Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.” – John 14:1

 

“Don’t let your heart be troubled,” Jesus told the disciples in the upper room at the feast of the Passover. “You believe in God? Believe also in me.”

Now when Jesus spoke those words, there were plenty of reasons for His followers to be troubled and worried. He had just taken a mason and washed the feet of the disciples. He told theme there was a traitor in their midst, one who would betray Him. As He took the cup to share the Passover meal, Satan entered into the heart of Judas, who would later sell Christ for 30 pieces of silver.

Peter though, was quick to say, “I will never betray you Lord.” But then Jesus responded, “Before the cock would crow three times, he would betray him.” Yet Jesus said, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”

I am convinced that when Jesus spoke those words, He was actually looking far beyond the small group who set at the table that night at the Gethsemane experience. He was also speaking to those who hearts have been broken and crushed by grief. The young mother whose baby is still born. The wife whose husband is stricken with cancer. The childless couple, who just can’t understand why so many have abortions when they desperately want a child. The youth who can’t find a purpose. The lonely heart without a friend.

Don’t let your heart be troubled. Do those words speak to the need of your life, friend? Then he gave them a reason and a hope. He said, ““You believe in God? Believe also in me.”

Now it was true, they did believe in God. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had all worshipped the Almighty. It’s safe to say you believe in God. You’re on the side of the majority who opt for God, motherhood, and virtue. I mean, who can argue with that?

But believing in Jesus Christ is often another matter. Why is it easier to believe in God than in Christ? Two reasons.

To believe in His Son requires confronting the issue of who He was and why He came. This of course, includes the sticky issue of sin, largely, our own. And that means either we fall at His feet, claiming Him as Lord and Savior, or deny Him and turn and walk away.

The second reason that it’s difficult is that He is no longer seen in the flesh. A little boy of about five showed up at the table with dirty hands so his mother said, “Now before we can thank Jesus for our food, you go and wash those hands.” As the little guy was walking down the hall to the bathroom she yelled, “And use soap and hot water to kill the germs!” Irritated, the little boy grumbled, “Germs and Jesus, germs and Jesus, all I hear around this house is germs and Jesus, and I’ve never seen either one of them.”

Well, the reality, however, is that the life of Jesus Christ is one of the best documented facts of history. There are scores of events with only shreds of actual historical evidence to support them, which are readily accepted. Yet scholars try to deny the historicity of Christ when there is an abundance of evidence to support what He did and said.

“Believe also in me,” said Jesus to a skeptical world. Believe that my words are true, that I came from the Father and died for your sins. Believe that death is not the end, that you are not a victim of your heredity or your circumstances. Believe that your life can be different.

“Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservation,” so wrote the Quaker scholar D. Elton Trueblood. It is that easy, friend. Stop letting your heart be troubled, and when you do that, your life will change.