The Cure for the Troubled Heart
Christ's Remedy for Anxiety
John 14:1-11 | October 20, 2019
John 14:1-11 | October 20, 2019
Good morning! I invite you to turn with me in your bibles to John 14. We are going to be looking at the first section of that chapter today and it is a very important one. That’s because it deals with anxiety. It wasn’t long ago that we looked at Philippians 4 and what it says about how to handle worry. As a matter of fact, I referenced that message last week as an illustration. We’re coming back to that topic today. It reminds you how relevant the Bible is. It tackles our problems. It isn’t afraid to deal with these problems, and it is happy to show give you the answers to those problems.
So let’s look at what Jesus has to say in this passage about that problem. What course of action does he suggest? Please follow along as I read the first 11 verses of John 14.
"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.
I want to begin this morning by simply asking you a question; a question that you can answer in your own mind. It’s something of an unspoken survey, or maybe you may call it a personal inventory. I want to ask you, “When do you experience anxiety? What kinds of things cause you to have ‘a troubled heart?’”
I ask the question like that assuming you do experience this. And I know that each of you do to some degree. Some of you may not have a long answer to that question. You may not be someone who has a lot of problems with worry. Others of you may have a list that may go on a lot longer than this introduction and I may have to cut you short and say, “okay, that’s enough.”
But I know that everyone has something that agitates their poor soul. This is part of our fallen condition as humans. Because we are sinful our hearts are easily set at unease. There are certain things that trigger it and we get a little panicky.
What those triggers are may be different for each of us. For some it may be as simple as turning on CNN. That’s enough to get anyone roiled. There are political scandals, natural disasters, wars, and death and things going topsy-turvy in the financial sector. You don’t have to watch long before your mind starts wondering and racing and pacing.
For some it is more a matter of the children walking out the door. Where are they going? What’s going to happen to them? The hinges swing shut and the imagination takes off.
Or maybe for you it is stress. Stress is one of the major causes for anxiety. I know one man who works for the Akron Police Department, and he has no end of stress in his job. As a matter of fact, he has to call someone every day on his way to his shift. They have to talk to him and help him get ready for the day. They are basically consoling him and keeping him from quitting. If it were not for those phone calls, he’s probably not show.
Studies say that over 40 million people in the United States deal with some sort of severe anxiety disorder. I’d like to say that the numbers are higher. I think anxiety affects everyone. It’s just human nature. It’s an attribute of our fallen human nature.
That’s what makes this passage so applicable. The disciples were on the brink of an anxiety attack. This night they were going to lose their best friend and mentor. They were going to have what amounted to their parent for the last three years ripped from their sides. They were going to feel the hostility of the dark forces of the world bearing down on them. Besides the loss of their loved one, they would likely feel their own lives threatened and be haunted with the trauma of the ensuing events.
Their pulses would race. Their palms would sweat. Their chests would tighten. Their minds would run wild with what ifs? and what nows?
Jesus knew this. And he wanted to prepare them. He knew that the hearts of these poor little saplings would be troubled. So he takes a pre-emptive strike. While they sat there in their naivety, oblivious to the night’s oncoming terrors, he gave them instruction that would help to maintain a calm spirit through it all.
And it is teaching that still applies to us today. What will relieve a troubled heart? Just two things: faith and hope.
How do we combat anxiety? Our troubles will be relieved when we know what we must believe and what we can expect.
Just as it was for his disciples in the year 33 AD, so it is now: if you want peace in your heart, then you must have faith and you must have hope.
You see how he begins in verse 1. He says, “Do not let you heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”
I. Faith [1]
The primary way you maintain a state of peace is through faith. A troubled and anxious heart and a faith filled heart are two opposite things. And the way you bring about peace or keep peace in your life is by not making room for worry or trouble. When you are putting on faith you can’t worry.
It is like the holes we dig at the lake each year. When we start digging out the sand, the water starts filling the hole. The hole is hardly ever just a hole. There is either sand or there is water.
The same is true for our hearts. If we do not have faith, then there will be troubled waters. But if we fill our hearts with faith, there’s no room for worry. So he says, don’t let your heart be troubled, but believe.
