Embracing Faith and Overcoming Troubled Hearts | Don Hooton

Join Don Hooton as he reflects on the significant teachings of Jesus, focusing on the essential messages He left for His disciples in the upper room. Don explores themes of love, authority, unity, and the power of prayer in the face of adversity. Understand how Jesus and the disciples faced imminent trials and how belief in Jesus and God can offer peace and guidance. The sermon concludes with a call to action for believers to love one another, remember Jesus, and live a united life of discipleship.

00:00 Welcome and Gratitude
02:00 The Last Teachings of Jesus
03:00 Jesus Prepares His Disciples for His Death
07:40 The Troubled Hearts of the Disciples
13:18 Faith and Prayer as Solutions
26:14 Jesus' Promises and Their Significance
41:59 Final Encouragement and Call to Action

Transcript

So the series comes to an end from those conversations, the first things from the last things that Jesus said and did with the apostles.

These last things are from my judgment, the first things that Jesus wants for them and by extension to us, not necessarily first in time, but trying to make the point. These first things, the important things are the last things that he saved. For them to tell them, to love one another, to tell them to remember me, to remind them that all authority was his, and to pray and to encourage them through service to be united, and then to tell them to go into the world and make disciples.

So that those disciples will teach the message that they said, the message that they had received, and to teach others. And so tonight we come to the last, which I think is in many ways the most heartfelt things Jesus told them in that upper room. He knew the sorrows that lay ahead of them as they would watch him be crucified, a gruesome.

Practical effect that Rome caused upon those territories that they occupied to bring people to surrender. Your savior died like the common criminal. And so they would witness him experience that and ultimately it would empower them to carry their own cross that they would have to bear. But he knew. He knew them, that if they were going to follow him, he needed to tell them all these things at last so that they would see that they have to be important.

But even at the last is not the only time Jesus warns them. For instance, in Matthew chapter 10 in verse 21. He said, brother will betray brother to death and a father his child. Children will rise up against parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of my name, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.

And when they persecute you in one town, flee to another. Reminding them again, A disciple is not above his teacher. Slave above his master, he keeps reminding them. All that's happened to me is your master. If you are my disciple, you must experience it too. It is enough for a disciple to become like his teacher and a slave like his master, and to put these words in that context now to an immediate context.

Then you look at Jesus saying words like Chapter 16 verse 21. From then on, Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes be killed and be raised the third day. Matthew 17 verse 22, and as they were gathering together in Galilee, Jesus told them the son of man is about to be betrayed into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and on the third day he will be raised up.

And they were deeply distressed. Don't miss that. It is true that. When we talk about them witnessing Jesus dying on the cross, and they're overrun with all sorts of sorrows and distress, as the Christian standard says in this word or this verse, it wasn't that they didn't believe Jesus, it's just that it was unbelievable that it had really come to pass.

Then notice this to make it crystal clear in chapter 20 while going up to Jerusalem, Jesus took the 12 disciples aside privately and he said to them on the way, see, we are going up to Jerusalem. The son of man will be handed over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death. And they will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked, flogged, and crucified, and on the third day, he will be raised.

Although the disciples had been told everything that was about to happen, those words spoken to their knowledge in advance was not enough Merely to prepare them for a world turned upside down like it would happen in just a few days. They had put all their hopes in Jesus, which they should have, but their misplaced ideas about what his purpose was, would be arrested as they watched Jesus be arrested, beaten, crucified, and then die.

They would feel a distress that they'd never felt before. So in the upper room, we're told in chapter 13 of John that Jesus loved them. To the very end. John introduces this long dialogue with the point to tell us that sets the stage for this conversation that we've talked about this week and not the last thing.

One of the more significant things in chapter 14. Jesus says this, don't let your heart be troubled. He'd already seen them be troubled by his own statements about his coming death, but don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my father's house or many rooms. If it were not, so would I have told you that I'm going to prepare a place for you, and if I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself so that where I am you may be.

Also,

isn't it funny that oftentimes when you tell someone, don't worry. What's overrunning their heart?

So as Jesus is looking across the room at them and he says, don't let your heart be troubled, that that tells you that's exactly how they all felt. He could see it because he knew it. Their heart was troubled. It was not merely what Matthew says that Jesus clearly had shown them. His words in verse one indicate that Jesus would know exactly how very upset things are going to happen even in John's gospel before the upper room begins.

