Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled (John 14:1) I. Christ’s words to His disciples (JOH 14:1) were not a suggestion but an order. A. He had told them of some uncomfortable issues upcoming and that He would not be there personally for them. So sorrow had filled their hearts. JOH 16:1-6. B. They might not find much peace in their environment but they could find it in Him. JOH 16:33; 14:27. 1. “...neither let it be afraid” (JOH 14:27). This is another order. 2. Faith in His care must overrule our fearful hearts. MAT 8:23-27. 3. Our God does care for us and we are not alone. 1PE 5:7 c/w ISA 41:10. C. Focusing on wind and waves rather than Christ sinks us. MAT 14:24-31. D. Are you wearing Christ’s yoke backwards or wearing somebody else’s yoke? If so, you’re missing much in life. MAT 11:29. E. Are you standing on His faithful promises or sweating on your faulty premises which are robbing you of true peace and joy? A sure way of troubling the heart is to let fear, especially unfounded fear, be its director. Fear has torment. 1JO 4:18. 1. We have plenty to be genuinely concerned about without plaguing our hearts with rumours: “...see that ye be not troubled...” (MAT 24:6). 2. The wicked and the faithless flee based upon perception, not reality. PRO 28:1. F. What is the anchor of your soul: this world or the next? HEB 6:11-20 c/w HEB 11:10, 16. G. What is at your right hand: a sword or the LORD? PSA 16:8-9. H. Life is toil and trouble, and often unfair. How you choose to process it can make it bearable or unbearable. Process it by valid faith and you’ll not only get by, you can win. Process it by invalid fear and find yourself uneased and hindered from acquiring victory. Don’t go through life as if God died or is not willing or able to help and deliver. II. Christ’s disciples would live through the greatest tribulation ever seen. MAT 24:21. A. That generation would be turned over to Satan (MAT 12:45) and rise up in bloody internal conflict and rebellion against Rome. The moral conditions of the Roman world and Israel were little different. MAT 12:39; 17:17 c/w PHIL 2:15. B. Their nation would be wiped out and their countrymen slain or led away captive. LUK 21:23-24. C. The apostles lived through those tumultuous times and under great pressure, even death, advanced the kingdom of God and provided believers with the most important writings in history: the Gospels and Epistles that declared ultimate victory. 1. Their message was liberating, delivering men from bondage to the fear of death. HEB 2:14-15. 2. Their message was empowering, for men delivered from fear of death unto a lively hope beyond this world have something to live by, live for, or even die for with a certain security about the afterlife. HEB 13:5-6; PHIL 1:20-21. 3. Their message was sanctifying, for men who are dead to sin need no longer be controlled by it nor fear final judgment. 1PE 4:1-5. 4. Their message was unifying, excluding none from sin’s condemnation (ROM 3:9) and eliminating all artificial distinctions relative to the cure. ROM 1:16; GAL 3:28; 5:6. 5. Their message was stabilizing, for it taught that not even increasing depravity and persecution were more powerful than knowledge-based duty to God. 2TI 3:12-14. Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled 9-22-24 Page 1 III. Jesus Christ Himself was the apostles’ model. He showed them how to be faithful, fearless and victorious in life and death. A. They never saw him flinch or fold under pressure, nor saw him fret over the wicked to where He would do something regrettable. B. Of all men who could do something to save/redeem/transform a culture from its madness, Jesus Christ had the most potential. Yet he had virtually no occupation with public policy matters. 1. He was not a political agitator (MAT 12:19). When He came into Jerusalem with incredible crowd support, He turned not to Herod’s palace to start a coup d’etat, but to the temple to rebuke its corruptions. MAT 21:8-13. 2. There were times when some apostles thought carnally about their duties to their Master and He had to rebuke them also. LUK 9:51-56; MAT 16:21-23; 26:51-52. 3. From the time of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the miracle of Christ’s resurrection overcame their former national interests. ACT 1:6 c/w ACT 2:40. 4. We never read of the apostle, “...Simon called Zelotes...” (LUK 6:15) participating in the antics of the pseudo-religious zealots, who, according to Josephus, pretended to be more than ordinarily zealous for religion, and yet practised the very worst of actions. (See Josephus, Wars of the Jews) C. This underscores the great purpose of the believer: striving to be more like Christ in our thinking and conduct. Being like Him is the grand end of our salvation. ROM 8:29 c/w 1JO 3:1-3. 1. Our primary order is putting on Christ as we behold Him revealed in the N.T. ROM 13:14; 2CO 3:18. 2. This is the true purpose-driven life: a resolve to say to our souls, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (JOH 3:30). No matter what other purpose drives you, let it not displace this purpose. ACT 11:22-23; PHIL 3:13-15. 3. The more we are like Christ, the more the world will think us strange but the less this world will in our souls substitute itself for the world to come, and others might see such great hope in us that they desire it also. PHIL 2:14-16. 4. Concerned about the state of the nation and the possibility of civil turmoil? It could happen but be careful that you are not secretly hoping it will happen so things will be forced to change. It would be ugly. The best change comes from revival, not revolution. ZEC 4:6-7. 5. Keep in mind that we serve the mighty God of Joseph, Daniel and Mordecai who adapted to circumstances in the belly of the beast systems and God used them wonderfully. Humble believers escaped the horrors of Rome’s destruction of Judea, not the Sicarii. IV. Fret not at the wicked in power and especially fret not to do evil. ECC 5:8; PSA 37:1, 7-8, 35-40. V. Serve God regardless of circumstances, events, rumors, perceptions, etc. and He will strengthen your heart. PSA 27:13-14. Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled 9-22-24 Page 2