Now, there are two things I want you to understand about this faith. And the first thing is simply the importance of faith.
A. importance of faith
You must understand that faith in the Lord is the cure all for anxiety. There is a direct correlation between the amount of anxiety you feel and the amount of faith you have. The more faith, the less trouble afflicts your soul. The less faith, the more trouble you’ll experience.
This is so important today because we file so much of this in secular, humanistic terms. Our culture tells us that anxiety is a disorder of the brain. We talk about “mental health.” And we will be told that we need a mental health professional to help us or we will go to a physician in order to address our anxiety, perhaps with medication or something to that effect.
This is a faulty understanding because man is not viewed in the right way. Man is a physical creature only. Our culture is purely materialists and the mainstream belief is that we are just bodies with brains and do not have an immortal soul.
But anxiety is not in the brain; it is not a medical problem or a mental health problem. It is a problem of the heart. And the only real solution is the one that is provided here. It is to believe in God. It is to trust his promises. It is to depend wholly on the sovereign care of God. Anxiety can only be quelled by trusting in his word and commands. He is the divine source of Comfort and Peace, who’s providential care will not falter or fail.
What we find here in John 14 is, essentially, a reiteration of Isaiah 26:3, which says, “You keep him in perfect peace, who’s mind is stayed on Jehovah.” The disciples, on this fateful night, needed to know that they needed their heart’s anchor to be set in Jehovah God. The troublesome events that would come upon them can be endured if they will simply trust in God and keep their minds on Him.
And this is still true today. Faith in the Lord is of the utmost importance. As a matter of fact, wherever Jesus talks about believing in him it has the tones of deliverance. “He who believes in me shall never perish.” This passage is no different. Jesus is saying believe in me and you will be delivered from a troubled heart.
Faith is the only weapon which has been fashioned which can slay the enemy of anxiety. You will find that the more you lean on yourself or the more confidence you put in other men, you will find that anxiety will increase in direct proportion.
Put no confidence in princes, nor for help on man depend. He shall die, to dust returning, and his purposes shall end.
Lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.
He keeps him in perfect peace who’s mind is stayed on Jehovah.
That’s what Jesus is saying: put your faith in God and, rest assured, you will have peace.
But it needs to be said that this faith must not just be some nebulous faith or a faith in some nebulous God. It has to be a rightly directed faith. That’s the second thing you need to understand about the faith that Jesus is talking about. It is one thing to say that faith is important, but we need also to recognize that our faith must have the right object.
B. The object of faith
Do not miss this. Jesus says, “Believe in God; believe also in me.” This is a radical statement that would ring in the ears of any Jewish man. The Jews were called to worship one God. In the context of a polytheistic world, they were radicals because they only believed in Jehovah. They knew that the Lord taught, through his prophets, “Besides me there is no God.”
So when Jesus says, “believe in God” that’s nothing surprising. But he expands on that to say, “Believe also in me.” What is he doing here? He’s essentially identifying himself as that one, true God. He’s saying that he is Jehovah.
He is advocating for the plurality of persons in the Godhead. This is what we ultimately know as the trinity. And he presses this home in verses 7-11 where he talks about how he is in the father and the father in him. He says to Philip, “If you’ve seen him, you’ve seen the father?” How can he say this? What does he mean by this? He’s saying I am the very expression of the Father, because we have a mystical union. We share the same divine essence and I exude all the same characteristics because I have a distinct relationship to the Father (he in me and I in him).
So, to get right down to it, anxiety fighting faith is not just any old faith or faith in any old thing. It is faith that has as its object the Triune God of Scripture.
We live in a world that talks a lot about faith. Interestingly, while we are rabid materialists, we also promote some general spirituality. And so you can have faith. And many would say that it’s important to have faith. “You gotta believe in something,” they will say. But they will go on to say that you can believe in the Mormon version of Jesus or the Jehovah’s Witness view of Jesus. Or, if you want you can believe in Oprah and you can embrace her cult of “spirituality.”
