Do Not Let Your Heart Be Troubled

John 14 opens in the midst of Jesus’s dialogue, a continuation from the previous chapter. The evening had begun with Jesus, their Rabbi and Messiah, humbly washing the disciples’ feet, followed by Jesus’s troubling statements that He was going away, and they could not come.

The disciples are troubled. Jesus leaving them is an unimaginable situation for the those who had left everything to follow Him. Though they claim they would lay down their lives for Him, Jesus predicts that the disciples will fail Him.

However, Jesus is looking past the crucifixion, past His resurrection and ascension, and past the disciples’ coming failures to a future time of permanent reunion. Jesus says, ‘Do not let your heart be troubled.’ Though it would be natural to be troubled, Jesus is telling His disciples to not let this natural response happen.

Jesus Can Be Trusted

We should not let our hearts be troubled because Jesus can be trusted. We find in John 14:1 that both God and Jesus are equally reliable and equally to be trusted. The disciples have a context of the God of the Old Testament, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who delivered His nation from captivity. This is the God who keeps His promises. If the disciples believe in God, then they should believe in Jesus too.

This time in the upper room is a time of Jesus preparing His disciples for a life without His physical presence and preparing them for what is about to happen. Nothing catches Jesus off guard. Even though the disciples are going to fail Jesus and struggle with troubled hearts, in Christ, they could never be more pleasing to Him than they already are.

This is true for anyone who is in Christ. If we are in Christ, we are never going to be more pleasing to God than we are right now. Our God knows everything about each of us as He knew each of the disciples. When Jesus tells them and us to believe in Him, He is calling us to believe in someone who knows us intimately with nothing hidden.

Jesus can be trusted just like the God of the Old Testament.

Jesus is Preparing a Home for Us

We should not let our hearts be troubled because Jesus is preparing a new, wonderful, permanent home for us (John 14: 2). The grammar for the word ‘prepare’ means to ready things physically or spiritually. Jesus says He is going to prepare, or make ready, a place. It will be a new place for the disciples, someplace to which Jesus will take them. It will be a new place for every person in Christ.

This new place will be wonderful as described by Jesus. This is His Father’s house, where God dwells. We can expect to find fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore (Ps. 16:11), far different than anyplace we can imagine. Because this is the Father’s house, this new and wonderful place is also permanent as indicated by the grammar of ‘many rooms.’ This future permanent residence is for each person in Christ.

Jesus Wants Us to Be with Him There

We should not let our hearts be troubled because this new, wonderful, permanent home is where Jesus is, and He wants us to be with Him there (John 14: 3). This will be, by far, the best part of heaven, being with Jesus.

Paul says to live is Christ but to die is gain for to be with Christ is far better (Phil. 1:21, 23). How amazing that Jesus who knows us intimately still wants us and that God will be among us and will dwell with us (Rev. 21:3). The wonder of heaven is who we are going to see, be with, and be like (1 John 3).

Jesus Has Shown Us the Way

We should not let our hearts be troubled because Jesus has clearly shown us the way to be with Him (John 14: 4-6). Jesus is The Way. Jesus was clear with the disciples, desiring for them to understand and have certainty.

How we view God must be through the truth of His Word, and Jesus is The Truth. The way to eternal life in heaven is through Jesus alone. There are no exceptions. In the context of John 14, Jesus is expressing this truth that He is the way to the Father so the disciples and each of us can be without confusion on how to get there and be with Him.

Jesus is preparing a new, wonderful, permanent place for each person in the body of Christ where He wants us to be with Him forever. Jesus makes it unmistakably and helpfully clear that He is the way to the Father and this place He is preparing for the disciples and each of us.

To know the comfort which Jesus provides requires us to take Him at His Word and to see Him as who He says He is. Despite how the present may look, our future with Christ is certain.

Application Points

• Are you trying to reach God your own way? Jesus has said that only He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life for no one can reach the Father except through Him.
• Is your heart troubled by people or circumstances or spiritual failures? Your Savior Jesus would have you persevere and continue looking towards your future with Him.

Tools for Further Study

Cross References to Explore

• 1 John 3; Revelation 21-22