In John chapter 12, verse 23, Jesus says The hour has come. He's already told them in other settings. The hour has not yet come. The hour has not yet come, but when he says the hour has come. I'm suggesting to you the practical reality that fear gripped their hearts and Jesus could see it. And he said, let not your heart be troubled.

Even in chapter 1225, the one who loves his life will lose it, the one who hates his life. And this world will keep it for eternal life. Jesus was describing a horrific future. That would upset their world. Even saying in John chapter 13 verse 33, little children, I'm with you a little while longer.

Emotional turmoil probably is a understatement,

but so is Jesus.

I need you to look in John chapter 11 in verse 33. When Jesus saw her crying and the Jews who had come with her crying, he was deeply moved in his spirit and troubled, this is the son of God. He's not faking feeling, he's troubled. And then in John chapter 12 in verse 27. He says, now these are his own words.

Now my soul is troubled. What should I say? Father saved me from this hour, but what That is why I came to this hour in chapter 13 of verse 21, when Jesus had said this, he was troubled in his spirit and testified truly. I tell you, one of you will betray me. For the 12 in chapter 14, verse one, which we've already read, if that was Jesus' heart, why did they not come to his rescue?

Instead, he tells them, don't let your heart be troubled. They should be the one comforting. They should be the one consoling Jesus in the tragic and desperate reality that he was about to be beaten and killed by the chief priest. But like so often when those situations happen, all we think of is ourself.

And I know you might think. That. Well, Jesus was the son of God and and he really wasn't troubled. But John the Holy Spirit uses the same word to describe the trouble the disciples felt and the trouble that Jesus tells them not to have by describing the same trouble in Jesus himself.

I've often heard people say it's a sin to be troubled.

Now when things are going difficultly and you don't, and, and you're upset and you're worried about it, that, that if you're troubled by it, you're sinning because you just don't believe in God. Well, if that's the case, then Jesus sinned because he was troubled and even though the 12 are troubled, he's urging them not to be trouble.

Jesus is trying to paint a life for us in serving him. He's already painted it quite clearly that it is not a life free from difficulty. It is not a life free from persecution. It is not a life free from hardship.

But then when the writer of Hebrew says this. Put that story in perspective. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the son of God, let us hold fast our to our confession for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are yet without sin.

Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need. What Jesus says to them is that they like, he should not allow the worry to consume them and prevent them from fulfilling God's will. The writer of Hebrew says the same thing, that when you are overrun with so much concern and he uses the word weaknesses, remember Jesus, our high priest can sympathize with them and in sympathizing with them by the fact that he lived his life through temptation.

Without sin, we can find the same grace and boldness to do the same. So Jesus wants the 12 to know that while those feelings may happen, they don't have to run your destiny and they don't know. They don't need to control your tomorrow. That's why Jesus says in the text, which we read earlier, believe in God, believe also in me.

It is not a lack of belief. It's putting your belief in the thing that will solve the difficulty. It's a double imperative. Do this, do this. Faith in God the father. Faith in God the Son will be the true antidote to your fear. Trust in one demands that you trust the others. So in Jesus' own words, I'm sorry.

I want you to realize the King James version says the same thing You believe in God, believe also in me, but notice what Jesus says as a solution for them. John 14, verse 13. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that. The father may be glorified in the Son, and if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

Now I want to give a caveat to understanding of this text that Jesus is telling the 12 in the context of setting the stage for what the Spirit is gonna do in their life, that it's very likely the point that Jesus is making to them is that if you're facing difficulty, God will not leave you alone and the spirit will be available to you.

But I need you to understand this. When the devil came to Jesus to tempt him, Jesus refused to ever use his powers for his own self-release. Jesus never turned stones into bread so he could satisfy his hunger. Jesus did not call down angels to keep him from. Stubbing his toe. Jesus never used miraculous power to make the suffering he experienced in the flesh to go away,

and a student is not above his master. And so the 12 could have never called in Jesus' name upon the Holy Spirit to take away all their troubles. They never did that. I believe Jesus's point in John chapter 14, verse 13 isn't just a promise for any kind of miraculous release. It is the promise that he wants them to know as a disciple, just like you and I need to know the same.

