Where do you turn when your heart is troubled?

In John 14:1-6, with the cross just hours away, Jesus comforts His fearful disciples. In this study, Dr. Toby Holt opens some of the most reassuring words in all of Scripture.

The disciples are shaken — Jesus has spoken of leaving, of a betrayer, and of Peter’s coming denial. Into that fear Jesus says, “Let not your heart be troubled.” He promises a prepared place in His Father’s house and assures them they know the way. When Thomas admits they do not, Jesus answers with one of the great “I am” sayings: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Dr. Holt reminds us that faithfulness is easy to promise but hard to live — yet Christ Himself is the sure road home.

Questions this study answers:

1. How does Jesus comfort troubled hearts? He points beyond the present trouble to a prepared place with the Father and to Himself as the sure way there.

2. What did Jesus mean, “I am the way”? He is not one path among many; He is the only way to the Father. Salvation is found in Him alone.

3. Why does this passage still speak to us? Because we, like the disciples, face fear and loss. Jesus’ promise of a home and a way home steadies anxious hearts.

“I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” — John 14:6 (NKJV)

Speaker: Dr. Toby Holt is the President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, a Reformed seminary in Colorado Springs. He is known for clear, down-to-earth Bible teaching, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio.

Listen and go deeper: This sermon is part of the John Explained study from New Geneva Theological Seminary. Find more verse-by-verse teaching across the Bible at newgeneva.org. To support this teaching ministry, visit newgeneva.org/give.

[gentle instrumental music] As they huddled together in the upper room, Christ's disciples were anxious about the future, and that was understandable. There were a lot of scary things on the horizon. But Jesus didn't want fear to rule over them. And so, in today's reading from John 14, he reminded them that everything was going to be all right, and that a great future was just around the corner.

Is your heart troubled? If so, this morning, then you are in the right place. It's been said that this text, especially the first six verses of chapter 14, are one of the most popular passages in the entirety of the Bible. And the reason why is because many people come to the Bible with a problem in their life, and they're looking for answers. And as they go through concordances and Google and all these different things, many times they arrive at this text because this text promises hope that we all need. We might need it at different intervals and different quantities, but in this room today, surely there is someone here, if not many someones, who desperately need hope, and we see it in this text. However, we see it in the context of a dark and scary night. As we said before, today's text occurs during the night of the Last Supper, and the fact that we call it the Last Supper is somewhat foreboding in of itself. This was the meal that Christ shared with his disciples in the upper room, to which John gives five chapters in discussing. And as he talks to the disciples, there is a specter in the room, so to speak, a specter of death and betrayal and denial that will come up many times, including in the very text we're looking at this morning. So, in today's text, Christ's disciples, on the one hand, they're encouraged by the presence of breaking bread with their Lord and Savior and their Rabbi and their Christ and their Messiah. That's a great night for anyone. On the other hand, they had a sense that something [snaps] was about to happen. And indeed, it would, because someone at their very table would be betraying Jesus that very night. And the rest of them, like sheep to the four winds, would be scattered imminently. But it's with that knowledge of what's about to go down, and it's looking scared people in the eyeballs, that in today's text, we're going to see that Jesus is going to gather them close, and he's going to say, "Hey, guys. Guys, guys, guys. Let not your heart be troubled." You have a lot of reason for it to be troubled, as you might this very day here in Gulfport, Mississippi, have a lot of reason for your heart to be troubled. You might have anxiety and illnesses and diagnosis and financial problems, relationship problems, what have you. You might have any number of that. You might have all of that. I don't know. But the same words that apply to the disciples, who are about to face the scariest set of circumstances they'd ever faced up until that point in their entire life, the same words that Jesus applied to them, said to them, encouraged them with, apply to you and I. And God willing, he'll use this time to not only teach us what happened 2,000-some-odd years ago, but how it helps us and encourages us with what we're facing this very week. All right. Let's return now to John 13, and as we usually do, we're going to go through it kind of bite-sized until we get to the end of this passage. Let's look at the first three verses. Let's look at verses 33 through 35. Again, this occurs during the context of the Last Supper itself, as his disciples are beginning to get increasingly anxious. He says this. Verse 33: "Little children, I shall be with you a little longer. You will seek me, and as I said to the Jews, 'Where I'm going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you, that you would also love one another. And by this, everyone will know that you're my disciples, if you have love for one another." All right. Let's stop there. If you're a small child, and at one point we all were, but if you're a small child, one of the harder things that you might hear is if your father came to you, a father that you love, someone that is close, someone that is dear, someone that's kind, someone who looks after you, someone that watches over you, someone that teaches you and trains you, and says, "It's time for me to go.