But it is important that we understand that it’s not just believing in something or anything, but it is believing in the One thing: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And this is how it looks. What would be your trigger? What makes you anxious? Are you worried about your health? Are you worried about your reputation? Are you worried about our family and what will come of them?
What is it we want in all these things? We want safety, notoriety, health, and wellness. We want to live forever and have security.
And those points, those things are our gods. Those are the things we are really believing in. And no wonder we are troubled, because there’s no way to secure those things.
And this is why Jesus points us to a more sure object of trust. Security, life, reputation (and whatever else), all these things are found ultimately in the Lord.”
So that is the first line of defense. Jesus says that we must have faith. But he also knows that faith must be accompanied with hope.
II. Hope [2-3]
It does not take a lot of powers of deduction to know that a person who does not have hope will be a troubled person. He will be riddled with anxiety. The cares of life will sweep him away because future is looks bleak. He has no hope that the troubles of this life will ever come to an end. So that’s enough to get you anxious.
But that is why Jesus goes on in verses 2-3 to talk about the hope that we have as believing Christians. Christ gives us a soul soothing balm because he tells us we have a future; a bright and shining future. One where troubles will cease.
As he describes our future he tells us that we have hope for a place, a hope for a presence, and a hope for a peace.
A. Hope for a place
Look at verse 2 and how it begins. He says we have a place, “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?”
The Old King James here says that there are many mansions. That’s not the best way to translate it. The word is rooms. I don’t want you to get the idea that you are going to have some luxurious palace when you get to heaven. Heaven is not like those TV shows on HGTV where you have a picture of your house “before the new heavens and new earth” and “after the new heavens and new earth” and you get the big reveal and have a house twice the size with incredible curb appeal.
What you are guaranteed is a place. Jesus is assuring you that through him you have eternal life. You already have a plot staked out for you because he has gone to the cross and paid the down payment with his blood.
Don’t be anxious, because there is another world that is coming. There is another place where you will be.
But not only do you have a hope for a place, but you have hope for a presence.
B. Hope for a presence
Look at verse 3. It says, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Now you may be excited about the place. You may imagine it to be a mansion. Go ahead and put spires on it and put a hot tube in every room. You just need to understand that the place isn’t anything without the presence. Christ’s consolation here is himself. That he will be back for us and we will be with him forever.
You see, a heaven without Christ is a hell. Christ is what makes heaven so heavenly. It could be a shack in a cornfield, but if Christ is there there is peace and there is joy. There’s more heaven in that little outhouse than in all the most luxurious homes on Hollywood Boulevard.
This is the consolation that you find in the book of Revelation. It’s not that there is just a new heavens and a new earth that comes down. It’s not just that there is this New Jerusalem, which is a magnificent city. It is glorious because it is a place where God himself dwells. You get to be with Jesus. You get to be in the presence of the Savior. You get to enjoy genuine communion with him, just like Adam and Eve did at the very beginning.
But it’s not just a hope for a place and a presence, but it’s a hope for a peace.
C. Hope for a peace
It’s the fact that in this place and in his presence there is no more trouble. Sin and its misery will be gone.
That’s ultimately what Jesus is talking about. You see, in the ancient world, people lived in close knit communities. And families lived all together in the same little area. There would likely be a little courtyard, and all around that courtyard there would be rooms. And in those rooms would be all your family. Grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, your aunts and your uncles. People didn’t get married and move off to some other city far away or even to the other end of town, necessarily.
When a young man would propose to a young lady, he would go back home to his father’s house. And he would begin to build a new room. He would add a couple walls onto the existing building and he would put a roof over it. And when his father said that the structure was good enough to live in, that would be the okay the boy needed for his marriage. He would then go and take his wife and he would bring her back to his father’s house and they would dwell in this new room together.
Jesus is using that imagery of his culture to remind you that he’s coming back. You will be delivered from this world and its mess of sin. He’s going to complete the marriage that he has proposed and you’re not going to have any troubles any longer. Your woes and your miseries will be at an end because salvation will come to this world.
There’s hope for ultimate peace!