I'm not telling you, God, send me a Mercedes and he's gonna send it to you. God, give me this woman.

The point that Jesus is making to the 12 that I need you to make to yourself is that when Jesus saw them troubled, he said, this is how you show your belief. Whatever you ask in my name, I will do and the Father will be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. Notice he says in John 15, in verse seven, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

He's not a genie. He is the creator of the universe, but he's trying to teach these disciples how to keep their heart from being troubled, by believing in him, and he says and assures them, whatever you ask in my name, I will do for you. Then in John 16 verse 23, truly, really, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the father in my name, he will give it to you.

Isn't it interesting? Jesus keeps repeating himself. I said it several times this week. How many times did he say love one another? Here's your answer.

Don't you think? He wanted them to know that? So what about you When life is difficult? Do you hit the bottle or do you hit the knee?

Do you really believe that you ask anything in his name? He will hear you and give to you what you need. Believe in me means more than just accepting his lordship. It means trusting his lordship because the cure is always Jesus. You know, when you think about that, the same is true for us. Prayer is really not the remedy.

Prayer is the therapy.

I love this quote that I stole from the internet and it came from a medical source. A religious source. While both remedy and therapy aim to address health issues, they differ in their approach and scope. A remedy provides temporary relief from symptoms often in a specific situation. On the other hand, therapy can offer both temporary symptom relief.

The potential for more comprehensive, long-term solution in coping with the underlying issues. And guess what Jesus says Prayer is. It's therapeutic, not because you're talking to God for some kind of blessing to your body, but because it's Jesus's answer for you to show how you believe in him. Ask anything in my name and I will do it for you.

So then when the writer of Hebrew says this, the writer appalled to the church at Philippi, rejoice in the Lord. Always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will God, your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus with God, in Christ in charge.

Why would there not be a peace that comes from God that surpasses your understanding? Trying to solve the problem, whatever it is on your own, will always lead to ruin because that's exactly what we have done with our sin. But turning to God when faith is needed and when there is trouble in your heart, prayer is what brings you to the solution because Jesus is always the cure.

Do you remember James says in James chapter one, count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. And if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to him.

Let him ask In faith with no doubting, sometimes James has been called, uh, by a good brother, the wonderful word worker, but in a very real sense, the Book of James is the wisdom of living our life in the service of God through Christ. And guess the first thing out of the path. Considered a joy when you suffer.

Just like the 12 we're being told in the upper room, they would. And when you lack the wisdom that you need, ask the repetitiveness of the advice Divine sources give us again and again, whether it's the father, whether it's the son or the spirit's. Word again and again and again. If you're having trouble and you're not praying, you're not believing.

So Peter says in verse six of chapter one, in this, you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary. You've been greed by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that parishes, though it is tested by fire, will be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ obtaining the outcome of your faith.

The salvation of your souls. So when Jesus replied, do not let your hearts be troubled with trust in God. Trust also in me. He makes promises that follow. We'll talk about that and that's the rest of the lesson, but I need you to hear this. These are not words for your funeral.

We hear it a lot, but these are not words for your funeral. Even Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Did David write that psalm so it would be recited by his sons at his graveside, or was it a celebration of the trust that he had with his father, the Great Shepherd about the way he would live in his life?

Likewise, these answers that Jesus is about to give is not for their funerals, but for their lives. It is not words for the end of their days, but it is for the beginning of their days and his service, this belief in Jesus, this belief in God that would anchor them and hold their feet securely to the path of the tumultuous journey ahead for them.

Would not let them look back, but would forever keep them looking ahead. Because what secured them was the very things Jesus said. If you're gonna believe in God, you're going to believe in me. So what were those promises that he made to them? Go back to the text and look in there again. John chapter 14, verse one.

Don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me, in my father's house. There are many places or many rooms. It's a very favorite text for a lot of people. Songs have been based upon it, and I think the King James says that. There are mansions. The English standard says that there are rooms, and the Nu American standard says there are dwelling places.

I don't know that I can tell you which one is the best translation because I can tell you all of them translate the word.

The word is also used in John chapter 14, verse 23, and what makes this even more difficult when we start talking about this? That if you pulled out the 1828 Webster's Dictionary, the oldest definition that we have of any published is that under the word mansion, it's defined as any place of residence, a house, a habitation.

