LET NOT YOUR HEART BE TROUBLED.
John 14:1-31.
*From John 13:33 to the end of chapter 16, Jesus spoke words of encouragement to His eleven remaining Apostles.
Text: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me” (John 14:1).
*The cure for troubled hearts is faith in God, but only through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. The disciples, as good Jews, no doubt already believed in God, but Jesus pointed out that they must also believe in Him. Belief here speaks of trust, resting in Him alone for our salvation.
1. Jesus reassures us that those who put their trust in Him have a sure place in the Father’s house (John 14:2-3).
Jesus has left us as the forerunner to search out a resting place for us. He is our passport home. We are just strangers and pilgrims as we pass through this earth (cf. 1 Peter 2:11).
2. We have in Jesus a sure way to get to heaven (John 14:4-6).
Jesus is the way, the key, the door, the straight path. There is no way to heaven but the way of the Cross (cf. 1 Corinthians 1:18). Our “cross” is easy by comparison (cf. Matthew 16:24).
*Jesus is the way – and Jesus is the ONLY way (cf. Acts 4:12).
Jesus is the truth. The incarnation of the truth of God. The only truth that sets us free (cf. John 8:32).
Jesus is the life. He embodies the life of God. “And no-one comes to the Father but by me” (John 14:6).
*In response to Jesus’ comment in John 14:7, “If ye had known me, ye should have known the Father also,” Philip asked to see the Father (John 14:8).
Jesus’ gentle rebuke was (Philip having been one of the first disciples), how after “so long time” (John 14:9) had he not known Jesus in such a way as to see that Jesus and the Father are One? The words that Jesus spoke were not His words alone - and it was the Father dwelling in Jesus who was doing the works (John 14:10). “Believe Me, that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works’ sake” (John 14:11).
3. Even with His departure, His work goes on (John 14:12).
Jesus miraculously fed the multitudes. Peter saw 3000 converts on his first outing (cf. Acts 2:41). Ever since that day the church has grown by fits and starts, leaps and bounds.
Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead. So did the Apostles. Even to this day there is a healing ministry in the Church.
Jesus rose from the dead. In the fullest sense, He is the “firstborn from the dead” (cf. Colossians 1:18). He guarantees our power over death, and the resurrection power courses in our very veins.
The Book of Acts is a continuation of the Gospel. It contains an account of what Jesus afterwards said and did by the power of the Holy Spirit in the ministry of His Apostles. Yet it is an open-ended book.
There is an on-going work of Christ in our midst, and through prayer in His name we can accomplish anything (John 14:13-14).
*Notice how closely our love and our obedience are bound together (John 14:15; cf. John 14:21; 1 John 2:3-5).
4. He has given us the Holy Spirit (John 14:16-17).
Jesus said, “I will pray the Father, and He will send another Comforter that He may abide with you forever.”
Elsewhere it is Jesus who sends “the promise of the Father” (cf. Luke 24:49). Thus the Holy Spirit is said to proceed from the Father “and the Son” in the Western creeds.
The Holy Spirit is personal, a “He” not an “it;” a 'Who' not a 'what.' The Spirit of truth indwells us (John 14:17). He helps us to pray (cf. Romans 8:26), and assists us when we are called to account for what we believe (cf. Matthew 10:19-20).
*This is another reason that the eleven Apostles should ‘let not their heart be troubled’ (cf. John 14:1). Jesus would ask the Father, the Father would send the Spirit, and the Spirit would come as “another Comforter” (John 14:16).
“Another” Comforter suggests another like Jesus, filling the void when Jesus is gone. The Greek word for Comforter is also used of Jesus in 1 John 2:1, although there it is translated ‘Advocate.’
Thus we have all three Persons of the Godhead: Jesus as ‘Emmanuel: God with us’ (cf. Matthew 1:23). The Holy Spirit as ‘God in us’ (John 14:17). And the Father as ‘God for us’ as in ‘If God be for us, who can be against us’ (cf. Romans 8:31).
The world, natural, sensual people, cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it neither sees Him nor knows Him (John 14:17; cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14; Jude 1:19). Christian people know Him because they have the experience of His indwelling.
5. Jesus will come again (John 14:18-20).
The word translated “comfortless” (John 14:18) is quite literally “orphans,” which returns us to Jesus’ tender “little children” with which He began this discourse (cf. John 13:33).
Jesus’ “I will come to you” (John 14:18) might refer to His coming in the Spirit, but perhaps also to His appearing at the end of the age. We find the same phrase at the end of the Bible (cf. Revelation 22:20).
Jesus also said, “Behold I am with you always, even to the end of the world” (cf. Matthew 28:20). Meanwhile we “see” Him with the eyes of faith, and because He lives, we live (John 14:19). “At that day” (John 14:20) would then refer to the day of His coming.