And that’s why you can be at peace even now. You can rest assured that Jesus is coming back. There is hope that there will be perfect peace and an end to all trouble. So don’t be troubled. Don’t let your heart be troubled. Let the future and the hope you have be that which quiets your soul.
And so you see, it is these two things. There is faith and there is hope, and these two things are the keys to alleviating a troubled heart.
So let’s look at what Jesus has to say in this passage about that problem. What course of action does he suggest? Please follow along as I read the first 11 verses of John 14.
"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.
I want to begin this morning by simply asking you a question; a question that you can answer in your own mind. It’s something of an unspoken survey, or maybe you may call it a personal inventory. I want to ask you, “When do you experience anxiety? What kinds of things cause you to have ‘a troubled heart?’”
I ask the question like that assuming you do experience this. And I know that each of you do to some degree. Some of you may not have a long answer to that question. You may not be someone who has a lot of problems with worry. Others of you may have a list that may go on a lot longer than this introduction and I may have to cut you short and say, “okay, that’s enough.”
But I know that everyone has something that agitates their poor soul. This is part of our fallen condition as humans. Because we are sinful our hearts are easily set at unease. There are certain things that trigger it and we get a little panicky.
What those triggers are may be different for each of us. For some it may be as simple as turning on CNN. That’s enough to get anyone roiled. There are political scandals, natural disasters, wars, and death and things going topsy-turvy in the financial sector. You don’t have to watch long before your mind starts wondering and racing and pacing.
For some it is more a matter of the children walking out the door. Where are they going? What’s going to happen to them? The hinges swing shut and the imagination takes off.
Or maybe for you it is stress. Stress is one of the major causes for anxiety. I know one man who works for the Akron Police Department, and he has no end of stress in his job. As a matter of fact, he has to call someone every day on his way to his shift. They have to talk to him and help him get ready for the day. They are basically consoling him and keeping him from quitting. If it were not for those phone calls, he’s probably not show.
Studies say that over 40 million people in the United States deal with some sort of severe anxiety disorder. I’d like to say that the numbers are higher. I think anxiety affects everyone. It’s just human nature. It’s an attribute of our fallen human nature.
That’s what makes this passage so applicable. The disciples were on the brink of an anxiety attack. This night they were going to lose their best friend and mentor. They were going to have what amounted to their parent for the last three years ripped from their sides. They were going to feel the hostility of the dark forces of the world bearing down on them. Besides the loss of their loved one, they would likely feel their own lives threatened and be haunted with the trauma of the ensuing events.
Their pulses would race. Their palms would sweat. Their chests would tighten. Their minds would run wild with what ifs? and what nows?
Jesus knew this. And he wanted to prepare them. He knew that the hearts of these poor little saplings would be troubled. So he takes a pre-emptive strike. While they sat there in their naivety, oblivious to the night’s oncoming terrors, he gave them instruction that would help to maintain a calm spirit through it all.
And it is teaching that still applies to us today. What will relieve a troubled heart? Just two things: faith and hope.
How do we combat anxiety? Our troubles will be relieved when we know what we must believe and what we can expect.
Just as it was for his disciples in the year 33 AD, so it is now: if you want peace in your heart, then you must have faith and you must have hope.
You see how he begins in verse 1. He says, “Do not let you heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me.”
I. Faith [1]
The primary way you maintain a state of peace is through faith. A troubled and anxious heart and a faith filled heart are two opposite things. And the way you bring about peace or keep peace in your life is by not making room for worry or trouble. When you are putting on faith you can’t worry.
It is like the holes we dig at the lake each year. When we start digging out the sand, the water starts filling the hole. The hole is hardly ever just a hole. There is either sand or there is water.
The same is true for our hearts. If we do not have faith, then there will be troubled waters. But if we fill our hearts with faith, there’s no room for worry. So he says, don’t let your heart be troubled, but believe.
Now, there are two things I want you to understand about this faith. And the first thing is simply the importance of faith.
A. importance of faith
You must understand that faith in the Lord is the cure all for anxiety. There is a direct correlation between the amount of anxiety you feel and the amount of faith you have. The more faith, the less trouble afflicts your soul. The less faith, the more trouble you’ll experience.