And by the way, the King James was translated before that was published. So if you owned a 400 square foot mobile home, that was your mansion. And I know we like to make jokes about calling things your mansion, but if you have a 400 square foot, anything tiny house, the word that Jesus spoke, he would use to describe your dwelling.

It doesn't have to be 4,000 square feet. It doesn't have to have six bedrooms and six baths and four car garage and a pool. It doesn't have to cost cost over a million dollars for Jesus to call it a mansion. And even sometimes when we get upset about the song that we sing, if some of you do mansions over a hilltop.

Celebration of the gold. I want a gold one. I understand all of that. I love telling people that if I show up at heaven and the street is littered with McDonald's torn up bags and Big Mac boxes and there's empty Coke cans on the side of the road, I'm just gonna be happy on there. Right? Because your life where you dwell.

It's a mansion and Jesus says, the place where I'm going, there will be mansion, a dwelling place for you.

Jesus is saying, I'm going to prepare you this dwelling place, not about the kind of room, not whether it's gold or silver line. It's that we get to be and reside where God is.

But the second part of this promise he says is I, I got there ahead of me. Sorry. There we go. I'm going to prepare a place for you. Notice he says, in my father's house, there are many places. But then he says, but I. The one who tells you to love one another. I, the one who I've told you to remember. I the one who has all authority.

I the one who has modeled with my father the unity that I want you to have. And I the one who has shown you how to talk to people about the good news about me, I am the one. Who is going to prepare that place for you? Sometimes when people talk about this, there are two things that they consider about what Jesus is trying to say to them.

Some have thought because Paul, particularly in Ephesians chapter five, compares the church to a bride and that Jesus is the bridegroom. And so in ancient cultures, particularly in Jewish cultures, that you could not take your bride home. Until you had built a house, a place for you to dwell that you couldn't even go to the man and say, I'm gonna marry her.

He'd say, where's your dwelling? You aren't living with us. You gotta have a dwelling. Sometimes that dwelling would be a lean too, on your father-in-law's house or even on your father's house, but you had to prepare a place. And some have said that Jesus is perhaps referencing that. And that's possible.

Others have thought that when Jesus is saying, I'm going to prepare a place for you, that he's making a reference to his description and the work that he gives of himself about what he is doing in his father's house. You remember in John chapter two in verse 16, when he speaks to those money changers in Jerusalem?

He says, stop turning my father's house into a marketplace. And even during the last week, Matthew, mark, Luke tell us that he goes again into the temple and he reminds them again that his, this is my father's house. Do not turn it into a place for thieves. Maybe that's on his mind, but he doesn't say it is.

Some have also thought that it might be a connection to the teaching he had given about the prodigal son and the father. I have a hard time connecting that one myself,

but I need you to see that Jesus says, I'm going to prepare a place for you. I don't think Jesus is talking about, I'm gonna build out the rooms for you. I'm not gonna decorate it for you to your liking. I think Jesus is saying is I'm gonna provide the way for you to get there marked with my own blood through the bloodstained path that will take you to the presence of God.

I am going to prepare a place for you. The writer of Hebrews describes it this way, but Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come and the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands that is not of this creation, that Jesus entered the most holy place once for all time, not by the blood of goats and calves, but for by his own blood.

Having obtained eternal redemption for if the blood of goats and bulls in the ashes of young cow sprinkling those who are defiled, sanctify the purification of the flesh. How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit, offered himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we may serve the living God?

Even when you look at this story. We look at how Jesus says in John chapter 14, I'm gonna go and prepare a place for you the means by which he is going to accomplish it. A lot of times when we talk about this, we're trying to say, well, he's not talking about heaven at all. But if you read Hebrews chapter 10, the only way he can accomplish it is to go to heaven.

The only way he can accomplish the atoning sacrifice by the testimony of the writer of Hebrews is not when he is crucified. He does not bring atonement by his death on the cross. He brings justification because he is raised from the dead to promise us a new life. But the writer of Hebrews sets it forever straight.

That that was part of the process that was brought to fruition when he ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God and accomplished the entire purpose by bringing to his father his own blood. If Jesus had never ascended into heaven, there be no place for him to build. And that's my point.

I'm going to prepare a place for you. He's not building heaven.

That's where he's taking you.

And then he says, I will come again and take you to me.