I'm going to go. I'm going to depart. And where I'm going, you can't come too." That would be hard to hear. Well, in this context, it's possibly even more hard to hear. With that said, a few verses after he says this hard thing, he's going to say, "But, but, but, I'm not going away forever. In fact, where I'm going, it's good that I go because I'm going to be with the Father, and while I'm there, I'm going to be doing something that's just wonderful. I am going to be preparing a place for you to join me, that where I am, there you may be also." And we'll see that text here in just a few moments. But before he gets to that good news, that reunion's around the corner, that soon enough they'll all be together again, before he gets to that hope of reunion, he lays down a new law. He calls it a law. It's really an old law. It's one of the oldest laws, that we love one another. But it has a new emphasis in the context of the Last Supper. "Love one another as I have loved you. That's how you are to be known." Remember, his disciples had just argued about which one of them was going to be the greatest in heaven. Literally, at the very table, they had been arguing about which one of us is the greatest, right? Jesus says, "Knock it off, guys. Knock it off." Mary did the foot washing to demonstrate servanthood and how this is supposed to work. Well, now he looks at them, and he looks at betrayers and deniers, and he looks at Doubting Thomases and the like, and he says, "All right. I am going to go, but, but I'm going to come back for you. And in the meantime, let's work on this together. Let's work on this. Let's work on this commandment that you would love one another. And as you love one another, as you in this room love one another in the midst of what's about to go down, as you love one another, then the people outside this room, they will know that you are Christians. You will know that you are disciples of the Christ. They will know that you are mine if you love them, you love one another as I have loved you." Now, here's the thing. There is no law that sounds easier at face value to keep than that. Love one another. All right. Check. Got it. How many of us just heard that, and we didn't for a moment have any problem with that? And we think, "Yep, yep. Love, love sounds good. I'm all for love. Loving one another sounds fine." It's the easiest law in the world to nod your head to, to accept at face value, and it is the hardest lawTo keep. It's the easiest law to accept in the abstract, love one another, and it is the hardest law to apply when someone is being so unlovable in your world. When a coworker, a neighbor, a friend, someone in church, what have you, is just being unlovable, that's the hardest person to love. Again, in the abstract, love one another, we'll all nod our heads to, but then if we say, how about that guy, that lady, that person, that neighbor, that coworker, that whoever, then our brains explode. It's much more difficult. However,