This is so important today because we file so much of this in secular, humanistic terms. Our culture tells us that anxiety is a disorder of the brain. We talk about “mental health.” And we will be told that we need a mental health professional to help us or we will go to a physician in order to address our anxiety, perhaps with medication or something to that effect.
This is a faulty understanding because man is not viewed in the right way. Man is a physical creature only. Our culture is purely materialists and the mainstream belief is that we are just bodies with brains and do not have an immortal soul.
But anxiety is not in the brain; it is not a medical problem or a mental health problem. It is a problem of the heart. And the only real solution is the one that is provided here. It is to believe in God. It is to trust his promises. It is to depend wholly on the sovereign care of God. Anxiety can only be quelled by trusting in his word and commands. He is the divine source of Comfort and Peace, who’s providential care will not falter or fail.
What we find here in John 14 is, essentially, a reiteration of Isaiah 26:3, which says, “You keep him in perfect peace, who’s mind is stayed on Jehovah.” The disciples, on this fateful night, needed to know that they needed their heart’s anchor to be set in Jehovah God. The troublesome events that would come upon them can be endured if they will simply trust in God and keep their minds on Him.
And this is still true today. Faith in the Lord is of the utmost importance. As a matter of fact, wherever Jesus talks about believing in him it has the tones of deliverance. “He who believes in me shall never perish.” This passage is no different. Jesus is saying believe in me and you will be delivered from a troubled heart.
Faith is the only weapon which has been fashioned which can slay the enemy of anxiety. You will find that the more you lean on yourself or the more confidence you put in other men, you will find that anxiety will increase in direct proportion.
Put no confidence in princes, nor for help on man depend. He shall die, to dust returning, and his purposes shall end.
Lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your path straight.
He keeps him in perfect peace who’s mind is stayed on Jehovah.
That’s what Jesus is saying: put your faith in God and, rest assured, you will have peace.
But it needs to be said that this faith must not just be some nebulous faith or a faith in some nebulous God. It has to be a rightly directed faith. That’s the second thing you need to understand about the faith that Jesus is talking about. It is one thing to say that faith is important, but we need also to recognize that our faith must have the right object.
B. The object of faith
Do not miss this. Jesus says, “Believe in God; believe also in me.” This is a radical statement that would ring in the ears of any Jewish man. The Jews were called to worship one God. In the context of a polytheistic world, they were radicals because they only believed in Jehovah. They knew that the Lord taught, through his prophets, “Besides me there is no God.”
So when Jesus says, “believe in God” that’s nothing surprising. But he expands on that to say, “Believe also in me.” What is he doing here? He’s essentially identifying himself as that one, true God. He’s saying that he is Jehovah.
He is advocating for the plurality of persons in the Godhead. This is what we ultimately know as the trinity. And he presses this home in verses 7-11 where he talks about how he is in the father and the father in him. He says to Philip, “If you’ve seen him, you’ve seen the father?” How can he say this? What does he mean by this? He’s saying I am the very expression of the Father, because we have a mystical union. We share the same divine essence and I exude all the same characteristics because I have a distinct relationship to the Father (he in me and I in him).
So, to get right down to it, anxiety fighting faith is not just any old faith or faith in any old thing. It is faith that has as its object the Triune God of Scripture.
We live in a world that talks a lot about faith. Interestingly, while we are rabid materialists, we also promote some general spirituality. And so you can have faith. And many would say that it’s important to have faith. “You gotta believe in something,” they will say. But they will go on to say that you can believe in the Mormon version of Jesus or the Jehovah’s Witness view of Jesus. Or, if you want you can believe in Oprah and you can embrace her cult of “spirituality.”
But it is important that we understand that it’s not just believing in something or anything, but it is believing in the One thing: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And this is how it looks. What would be your trigger? What makes you anxious? Are you worried about your health? Are you worried about your reputation? Are you worried about our family and what will come of them?
What is it we want in all these things? We want safety, notoriety, health, and wellness. We want to live forever and have security.
