John 14:1-11 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 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? 3 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. 4 And you know the way to where I am going.” 5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” 6 Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
INTRODUCTION
Have you ever gotten a string of bad news? That is, have you ever had a time when one thing after another went wrong; when you just couldn’t seem to catch a break? As you think about that and how you responded to it, think about the disciples’ run in John 13?
Judas left to betray Jesus. Jesus told them that Peter would repeatedly deny Him. Jesus—the One they’d given up everything to follow—kept promising to leave and go to a place they couldn’t follow. And the disciples were getting increasingly confident that by “going away,” Jesus was talking about being killed.
That’s a lot to take in, in a matter of a few hours. For most of us, it puts our problems into a different light. But what it also did was give Jesus a chance to (re)shape the perspective of the disciples. He helped them both by naming the hard things that were to come and by explaining how to properly think about and respond to them.
Perhaps you’ve noticed that, like the disciples, you have very little control over many of the things that happen to you in life. If so, you probably also know that you have two options when it comes to navigating the things you can’t control. The first option is to ride the roller coaster of circumstances, responding to them as they happen and as they seem to you. In that case, hard things will often be crushing and easy things will be welcomed. The only alternative is that something above and beyond the circumstances will guide you. That is, the second option is that your response will not be determined by circumstances themselves, but by something outside of them. In that case, hard and easy things alike will be interpreted and responded to based on some larger principle.
Jesus charged His disciples to take the second option and He gave them the tools to do so.
The heart of this passage—the two big ideas—are (1) A command from Jesus to not let troubles overtake you and (2) An explanation of how belief in God is the means to obey. The main takeaways for us are to (1) Carefully consider what troubles and doesn’t trouble us, (2) Carefully consider how we respond to our troubles, and (3) Fight to believe the things Jesus teaches in this passage when trouble comes.
THE COMMAND – LET NOT YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED (1)
When hard things happen, our hearts are often troubled. On some level, that’s inevitable, isn’t it? One way to define a hard thing is that it produces in us (at least) a temptation to a troubled heart. What would it mean to call something “hard” if it didn’t trouble us?
Nevertheless, our passage opens with Jesus telling the disciples that although hard things were going to take place, they ought not let them trouble their hearts.
1 “Let not your hearts be troubled.
That’s an interesting charge from Jesus both in light of all the disciples had and would soon go through and the fact that John told us more than once that Jesus Himself had a troubled spirit in response to very similar things. Was Jesus commanding the disciples to “do as I say, not as I do?” Is there a difference between having a troubled heart and a troubled spirit? Is there some other explanation?
There are three keys to Jesus words in light of the disciples’ trouble and His own troubled spirit. First, there’s no indication that Jesus said what He said because the disciples were troubled by wrong things. Judas’s betrayal, Peter’s denial, and Jesus’ suffering and death were all right things to be troubled by.
Second, Jesus didn’t say what He said because true godliness means being unmoved by or indifferent to the evil behind each of those things. The command to not let their hearts be troubled wasn’t a command to not experience pain in tragedy. As was the case with Jesus, those things should trouble any godly person. And again, Jesus modeled that perfectly for them when His spirit was troubled.
Third, and finally, Jesus said what He said because He didn’t want them to live as those who had no hope. It’s OK—even right and good—to have a troubled heart in troubling times, but Jesus was commanding His disciples keep their troubled hearts from dominating them. They were not to be overcome by their troubles. Things were hard and would get harder, but that was not the end of the story—it never is for Christians. And it was the rest of the story that Jesus called them to focus on.
Remember that, Grace Church. If your hope is in Jesus, your troubles in this life are never the end of the story.
Like I said at the beginning, the disciples had to decide whether they were going to be controlled by their circumstances or by something else. Jesus commanded them not to go with the “something else” option. And then He continued on by providing the “something else” for them.
THE MEANS TO OBEY – BELIEVE IN GOD (2-7)
Indeed, Jesus told His disciples (and us through them) how to inoculate themselves from being dominated by a troubled heart and gave them the antidote for whatever overwhelming trouble had already taken root.
In other words, a big part of this passage is Jesus’ explanation of how we can keep ourselves from having troubled hearts and how to deal with them when they come.
Have you ever been tempted to let your troubles overtake you? Is it happening to you now? Do you know someone who struggles with this? Listen carefully to Jesus words.
What, then, was Jesus’ solution? How were the disciples to restrain and repair their troubled hearts?
1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.
How do you keep your troubles from controlling you or get rid of the control that they already have? Believe in God and Jesus. On the surface, that sounds simple enough. But Jesus was not talking about some kind of generic belief in some generic god. And He certainly was not talking about believing whatever we want about Him. He had something specific in mind.
More often than not, when people claim to believe in God, with even a little digging, it quickly becomes apparent that they believe in a god, largely of their own making. Many, even in the church, believe they believe in the God of the Bible, but often only a small portion of what they believe is tied to God’s self-revelation; the rest they’ve patched together from all kinds of stuff they’ve heard, read, and come up with on their own.
