Do not let
your hearts be troubled.
Think on
that statement made in the indicative or perhaps the imperative. Do not let your hearts be troubled.
Our state
and our nation and the world are all working like a well-oiled, godly oriented
machine. They are hitting the target in
everything they do. Right?
That might
be an exaggeration or an outright lie.
The world is
a mess. It has its good points. Traffic lights seem long, but they do seem to
do the job. You should see traffic in
parts of the world where it’s basically unregulated. It’s like, get in your car, go, and good
luck. Oh, and everyone else, including
pedestrians, get out of the way.
Let’s stick
to traffic. Roads and interstates are
generally good. I know that we complain
about ongoing construction, but there are places in the world that haven’t seen
construction or repair in decades. We
joke that in America we drive on the right.
Some other countries drive on the left. The rest of the world drives on
what’s left. In Kenya, it didn’t matter
which side of the road had pieces of asphalt.
If you had the bigger vehicle, that’s where you drove.
It is great
to live in the United States of America, but for a nation to be so blessed, we
seem to have a lot of strife. Some
issues may be based in legitimate struggles.
Other issues are fabricated and sold as the real deal. Some buy everything lock, stock, and
barrel. Others are skeptical in every
detail. Some people wrestle with both.
They not
only sit on the fence, they go back and forth one side to the other. People
often have dissonance discerning which is which. People have troubled hearts.
This year
has pushed sanity and humor to extremes.
So far, I have survived the Rona, the great toilet paper shortage of
2020, Murder Hornets (which between Oklahoma mosquitos and goat heads didn’t
seem all that ominous. They never got
here. I’m still waiting on the killer
bees from last century's warnings). To
continue, the Sahara dust cloud, self-inflicted haircuts, and Zoom conferences
have all make their appearances this year.
Fortunately,
I was blessed with 20 years as a Marine officer and these events spread out
over half a year would just be a Monday morning after giving the troops a 3-day
weekend. The Sergeant Major or First
Sergeant would say, you might want to take a stripe and some money from these
two, but we can handle the rest on our own.
Humor gets
me through a lot. Yes, I know by some,
ok most people’s standards I have a distorted or disturbed sense of humor. You know that zero filter thing? Guilty. But it’s neither wit nor levity that
gets me through the day, but my trust in the Lord.
I trust that
what the Lord has in store for me is not contingent upon the state of the world. I trust that when it seems like I am going it
alone, God is preparing something for me.
Jesus
couples two statements that we should receive together.
Do not
let your hearts be troubled and trust in God and also in me.
Our hearts
are not troubled because the right people are going to win the elections.
Our hearts
are not troubled because we have a three-year supply of toilet paper.
Our hearts
are not troubled because the stock market never really got that bad and the oil
and gas industry is slowly making a comeback.
Our hearts
are not troubled because we might get another stimulus check.
Our hearts
are not troubled because we might have a football season this fall.
Instead:
Our hearts
are not troubled because we trust in God.
Our hearts
are not troubled because we are anxious
for nothing. Everything gets turned
over to God in prayer accompanied with thanksgiving.
Our hearts
are not troubled because our Father in heaven knows exactly what we need. He doesn’t
give us a rock when we need bread.
He gives
good gifts and my heart will not be troubled.
I’m jumping
ahead a couple chapters. Jesus said that
we
would have trouble in the world. He
didn’t say it was a possibility. He said
that we would have trouble in the world.
That was not
the end of the thought. He said, take
heart that he had overcome the world.
Take courage! The world is not in
charge.
The psalmist
counsels us to simply be still. That
not just stop talking. That’s be still
in everything that we are so we can realize that God is real and he is with us
and he loves us and he will not forsake us. In our stillness we hear his I
Am.
So, do not
let your hearts be troubled. Know that
God is for real and he is for us.
Believe in him. We believe in God
through our Master and Savior and Lord, Christ Jesus.
Now, let’s
dive into those times when it seems like we are left alone. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to
prepare a place for them. He wouldn’t
tell them this if it wasn’t so.
Remember how
Jesus told his disciples that they couldn’t go with him, yet?
Jesus would
go to the Father and the disciples should have been happy about that. Things were about to move beyond day-to-day
life. Real connections are on the
horizon.
Jesus told
his disciples that they knew the way to where he is going. He did not say, they knew the map
coordinates. He said they knew the way.
Thomas said,
“No! We don’t where you are going so how
can we know the way?”
Still, we
see no grid coordinates or geography in this answer. Jesus defied the limited perspective of the
disciples and others with another I Am statement. Jesus didn’t say, here’s the address. He said, I am the way.
Phillip
jumped in to confirm that absolutely nobody was listening to Jesus. Show us the Father. We’ve paid our dues. We’ve followed you for three years, now we
want to see the Big Guy.
I visualize
Jesus shaking his head muttering, do any of them get it?
I am in the
Father. The Father is in me. If you have seen me—which is rhetorical—then
you have seen the Father. The Father
entrusted everything to me.
Why do you
keep asking for more when you haven’t even put
what you have to work?
If you would
just believe
in me and everything that I have told you, you would already
be doing unbelievable things. Not to
beat up his followers too much, Jesus did promise the Spirit that would help
them get their heads screwed on straight and their hearts aligned with the
Father’s will.
But for these
last few hours together, Jesus once again offered a huge paradigm shift from
geography to relationship. Jesus had
rocked their world by washing
their feet. Now he is at it again. The disciples were drinking from a firehose.
Look ahead a
few chapters where Jesus defines eternal life.
It’s not defined with a calendar but with relationship.
It’s about
relationship.
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the
Jesus answered, “I am the way and the
truth and the life. No one comes to the Father
except through me.
One last
thing. Stop using this verse with
non-believers. Jesus answered men who
sought after God and worshiped him as Lord and Master. They believed, they just wanted to see the
Father. They just didn’t yet understand
that everything they needed and needed to know came from Jesus.
If you
absolutely have to beat someone over the head with scripture about Jesus being
the only way, use Acts
4:12. In those words, Peter was
talking to those who were yet to believe.
Remember
this part of chapter 14 is not about the destination but the way. Jesus is the way.
Have no
doubt that our destination
is fantastic. Our eternal
inheritance is beyond
comprehension, but our hearts will not be troubled because we know the way.
We know
Jesus. He is the way.
Yes, he is
the way, the truth, and the life, but for this week, meditate upon him being
the way and your heart free
from trouble in a world that knows nothing else.
Amen.
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