And those points, those things are our gods. Those are the things we are really believing in. And no wonder we are troubled, because there’s no way to secure those things.
And this is why Jesus points us to a more sure object of trust. Security, life, reputation (and whatever else), all these things are found ultimately in the Lord.”
So that is the first line of defense. Jesus says that we must have faith. But he also knows that faith must be accompanied with hope.
II. Hope [2-3]
It does not take a lot of powers of deduction to know that a person who does not have hope will be a troubled person. He will be riddled with anxiety. The cares of life will sweep him away because future is looks bleak. He has no hope that the troubles of this life will ever come to an end. So that’s enough to get you anxious.
But that is why Jesus goes on in verses 2-3 to talk about the hope that we have as believing Christians. Christ gives us a soul soothing balm because he tells us we have a future; a bright and shining future. One where troubles will cease.
As he describes our future he tells us that we have hope for a place, a hope for a presence, and a hope for a peace.
A. Hope for a place
Look at verse 2 and how it begins. He says we have a place, “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?”
The Old King James here says that there are many mansions. That’s not the best way to translate it. The word is rooms. I don’t want you to get the idea that you are going to have some luxurious palace when you get to heaven. Heaven is not like those TV shows on HGTV where you have a picture of your house “before the new heavens and new earth” and “after the new heavens and new earth” and you get the big reveal and have a house twice the size with incredible curb appeal.
What you are guaranteed is a place. Jesus is assuring you that through him you have eternal life. You already have a plot staked out for you because he has gone to the cross and paid the down payment with his blood.
Don’t be anxious, because there is another world that is coming. There is another place where you will be.
But not only do you have a hope for a place, but you have hope for a presence.
B. Hope for a presence
Look at verse 3. It says, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
Now you may be excited about the place. You may imagine it to be a mansion. Go ahead and put spires on it and put a hot tube in every room. You just need to understand that the place isn’t anything without the presence. Christ’s consolation here is himself. That he will be back for us and we will be with him forever.
You see, a heaven without Christ is a hell. Christ is what makes heaven so heavenly. It could be a shack in a cornfield, but if Christ is there there is peace and there is joy. There’s more heaven in that little outhouse than in all the most luxurious homes on Hollywood Boulevard.
This is the consolation that you find in the book of Revelation. It’s not that there is just a new heavens and a new earth that comes down. It’s not just that there is this New Jerusalem, which is a magnificent city. It is glorious because it is a place where God himself dwells. You get to be with Jesus. You get to be in the presence of the Savior. You get to enjoy genuine communion with him, just like Adam and Eve did at the very beginning.
But it’s not just a hope for a place and a presence, but it’s a hope for a peace.
C. Hope for a peace
It’s the fact that in this place and in his presence there is no more trouble. Sin and its misery will be gone.
That’s ultimately what Jesus is talking about. You see, in the ancient world, people lived in close knit communities. And families lived all together in the same little area. There would likely be a little courtyard, and all around that courtyard there would be rooms. And in those rooms would be all your family. Grandma and grandpa, mom and dad, your aunts and your uncles. People didn’t get married and move off to some other city far away or even to the other end of town, necessarily.
When a young man would propose to a young lady, he would go back home to his father’s house. And he would begin to build a new room. He would add a couple walls onto the existing building and he would put a roof over it. And when his father said that the structure was good enough to live in, that would be the okay the boy needed for his marriage. He would then go and take his wife and he would bring her back to his father’s house and they would dwell in this new room together.
Jesus is using that imagery of his culture to remind you that he’s coming back. You will be delivered from this world and its mess of sin. He’s going to complete the marriage that he has proposed and you’re not going to have any troubles any longer. Your woes and your miseries will be at an end because salvation will come to this world.
There’s hope for ultimate peace!
And that’s why you can be at peace even now. You can rest assured that Jesus is coming back. There is hope that there will be perfect peace and an end to all trouble. So don’t be troubled. Don’t let your heart be troubled. Let the future and the hope you have be that which quiets your soul.
And so you see, it is these two things. There is faith and there is hope, and these two things are the keys to alleviating a troubled heart.