Trusting Jesus In Troubled Times
I wanted to take a new approach to our website blogs. Instead of a word for word format of the message from Sunday, I wanted to write a person reflection on the topic and bring in highlights from the message. I hope this serves you better and can be a more concise way of sharing the information and will allow me the freedom on Sunday’s to allow the Spirit to lead our time together and not stick to scripted notes. Now, onto the message from Sunday.
Trusting Jesus in troubled times was a message that was birthed out of real life reflection. I began our time talk about one of the greatest heroes of the Christian faith: Corrie Ten Boom. She and her family hid Jews from the Nazi’s during WWII and spent time in a concentration camp with her sister Betsy. One of the most powerful statements Betsy told her sister during that time was, “there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper still.”
Jesus and his disciples find themselves in a pit of their own. Their Savior is about to go to the cross and they are about to step into their destiny as believers to carry on His mission. Jesus begins by encouraging them that He is going to prepare a place for them. We can trust Jesus in troubled times because even if it is the worst trouble we could imagine, we have a place in heaven already prepared. Like a Father welcomes home a son or a daughter, this preparation means Jesus has been a forerunner preparing the way.
Jesus also comes with a powerful truth, that he is the only way, truth, and life and that nobody comes to the Father except through him. In a pluralistic world that claims many options for heaven, Jesus claims only one: Himself. Knowing Jesus is the knowing the Father. Jesus doesn’t give us a formula, He gives us himself. To see the Father is to see Jesus. Despite Thomas and Philip struggling to see what Jesus means, we can know through scripture and the power of the Holy Spirit exactly what path we must take in a troubled time.
Jesus concludes this passage with a promise that believing in Him means that nothing is impossible. This promise doesn’t mean a genie granting our wishes. Instead, it means that when it comes to glorifying Him and living out His purposes, the answer is always yes. When the Father’s will is united with ours, it doesn’t matter what trouble comes knocking at our door. We can have faith to trust in a Father that grants us His Holy Spirit to fulfill his purposes in our lives. When Jesus left the Holy Spirit came, we aren’t abandoned to face these troubled times alone.
We can have confidence to trust in Jesus in troubled times because He himself faced them and showed us the way. He doesn’t give us a map to try and discover where we are supposed to go, but instead He Himself is the way and has created it for us. Jesus offers peace for our troubled hearts, a place in His Father’s house, a path to the Father, the presence of God, and the promise of power. So when your heart is troubled, remember: you have a forerunner who has gone before you, a path to walk, and a home all because of Jesus.