Sometimes we wish that God had told us more. Oh, how we wish we knew more, especially when troubles surround us! There are so many questions we cannot answer, so many mysteries we cannot explain, so many hurts and sorrows which we find difficult to fit into His plan for our lives. If only He had told us more! In moments like these, catch the echo of the Savior's words in our text: “If it were not so, I would have told you.” If there were anything concerning God or our lives about which we lacked needed information, He assures: “I would have told you.”
Oh, it's true that our knowledge about life is so incomplete. St. Paul said, “Now we see through a glass darkly…now we know only in part” (1Co.13:12). So often it seems like God has left us in the dark, as though there are gaps in His revelation to us. But even such gaps have a divine purpose. They are the darkness in which He teaches us to hold His hand and walk by faith. In everything He promises to do all that He can to quiet our troubled hearts.
So we pray, O Lord, Quiet Our Hearts. Quiet them first through our trust in You.
(I. We trust in You.)
In our text the disciples were sick at heart. Jesus had just told them that one of them was going to betray Him. He also said that He was leaving them. Finally He told them that where He was going, they couldn't come at the moment. They didn't understand all this, and so they were sick at heart. To which Jesus said, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in Me.”
About such words the story is told of a young man who was wearied by life. Surrounded by difficulties that seemed insurmountable, he turned to his friend and said, “I have looked to the left, and I have looked to the right, but I can find no help.” To which his friend replied, “Why don't you try the upward look?”
The upward look, how often don't we forget it? How often don't we find ourselves giving way to faithless worry, as though we had no Father in the Father's house above? Frantically we scan the horizons around us for help and forget that the first and the last pleading glance of the troubled Christian must always be the upward look towards heaven.
King David said, “I will lift up mine eyes to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord” (Ps.121:1). We trust in Him!
We have a Father in the Father's house to whom we can go with every hurt, every fear, and every sorrow. And we know that for Jesus' sake the Father loves us. So we put our faith in them. This remedy for troubled hearts is a tried and proven one.
David wrote, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Ps.27:13).
Paul said (Ro.8:31), “If God be for us, who can be against us? He who spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble?...No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”
Was it not trusting God and His Christ that has gotten believers through any circumstance in life throughout the ages? So we pray, “ O Lord, Quiet Our Troubled Hearts. We trust in You.”
(II. We remember that there's a “house” ahead.)
Jesus continued, “In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you.”
Don't forget, there's something beyond this world. How could we possibly forget that after we have celebrated Easter? There's a place that is glorious, sure, and wonderful – a Father's house with many mansions. That's no dream; Christ does not deceive the people He died for; He will not delude them.
Of such assurance the story is told of a family who had a home just a little beyond the town's cemetery. The daughter, a little girl, had a habit of taking a short cut home by walking through the graveyard. When asked one day, if she weren't afraid to go through the cemetery, especially at night, she replied, “Oh, no! I'm not afraid. You see, my home is just beyond.”
In a much higher sense everyone who trusts God and trusts His Christ can say those words, for just beyond each of our graves is home, and what a home it is! As Jesus described it here , it is a house where God our Father receives His children and assigns them a place where they can dwell, a mansion forever. Shouldn't that very thought drive all fear and trouble from our hearts and move us to rejoice with Paul, “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed” (Ro.8:18)?
“So, come, Oh, Lord, and Quiet Our Troubled Hearts, for we remember that there's a ‘house” ahead.' It's only when we lose sight of it that we become troubled and cheerless.”
(III. We know there's a place prepared for us.)
Jesus added, “I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
He said this the night He was going to Gethsemane. And from there He would go on to Golgotha. Having that in mind, He meant that it was a place which they could not prepare for themselves. But Jesus could prepare it for them; Jesus could bring them into the Father's presence. And that's what lay ahead for Him at the cross and at the empty tomb. At those spots complete pardon was won and a place with God was made. Nothing remains undone for entrance and occupancy there. It's there, already prepared for us.
Oh, what troubles would be lifted from our hearts if we'd just rest every matter on this truth. It doesn't matter if we don't have something or something seems out of our grasp in this life. We know there's a place prepared for us a greater place already ready!
What assurance this brings to our hearts, especially in troubled times.
Of this a story is told about Martin Luther who once visited a very sick student. As they spoke of death and the possibility of the student passing, Luther asked, “Are you afraid?” “No, not at all,” answered the student. “Then I suppose,” said Luther testing him, “it's because you have been an exemplary person and outstanding Christian.” “Oh, no! I am not!” replied the student. “I'm at ease because I know what Christ has done for me. If I don't recover, I shall be with Him; He has prepared a place for me; so where He is, I shall be also.”
See how trouble is lifted from the heart that rests on the finished work of Christ? And He is still pleading our case above, for the Bible assures that “He lives to intercede for us” (Hb.7:25). He “speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1Jn.2:1).
Because of this we know there's a place prepared for us. So Quiet Our Troubled Hearts, O Lord, with this Gospel truth.
(IV. As we walk in the way of truth and life.)
Finally, Jesus adds, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Jesus' words of departure troubled the disciples. Thomas was so upset that he said, “Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” That's when Jesus assured them, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”
On any journey it's very confusing to not know how to get to the place where one is hoping to go. Have you ever gone anywhere you weren't sure about without having the help of a map? Or, have you ever driven into a very thick fog, where you couldn't see where you were going? It's frightening and can be disastrous to not know where you are going.
Every man's soul is going somewhere, too. It's going in one of two directions. It is either going to God or away from Him; it is either going to the Father or apart from Him.
“Away from the Father,” that spells a troubled heart and after this life it means eternal condemnation. On the other hand “to the Father” spells an untroubled heart and the blessing of eternal life.
And there is only one way to the Father. It is through Christ who says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” With those words He invites us to walk in His way of truth and life.
When you call a friend and tell him, “You know the way to my house,” you're actually inviting him to come on over to get whatever he needs or to stay there for awhile. So it is that when Christ Jesus says, “You know the way,” He's inviting us to come over. To come to Him now for the rest that we need, to walk in His way of truth and life , where comfort and guidance will be given, and to continue walking with Him until we reach His Father's house. That's where we can stake our souls for time and eternity. What a gracious invitation!
In this life we can't escape our troubles. But through Christ we rise above them. And so we pray: “ O Lord, Quiet Our Troubled Hearts for we trust in you who has prepared a place in the house that lies ahead, to which you will lead us. God grant it in our lives of faith for Your name's sake. Amen.”