Christ emphasized the importance of this. He says, "This is critical, guys." He says, "I've been teaching you, and you've been accepting propositional truth." Remember he asked Peter, "Who do people say I am?" And Peter says, "You are the Christ, the son of the living God." And Jesus says, "Amen, Peter, you got it. Your theology is squared away. Good job, Peter." In the abstract, understanding and accepting propositional truth is not the hard part. In just a few verses, Peter, he would say, "I will follow you to the end. I'll follow you to the end. I'll follow you to the end." And we would all say that in the abstract. The difficulty is in the particular. With that said, this idea of loving one another, we are to love one another even when it's difficult, even when it's hard. And when we do so, more than almost anything else that we can do, that demonstrates Christ in us. That demonstrates that we are Christians when we forgive one another, when we love one another, when we care for one another, when we extend our arms to one another, even when we're given 10, 20, 50 reasons not to, which happens all the time. With that said, this is what Jesus is imparting to them. Remember, he's only got yay much time left. In hospice scenarios where someone is about to pass in a short amount of time, what do they do? They concentrate their words on that which is most critical. If you only had the next five minutes to tell your spouse, your child, your children, what have you, the most important things to you, that which is most near and dear to your own hearts, what would you say to them? Well, this is what Jesus says to those who are near and dear to him with the remaining time that he had left. He said, "Guys, no matter what comes, no matter what happens, love one another." And as you do so in this midst, in the nucleus of the church, in the upper room, and in the church 2,000 years later in Gulfport, Mississippi, as you do this, as you demonstrate love for one another in this way, that's how we convey the reality, the truth, the strength of Christendom, and the very faith that we profess. Love one another. All right, let's look at verses 36 through 38. "Now Simon Peter said to him, 'Lord, where are you going?' And Jesus answered him, 'Where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow me afterward.' And Peter said to him, 'Lord, why can I not follow you now? I will lay down my life for your sake.'" Remember, in the abstract, it's easy. " 'I will lay down my life for your sake.' And Jesus answered him, 'Will you? Will you lay down your life for my sake? Most assuredly, Peter,' " take it to the bank, " 'Most assuredly, I say to you, the rooster shall not crow till you have denied me three times.' " You're not going to stumble 10 years from now. You're going to stumble tonight. The very things that you say in the abstract, like you could uphold this in the abstract, you're going to fail in the specifics in just hours from now. Three times you're going to do this. Not even once or twice, which would be bad enough. You're going to do this three times. All right. Now, the interesting thing here is in the previous verses, verses 33 through 35, Jesus had just given the disciples this new commandment, this new point of emphasis, right? Love one another as I have loved you. And by this, all men will know that you are Christians. They'll know you are Christians by the love you have. With that said, what does Peter do? Does Peter linger on that for a moment? Does Peter go, "Huh, let's talk about love here, Jesus. Tell us more about love." No. It's almost like it went in one ear and out the other because he doesn't even talk about it, refer to it, think about it. It's like he waits for Jesus to get done with what he's saying to get back to a different point that he's stuck on. And what he's stuck on is when Jesus said earlier in verse 33 that I'm going,

and you can't follow. Nothing about this new commandment and love and all that really resonated, or at least it didn't come up in the next words out of Peter's mouth. Instead, he says, "What's going on? Where are you going? And if you go anywhere, Jesus, you can rest assured I'm going with you. I'm your man, right? You know, I'm Peter. I'm the rock." The rock. Even amongst his fellow disciples, he had to be known as the brave one, the rock. He does a lot of brave things. I mean, there's no doubt he has strength and courage and character and resilience and the like. And so he looks at himself, and he sees himself as one who's not going to let Jesus go any place that he can't go. He's going to be his right-hand man. So he says, "I will lay down my life for your sake," not realizing that the gospel's about the exact opposite. The gospel's about Jesus laying down his life for Peter's sake. So Peter tries to inadvertently supplant or reverse exactly what's about to go down. Now, again, that sort of courage and faithfulness is good. We want to think that we would do the same thing. I mean, if you were there at the upper room, you'd like to think that you would stand tall right to the end, that if anyone's going to take Jesus, they're going to have to do it over your dead body, that you would be that sort of man or woman. Well, I don't know how we would be, or what we would do, but we know this much, that Peter felt convicted, assured that he would act in a certain way, but when the moment came, that's not what happened. When his courage was tested, his courage would prove insufficient, weak, and Peter would deny his savior three times. You see this if you look in Luke chapter 22, you'll see the denials, three times. After which, what's fascinating, the third time that Peter denies Jesus, you know what happens that very moment? Well, two things, really. One is that Jesus looks right at him. Jesus looked right at him. And that look had to resonate in Peter's heart to the rest of his days. He probably never forgot that look. The second thing is that the rooster crowed. So with that said, that's what was about to go down. And let me just, I guess, add another point. As we said a few months ago, in the abstract, faithfulness always seems so easyYou ever hear the song, the hymn, we sing it sometimes, "I Surrender All." ♪ I surrender all ♪ I tell you I'm never going to sing, and then I do it. [audience laughing] What am I doing? I surrender all. Look at the earlier song that we sang this morning. Look at the words that you sang to glorify your God, that said, I give you not a mite would I withhold. I give you everything, right? Do you? You see what I mean? I surrender all. I give you everything. I withhold nothing. We sing and confess and profess and say, and at a certain level, we believe that we are this thing, this image of ourselves, that we're these pious, devout, and holy saints, and when push comes to shove, we're going to do the right thing. Well, maybe. Maybe. Maybe not.