On one hand, we all do that to some degree. None of us believes only right things about God. But there’s a big difference between continually seeking the Spirit’s help to read God’s Word as we ought (on the one hand) and only occasionally consulting God’s word and primarily doing so apart from its context (on the other).
The simple point I’m trying to make is that believing in something we’ve largely made up and called “God,” rather than the actual God of the Bible, is not what Jesus was commanding and it will not prevent our hearts from being overtaken by trouble when it comes. The belief Jesus called His disciples to have was rooted in specific truths about God and specific promises to His people.
Again, then, what specifically did Jesus mean by “Believe in God; believe also in me”?
According to this passage, the vaccine and antidote for a troubled heart has six ingredients in it. Before we get to them, however, let’s remember the ultimate source of the help Jesus promised. The banner over all of what Jesus said was the straight-forward reality that His followers need not be troubled because He had come to take their trouble. It was precisely because of the trouble Jesus willingly took upon Himself that the promises He made in this passage hold true. It is because Jesus was crushed by the iniquity of the world that we don’t need to be.
To be clear, the six aspects of belief in God and Jesus prescribed by Jesus in this passage, the six ingredients to keep and rescue us from being overcome by troubled hearts, only hold fast because Jesus was “overcome” by the troubles of the world on the cross in our place.
1. It is belief that God has a house of blessing for everyone who trusts in Him through His Son (2a).
One of the greatest aspects of the good news Jesus came to secure is that by grace, through faith in Jesus God not only washes our sin-slate clean—that is, He not only forgives our sins—but He also adopts us into His family.
We’ve been collecting coats for some time now for inmates who are released from prison without one. Their sentence has been paid, but they are often left to fend from themselves. The gospel is the good news that in addition to sending His Son to prison in our place, God also welcomes us into His home as His sons and daughters. What an awesome promise.
2 In my Father’s house are many rooms.
In the house of God, there are enough rooms for all His children; for all who trust in Jesus. And in the house of God, the food is abundant, the fellowship limitless, all is illuminated by the glory of God, and the LORD is continually present to love, bless, and satisfy all His sons and daughters.
How do you fight off or fight back a troubled heart that’s threatening to overcome you? You believe in God and Jesus, that whatever troubles may come in this life, a room in the heavenly mansion of God awaits us.
2. It is belief that Jesus is going there to prepare a place for His people (2b).
Not only are all who hope in Jesus promised a room in the house of God, but we are also promised that it will be specially prepared for us by Jesus. When Jesus broke the hard news to His disciples that He was leaving to go to a place they couldn’t immediately follow, there really was a kind of sadness in that proclamation. Chiefly, the disciples would be without their master for a time because Jesus was leaving by way of the cross. Both of those things are rightly troubling. But Jesus charged His followers not to let the trouble dominate them because, once again, there was more to the story. Jesus was leaving them in order to prepare their room in God’s house.
2 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?
I hope it’s clear that Jesus was not talking about an actual house which He was going to construct or arrange. Jesus was talking about the fact that His death would make possible perfect, eternal, fellowship with God as members of the family of God.
How do we repel and repair a heart that is runaway-troubled? We believe that Jesus has gone before us to prepare the way for us to be brought into God’s presence as His beloved sons and daughters. When trouble comes, we remember that great truth and all it means no matter what path our troubles take.
3. It is belief that Jesus will bring us to God’s house (3a).
As if that were not enough, there’s more still. Jesus would soon leave His followers. That’s truly sad. But He was going to get something great ready for them and He would come again to get them and bring them with Him.
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself…
One of the most vulnerable feelings I’ve ever had was arriving in Colombia with my wife and three young kids in the middle of the night. We were there to adopt Gabi and in order to do so we needed to live with her there for an uncertain number of weeks. We didn’t speak the language, we didn’t know the area, it was late, it had a reputation for being a dangerous city, and we were trusting in someone we didn’t know, to drive us to a place we’d never been, in a culture we didn’t understand. Oh, how nice it would have been to have someone we knew and trusted meet us at the airport and take us to the apartment.
That’s at the heart of what Jesus promised His disciples. He promised that He was going to get a great place ready for them and that He would safely lead them all the way there. He was almost certainly speaking of His second coming, which is a great comfort to everyone whose hope is in Jesus.
Lots of hard things were coming at them fast. It was OK, even good, for them to experience grief. But Jesus did not want them to despair, to be derailed from their mission, or to fail to trust in Him and His Father. He, therefore, shared with them some of the many blessings that would overshadow all of their trials so that their trials would not overshadow them.
4. It is belief that we will dwell with Father and Son forever (3b).
On another trip, I spent some time in the Middle East, telling people about Jesus and handing out Bibles. There we did have guides; local believers and long-term missionaries. They took us to where we needed to go. They walked with us the whole way (like Jesus promised to do with the disciples to God’s house). That too was an intimidating culture and it was really nice to have them walk with us to our place of ministry. However, once we got there, they left us to ourselves. And, as I’ve told you before, on one of the days we ended up being detained by local law enforcement for over an hour, apart from and unknown to our hosts.
