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John 14:1-6

“Let not your heart be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in Me. In my Father’s house are many dwelling places. If it was not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will return to take you to where I am. That where I am, there you may be also.”

Thomas answered and said, “Where You go, we don’t know. How can we know the way?”

Jesus answered and said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through Me.”

I am sure you have read this passage many times. It must be most familiar to you. But today, I want to draw your attention to the core problem that Jesus is addressing that is very real to all of us, even right now. That we all have troubles.

We are now living in troublesome times. Actually, we have always been living in troublesome times. It’s just that when times appear to be good and doesn’t affect us much that we don’t think about it. Nowadays, we see and feel the economic strain on our companies and ourselves. Nothing has really changed. Only we are more aware because it is affecting us directly.

Because it affects us directly, we are troubled by it. No man is an island and whatever happens elsewhere also has some impact and consequences on our environment we live in.

When Jesus was saying these words, the disciples were also living in troublesome times. They were under the Roman governance and the Jews cannot live freely without giving any consideration to the Romans. They had no real freedom to do what they want. They were under the iron hand of the Roman Empire.

But this was not what troubled the disciples for Jesus to utter these words. Jesus has been hinting to them that He will not be with them much longer and is trying to tell them that He must go away. The thing that troubled the disciples were the fear of lack of direction and leadership should Jesus not be around.

You see, they were with Jesus all these two to three years and had seen so many things their fearless and godly leader had shown them. They had seen miracles, they had heard His teachings, they had seen how He had led them and showed them how to handle situations with the Jewish leaders that were against them. They did nothing on their own accord and always looked to Jesus for guidance in practically everything they did.

Now, Jesus is saying that He will not be with them much longer. Guess what’s going through their minds. How on earth are they going to survive without Jesus? What are they going to do? Where are they going to go? Who can they turn to? These questions, my friends, are real problems and they are troubled greatly.