It might be fair to say that when Rome destroyed Jerusalem, a day of the Lord. Jesus said that they will see the son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory that Jesus is saying in some senses there in Matthew 24 that he came through Rome and the destruction of Jerusalem. I don't even argue at that one point at all, but Jesus says, when I come again, I'm gonna take you to me.

He is not talking about bringing judgment. He's talking about bringing redemption.

Listen to what one Thessalonians chapter four says in verse 13. We do not want you to be uninformed brothers and sisters concerning those who are asleep so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope for. If we believe that Jesus died and rose again in the same way through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.

We say this to you by a word from the Lord, we who are still alive at the Lord's coming will certainly not proceed. Those who have fallen asleep for the Lord himself will the sin from heaven with a shout and with the Ark angel's voice and with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first.

Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words that the promise that the spirit had Paul ride to the church at Salah about when Jesus returns is not that he is going to bring heaven to earth, but rather he is going to bring us to him.

I will come again and take you to myself

because he says last. So that where I am, you may be also

the expression, bringing heaven to earth is common in different circles of conversation in the last 20, 30 years. And I agree that when we start talking about Jesus's, that bringing of the kingdom. It's not necessarily about a literal physical transfer of everything from heaven to earth. When I say we might think of it that way, that we're bringing heaven to, that he's bringing heaven to earth because he's bringing God's rule to the earth.

This is what Jesus prayed. This is what Jesus did and this is what we do. We yield ourselves to his service and the Kingdom of God lives within us,

but that is not the end.

It is true. Genesis two shows us the essential part of the Bible story to make us recognize that sin enters the world in chapter three, and man is taken from the garden that God intended man to be in. And Jesus is the answer to our solution. And there's all sorts of passages which we won't cover tonight, about how Jesus is portraying dwelling and the dwelling of God.

The Spirit of God dwells with us. There's so many things. What was lost in the beginning of Genesis has been restored at the end of the Book of Revelation. That's why Paul will write in Romans 16, verse 20. The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. But Jesus tells the 12 and the promises that he makes to them that when I come again, I will take you where I am.

He's not saying I will come where you are, but I will take you. Where I am.

Where does God dwell? Psalm one 11, verse four. The Lord is in his holy temple. The Lord, his throne is in heaven. His eyes watch his gaze examines everyone. One Kings chapter eight in verse 23, Lord God of Israel, there is no God like you in heaven, above or on earth below. Who keeps the gracious covenant with your servants who walk before you with all their heart, even a Jew, before there was ever a Greek culture distinguished between the place where God dwelt in heaven and where man on earth dwelt one kings Chapter eight and verse 43, may you hear in heaven your dwelling place.

Do according to all the foreigner asks and all the peoples of Earth will know your name to fear you as your people Israel do. And to know that this temple I have built, when we try to understand all of the figurative language of scripture, we have to take the plane first to understand what may not seem plain.

And when Paul says in one Thessalonians chapter four, verse 13. Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with him in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. That's what the son of God promised, the 12, and that's what he promises you and that's why he asks you believe in him the very divine essence of all things.

Who humbled himself to be made like men. Took those 12 to show them in the last things what the first things they should remember. And Jesus says, I'm coming back for you. So do you live your life like that? These are the first things. Are you loving one another the way Jesus command? Us to do five times.

He said it love one another. When we gather together on Sunday, is it really to us about remembering him? Do we recognize that truly all authority is his? Do we live our life to be united as disciples and then we spend and make effort to make disciples of those around us? So that everyone could see in what we pray and the way we live and the things for which we work is that we truly believe him.

The 12 in that upper room who were so troubled, knew their savior was about to die, and they would not even be prepared for what they saw, but if they would believe him and that they would pray. He said, I will give you what you ask. So if you ask for wisdom, James says you will have it. If you ask for peace, Paul says you will have it because only when you ask does it show that you believe tonight.

If you're a Christian and you need help, let the elders know. We're gonna encourage you to come. And if you're not a Christian tonight and you need to be baptized for the forgiveness of your sin, please make it known tonight. But let me finish with these last words.

This is important to Jesus.

Please make it important to you. Love one another. Remember him. Recognize he's the only one with authority that matters. Be united as a disciple with other disciples, show other people the way of discipleship and believe him by praying as together we stand and as we sing.