Be careful that the self-image you have of yourself and how you would respond, and the faith that you have, be careful that you only analyze it in the abstract in which it's never tested or tried. And be very diligent when it is tested and tried to say, "How did I do? When this situation came up in my family life, in my marriage, when this situation came up with my children, when this situation came up in church, how did I do? Did I demonstrate the love of the commandment that Jesus gave, to love one another as he loved me? Did I do that in this context?" It's important to analyze the specifics in order to see whether you are truly applying the faith that you'll nod your head to in the abstract. All right. So with that said here, the moment in time that we're coming to in verses 33 through 36, and everything that was going to follow, as we said earlier this morning, this is the scariest time in the disciples' lives up to that point. And they'd had scares. They had had all sorts of bumps in the road across the three years of Christ's ministry, and I'm sure earlier in their lives, too. But nothing matched up with this. Nothing matched up. And part of the reason nothing matched up with this is because their leader, their el capitan, their main guy, Jesus, had just said he was going to depart. And not just he was going to depart, but he had told them in other intervals that this departure involved death. He was going to die. He had told them this. And at some level, you had to say, "If I'm a disciple of the guy who's about to die, am I going to die, too?" And that was very possible. Why? Because the enemies were all around. Remember, Peter was so worried that he might die, too, that what did he do when people said, "Hey, aren't you with that guy?" "Nope. Not me. Not me." He had anxiety and fear that he would be killed. If they went after Jesus, nothing was going to stop them from taking him out. And the same was true of the other disciples. They were fearful for their lives at this point. Beyond that, Jesus was going someplace that they wouldn't be able to come to, and there was anxiety with that because as disciples of the rabbi, they had gone wherever he'd gone for the period of three years. Literally, wherever he went, they went. And this is a moment of separation, and they say, "Ooh, that doesn't sound so great." Furthermore, Jesus had just explained to them that, "I've got to go somewhere, and where I'm going, you can't go to. And oh, by the way, there's a betrayer in our midst. One of you is not who he says or thinks that he is." A betrayer is in the midst, and oddly enough, one of them had just been sent out by Jesus to go and do, and whatever you do, do quickly, Jesus told the betrayer that we know as Judas Iscariot. And in a couple weeks, on a Wednesday night, we're going to give a whole class just on Judas. So the Pharisees, the Romans are coming. The betrayer is in their midst. Jesus has predicted, prophesied, not only the betrayal and his death, but that they would fall apart and deny him even that very evening. If there was reason to be anxious in their entire life, this was the moment. This was the cause for that. But as Jesus looks at that, he delivers this news, and he can see just on their faces, all the colors drained down. He said some difficult things. Earlier in the meal, there'd been the washing of feet, there's the new covenant and my blood was shed for you, the Lord's Supper, and all that great stuff. There was a lot of wonderful, tender, kind, gentle, blessed moments at the Last Supper. But at this point, Jesus said it's about to go down. And so they were anxious. And Jesus looked at them, he saw that they were anxious. And again, the scripture doesn't say this, but I fully anticipate it would've been the case. I would've expected at that moment he'd bring them close. They're already reclining at table, which is not the same thing as sitting at the table. Reclining at table, and it's as if Jesus brings them even closer in this context. He looks in the eyeballs and he says this, "Let not your heart be troubled." Let's look at these verses, our remaining verses, verses one through six, to see the promise he gave to them and the promise that he gives to us if we are troubled this very morning. Verse one,