*Back in John 14:15, we saw how closely our love and our obedience are bound together: “If ye love Me, keep my commandments.” In John 14:21, Jesus develops this thought. It is not the mere ‘having’ of His commandments that demonstrates our love to Him, but the ‘KEEPING’ of them. As John says elsewhere, ‘Hereby do we know that we know Him: if we keep His commandments’ (cf. 1 John 2:3).
Jesus continues in John 14:21, “and He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love Him, and will manifest myself to him.”
This does not mean that we earn the love of God by our works: the Father has already demonstrated His love to us by sending His Son to die for us, and Jesus has demonstrated His love by fulfilling that task.
However, what Jesus is referring to here is a special manifestation of Himself to those who prove their love by their life. To quote John again, ‘But whoso keepeth His word, in him verily is the love of God PERFECTED’ (1 John 2:5). You have to live it to know it!
*John 14:22-24. What follows comes by way of response to the question of Judas (not Iscariot), “Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us, and not to the world?” (John 14:22).
Typical of the disciples and many of their Jewish contemporaries, this Judas seems to be expecting the Messiah to be a Maccabean type leader who will raise an army to vanquish the Romans from the Promised Land. This notion Jesus always resisted (e.g. John 6:15). The Lord’s own understanding of His exaltation was of a different order, and it included a Cross (cf. John 12:32).
Jesus’ answer is that the manifestation of His Messiah-ship is of a much more personal nature. He will not manifest Himself to everyone, but only to those who love Him and keep His “word” (John 14:23a).
Jesus says of those who love Him and keep His word that “My Father will love” them (John 14:23b). Jesus is talking here of a particular delight that the Father has in those who have ‘known and believed the love that God has for us’ (1 John 4:16a). The result is a Spiritual abiding of the Father and the Son with such a person (John 14:23c; cf. 1 John 4:16b).
Those who do not love the Lord do not keep His words (John 14:24a; cf. John 8:42). Yet the word that Jesus speaks is the word of the Father who sent Him (John 14:24b; cf. John 7:16; John 5:38). So do WE believe it (cf. John 14:10)?
6. Also in the meantime, the Holy Spirit teaches us (John 14:25-26).
*While Jesus is away, we have the Holy Spirit whom the Father sends in Jesus’ name, to help us and teach us and bring to mind the things which Jesus taught. This revivification of our memories is not only for the writers of the New Testament, although it is that. Under the influence of the Holy Spirit we also are enabled to learn, and to recollect the “all things” necessary for our salvation (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:10).
He helps us to recall, and to apply, what we have learned.
7. And Jesus gives us the peace which the world cannot give (John 14:27a).
The famous Peace of Rome was maintained with the sword. The best that the world can offer is freedom from war. That, as we know, can be ill-defined and short-lived.
The declaration of peace heralded the blessings of the Messianic age (cf. Luke 2:14). It includes the idea of well-being, health, and prosperity. The peace of God is mentioned in benedictions, and those who manifest this fruit of the Spirit are singled out in the Beatitudes.
The peace that Jesus gives is based in the salvation purchased for us with His own blood. It is first and foremost “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (cf. Romans 5:1). On this basis we are exhorted to “follow peace with all men” (cf. Hebrews 12:14).
Jesus reiterated: “Let not your heart be troubled," and added, "neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27b).
*Well, why should the disciples not let their heart be troubled: after all, Jesus kept saying He was going away? Jesus did not deny saying this, but He added: “If you loved Me you would rejoice because I said I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28).
As touching His Godhead, Jesus had taught earlier, ‘I and the Father are One’ (cf. John 10:30). But here He says, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28c). This is the mystery of the incarnation, the Word becoming flesh (cf. John 1:14).
Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be selfishly held on to, but ‘emptied Himself’ and took on the form of a servant (cf. Philippians 2:6-7). This was a temporary situation, so Jesus’ going back to the Father (John 14:28) was a good thing, because then He could resume ‘the glory which (He) had with (the Father) before the world was’ (cf. John 17:5).
“I have told you all this before it takes place,” Jesus said, in effect, “so that when it happens you might believe” (John 14:29). Which is right where this chapter began (John 14:1).
*As we draw to the end of this wonderful chapter, we see something of the sinlessness of our Lord Jesus Christ. Only the man Christ Jesus could ever say, “the prince of this world cometh, AND HATH NOTHING IN ME” (John 14:30). When the devil assaults any of the rest of us, even the ‘best’ of us outside of Christ, he finds plenty to grasp a hold of. Jesus alone is found to be the spotless “Lamb of God” that "taketh away the sin of the world" (cf. John 1:29).
The momentary surrender of Jesus into the hands of His nemesis is a part of Jesus’ obedience to the Father, arising first from His love to the Father (John 14:31) – but also from His love to us.