Jesus calmed His disciples’ troubled hearts by telling them that the road right in front of them was treacherous, but it would certainly lead them to their own room in the family and house of God, that Jesus was preparing that room for them, that He would lead them all the way there, and that He would stay there with them forever.
3 … I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
If Jesus’ followers would believe that, they would find vast reservoirs of help for their troubled souls.
5. It is belief that Jesus has told us how to get there (4-6).
Even before all that happened, Jesus reminded His disciples…
4 And you know the way to where I am going.”
Unsure about that, Thomas said, “5 Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And in what’s probably the second most famous passage in John (14:6), Jesus replied, “6 I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Belief in God and Jesus means believing that Jesus is the way, the only way, to the Father’s house and the eternal life that belongs to all who dwell there. Troubled hearts are calmed, Jesus said, when they truly believe that. He is the only way, but His is the perfectly sure way. No one who comes by Him will fail to reach His Father’s house.
Follow thou me. I am the way and the truth and the life. Without the way there is no going; without the truth there is no knowing; without the life there is no living. I am the way which thou must follow; the truth which thou must believe; the life for which thou must hope. I am the inviolable way; the infallible truth, the never-ending life. I am the straightest way; the sovereign truth; life true, life blessed, life uncreated.
-Thomas Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
Do you get the significance of that promise, Grace. It’s not merely a promise of salivation—it is that and that’s awesome, but this context helps us see that it’s more than that too. It’s a promise that as long as you live your life trusting in the Father’s rescue in Jesus, as long as you follow the path of faith prescribed and modeled by Jesus, no trouble you encounter on the way will keep you from reaching the heavenly home of God. Trials may be plenty, but when you come to believe that they are simply part of the path of Jesus on the way to everlasting joy in God’s house, they will not overtake you.
6. It is belief that Jesus and the Father are One (7).
Finally, Jesus told His disciples, that if they wanted to be freed from a troubled soul, they needed to believe that He and God the Father are one. To know Jesus is to know the Father, to see Jesus is to see the Father, and to believe in Jesus is to believe in the Father, for they are one.
7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”
This was familiar teaching for the disciples, but Jesus understood that this was particularly important for them to grasp in this perilous moment. It would be of particular help for them and their troubled souls if they were to believe as Jesus intended.
Jesus was one with the same God who spoke the world into existence and has sovereignly held it in place and governed it since the beginning. Jesus was one with the same God who covenanted with Abraham and his offspring, delivered His people from slavery in Egypt, gave the Law to Moses, sent the prophets, established the feasts and sacrifices, and gave nations over to them.
If they could trust in that God, they could trust in Jesus, and by doing so, they need not be troubled since He has power over sin and death, light and life, feasts and famines, fruitfulness and barrenness, victory and defeat. If they were on Jesus’ side, they were on the Father’s side. And if they were on the Father’s side, what trial could overrun them? None, of course!
JESUS AND THE FATHER ARE ONE IN ESSENCE AND TWO IN PERSON (7-11)
The rest of the passage is largely a further development of the sixth ingredient of trouble-busting belief—Jesus and the Father are one. It was Philip who chimed in this time and gave Jesus the occasion to further unpack this critical truth.
8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”
In light of what Jesus had just said, that seems like a semi-reasonable request. At the least, Philip’s logic is sound. Jesus said that knowing and seeing Jesus is knowing and seeing the Father. That’s certainly an exciting idea and so Philip asked Jesus to reveal the Father to them.
9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Obviously, Philip didn’t quite understand, so Jesus continued.
10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves.
In all of this, two truths ought to be clear: (1) Jesus is one with the Father, but (2) Jesus is not the same as the Father. They are one in essence, but two in person. Again, John expands on this in the coming chapters, but I do not want you to miss the fact that Jesus and the Father are one in essence and two in person and those truths are trouble-freeing truths.
In other words, in all of that is the heart of the nature of God (as Father and Son [and Spirit]), the heart of what it means to believe in God and Jesus, and the heart of the means of not being overcome by troubles. We cannot believe whatever we want about God to find freedom from overwhelming troubles. Jesus gave us awesome truths to hold fast to; including 2/3 of the triune nature of God, the most solid foundation of all.
CONCLUSION
The triune nature of God, and particularly the oneness of Father and Son, will become increasingly clear in Jesus’ farewell discourse. For now, it seems good for us to end with the first two clauses of the Nicene Creed, for they will help us find purchase when times are tumultuous.
We believe in one God,
the Father almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
begotten from the Father before all ages,
God from God,
Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made;
of the same essence as the Father.
Through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven;
he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary,
and was made human.
He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried.
The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures.
He ascended to heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again with glory
to judge the living and the dead.
His kingdom will never end.
And Jesus told His followers, it is by believing these things that troubling things will not overtake you. Believe these things, Grace. Fight in the Spirit’s strength to believe them. Help one another believe them. Thank God for the forgiveness that is already yours in Jesus for whatever unbelief remains, and believe these things that your hearts may not be troubled.