"Let not your heart be troubled." You've been given a lot of reason to be troubled, but let it not be so. "Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God. You believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. I will receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go, you know, and the way you know." Verse five, Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?" And Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." All right. "In my Father's house are many mansions." Different translations will render that slightly differently, but no matter what translation you use, it sounds pretty grand. But it's still hard to understand. If we just linger for a moment, let's talk about heaven just for a moment before we circle back to the rest of it. When you think about heaven, what do you picture? What do you picture? Well, whatever you picture, whatever you might imagine, is far insufficient or far less than the reality. If you remember the thief on the cross, the one who came to faith, not the other guy. The one who came to faith and looks at Jesus and says, "Lord, Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom." What does Jesus say to him? "Truly this day you will be with me inIn paradise.

Now, the reality is, whether you're talking about paradise, whether you're talking about mansions, whether you're talking about streets of gold that come up in Revelation, the reality is that these are word pictures to express something that you cannot understand in a way that you might understand. You can picture mansions and streets of gold and the like, but these are terms that Christ uses to express something far greater than itself. I've said before that streets of gold, when we get to heaven, will there be a street of gold somewhere? Probably. But the real picture of streets of gold is not so much that there's literally asphalt that's made of gold everywhere in heaven. It's not so much that as it is to express to you and I that which is most mundane. When you go out in the parking lot, you will not give a second thought to the parking lot. I mean, you might now that I'm bringing it up, but otherwise, you wouldn't have given a second thought to the very stuff you're trodding upon. Not a second thought as you left the church and went out on the road. Even as you're driving on it for the next five, 10, 15, 30, 40 minutes, depending on where you're coming from, you will not think once about the pavement. Why? Because it is mundane. Well, in heaven, that is which most valuable here, gold, is that which is most mundane there. So when you hear about hell being hot, the reality is far worse. When you hear about streets of gold, the reality is far better. Paradise, mansions, it's the same thing. These are words you can sort of understand to express something far beyond your ability to understand. So that's what we see there in those first few verses, this talk of mansions. Whatever that looks like, it's going to be good. With that said, verses one and two talk about the destination, where we're going, what's going to happen. However, verses three through six talk about the way we get there. You see, it's one thing for me to open up a travel guide of some wonderful Tahiti or someplace grand and say, "Hey, it doesn't look so grand." You'd say, "Yeah, it looks great." But in the back of your mind, you're going, "But I'll never get there. I'm glad such a place exists, but I'll probably never get to Tahiti." Well, here in these verses, Jesus is saying, not only does such a place exist, "In my Father's house are many mansions." It's great, it's paradise, it's grand, streets of gold. In my Father's house is this. He's not only giving you the travel guide and saying, this is what reality holds, but he's saying, this is what reality holds for you. And the way to get here, you know. Of course, Thomas says, "Sir,

we don't know where you're going, and how do we know the way?"

And again, verse six, Jesus says, "Thomas,

I am the way.

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through me."

Although Jesus was about to depart and leave his disciples, and although that had to freak them out, although that had to trouble their hearts in a sense, Jesus says, "Look, reunion is right around the corner. I am going to go for a bit." And later on in chapter 14, he'll say, "If you knew where I was going and that I'm going to my Father, you would know this is wonderful what's about to happen. But I see you don't see it with those eyes, so let me just express it in a way that, again, you can relate to and know this much, that when I go and where I go, I'm going to be busy preparing a place for you that where I am, you may be also." Have you lost a loved one? Have you lost a loved one that's in the arms of Christ? Imagine this, that when that loved one was ushered in to those pearly gates, when the loved one was ushered in to whatever that heavenly courtyard looks like, know this much, that Jesus ahead of time had prepared a place for that one, and he has prepared a place for you.

