and everybody in it, both past, present is headed with one grand, glorious, climatic, meeting with Jesus Christ at the moment of His return. “If I go I come again.”

All the writers of the New Testament record the promise of the Second Coming. Listen to Matthew and the warning the Lord Himself made to Caiaphas the High Priest, and to every other blasphemer. “Ye shall see the Son of man seated at the right hand of glory and coming on the clouds of heaven. If I go I come again.” Then think of the promise Paul gives to the persecuted Christian when he says in 2^nd Thessalonians, “And to you who are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord from heaven with the angels of His power in flaming fire, rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  “If I go I come again.”

How about James? “Murmur not brethren one against another, that ye be not judged: Behold the Judge standeth at the doors. If I go I come again.”

What a blessing the statement of hope John extends to the Christian when he says, “We know that when He shall appear we shall see Him as He is, and we shall be made like Him.  If I go I come again.”

Regarding the early days of the Old Testament, Jude reminds us by the Holy Spirit that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, “Behold the Lord came with ten thousand of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all…If I go I come again.”

Then what a vivid thought Luke records in Acts when he tells how the angels said that this same Jesus who is received up from you into heaven shall so come again in like manner as ye beheld Him going into heaven. “If I go I come again.”

What a sobering thought to the faithful elders of the church of Christ when Peter said, “When the Chief Shepherd shall appear ye shall receive the crown of life that fadeth not away. If I go I come again.”
Let Mark give us one more relevant word from the Lord Jesus. “Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the Lord of the House cometh, whether at even, or at midnight, or at cockcrowing, or in the morning; lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.” And who can forget the statement of hope in the second coming when Paul said in Titus 2:13-14: “Looking for the blessed hope and appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for us the he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession zealous of good works. And then what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch. If I go I come again.”

In the meantime it is well to remember that Jesus then said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one cometh unto the Father but by me.”

Jesus is the way, reminds us of the prophet Isaiah when he said in Isaiah 35:8,  “And a highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those the wayfaring men though fools shall not err therein.”

I am the way; it is the only way. The book of Proverbs mentions other ways, and all of them are the wrong way. One way is the way of a fool is right in his own eyes. Another way is every way of a man is right in his own eyes. And the third way is there is a way that seemeth right to a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.

I am the way, and the truth. Paul comments on this in 1^st Corinthians 1:21 for the world through its wisdom knew not God, it was God’s good pleasure through the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. And then in John 18:37: "Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice," and then in John 8:32, "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." That truth that makes us free is of the one who said I am the way, and the truth; and then he said, “I am the life.”

Paul in Hebrew 10:20 tell how Jesus is the life when he says: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which is dedicated for us, a new and living way through the veil, that is his flesh.” And then in the gospel of John 1:4-5, “In him was life and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.”

The fact that He is the life was demonstrated in the conversation Jesus had with Martha in John 11:25 “ I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth on me though he be dead yet shall he live; and whosever believeth on me shall never die. Jesus is the life.

And then again there is the description of life in Jesus in Romans 6:4, “We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so also might we walk in the newness of life.” And then in verse eleven, ”Even so reckon yourselves as dead unto sin; but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

The world would think that Jesus is very negative on this declaration when he said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life, no one cometh unto the Father but by me.” But we also need to remember that Peter affirmed what his Master had said when the said in Acts 4:12, “There is therefore none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.” His words are still true: “I am the way, and the truth, and, the life, no one cometh unto the Father but by me.”

And now finally reflect on that statement of Jesus when he said; “Let not your hearts be troubled.” There are enough troubles in this world for everybody. No one escapes; in Job 5:7 it is written: ”Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.” The first thing I said when I was born was yell; I knew that trouble was dead ahead. No one in any place, anywhere is exempt from the troubling times in the loss of loved ones, the sorrow of disease, loss of employment, wars, natural disasters, family problems, and day by day, living. There are enough sparks continuing to fly upward to brighten the darkest hours of the night. But for the Christian there is always the word of the Lord Jesus: “Let not your hearts be troubled; if I go, I come again.”