What does that mean? What does that look like? I don't know, but this is the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples. "I'm going to prepare a place for you." And if he did it for them, he's done it for our loved ones, and he will do it for us in his time. You ever know the picture-- I don't know if we still do it in this day and age. It was something that was more done by a few generations past. You know that picture where after a wedding, going back to the new house or the home, that the husband, the groom, will take the wife in his arms and cross the threshold? Has anyone ever done that? I'm not seeing enough hands. Any hands? [laughing] Oh, all right, there's one. We got one. Pastor Fish, well done. All right. [laughing] So we got one. With that said, what's that a picture of? Well, it's a picture of a whole lot of stuff. It's a picture of a whole lot of stuff. But at the least, it's a way of saying, you're mine. I care for you. I give you everything. And we cross into the threshold of this new life together. That's a picture of what Jesus is saying here. I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come, and I will receive you to myself, and we will cross the threshold together. That's the promise that the bridegroom gives to the bride, to the church. We will cross the threshold together. I make a covenant, a promise to you that I will never break, and it will culminate on that great day, and it's coming. It's coming. Even as you're troubled, even as you're anxious, even as you're fearful, even as you're scared, that day is on your horizon, and it's never been closer than it is right now. There's a lot of reasons to be encouraged in this text. With that said, when a lot of us think about mortality, we tend to process it more like Thomas in verse five. We go, "Ah, I know I've heard some of this before in church. I know, Jesus, you've said this sort of stuff, but I'm not sure. I don't know the way, the path." When I was younger, we lived in California for a few years. My grandparents lived down in Southern California, and we would visit them a lot, but especially around Thanksgiving and the holidays and such. But I remember there was a convenience store. It was probably only maybe 90 yards away from my grandparents' house, but it was sort of around the corner. It wasn't far at all, really, not far. And I remember, I don't remember the age. I was maybe 10, something like that. My dad says, "Hey, would you run over and get such and such from the little convenience store and bring it back?" And I remember nodding. "Yes, sir. Happily, I'll do it. I'm your man." I remember thinking, yeah, I've got this. Cool as a cucumber. Yeah, Dad, I'm on it. But I remember just being petrified because I knew where the thing was, but I couldn't see it from where I was standing, and I knew sort of how to get there, but there was still all sorts of anxiety about the path and what's going to happen. Is everyone going to come and grab me? What's going on? It was a safe neighborhood. He didn't send me out to the wolves or anything. But nevertheless, I remember being anxious about it, even though I had really no reason to be. I remember being anxious because it was something I hadn't done before.Well, in a sense, that's what Thomas is saying. "Jesus, this dynamic of what is about to happen with you and what you say is about to happen to us is not something we've ever experienced. Remind us about this way, this path," what have you. And Jesus stops and says, "I'm the way. I've always been the way. I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but through me." This morning, in closing, this morning, whether he's speaking to Thomas, whether he's speaking to Peter, whether he's speaking to you and I through his text, the message is the same. Jesus says, "I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life, and I'm with you every step of the way. Even though I depart, I'm going to send you a helper. And even though I go, I will come back." This is akin to a father going on a business trip and saying, "I'm gone, but I'm not really gone, and a reunion is coming. Come here, son," and holding you close. This morning, if you have anxiety about the next step for you, going around the bend on something that might seem kind of scary, know this, you're not doing it alone. That is the great promise of the Shepherd's Psalm, that "Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we shall fear no evil." Why? Because, "Thou art with me." Our confidence is that the one who went up comes back, and that while he is there at the right hand of the Father, he has sent us the helper, so we're not truly alone. There's no step you will take on this earth, no matter how dark, no matter how scary next week, next month, next year might be, there is no step you will take apart from the shepherd and overseer of your souls being right there, lockstep with you. And that's an encouragement, whether you're disciples in the upper room or you and I in Gulfport 2,000 years later. Let's pray.

[outro music] To search through an archive of Dr. Holt's previous sermons, please visit us at fpcgulfport.org, or you can look us up at sermonaudio.com. [outro music]