Don't Be Troubled

Pastor Brady spent the whole message in one chapter: John 14, start to finish. John knew Jesus in a way that Matthew, Mark, and Luke did not. All of them knew Jesus and understood Him, but John had an insight into the person of Jesus that is unique and tender, a window into His mind, His soul, and His imagination as He walked through His third and final year. Most of what John wrote covers that last year of Jesus' ministry on earth. And in it Jesus gives a very direct command that applies in 2026 probably more now than ever: don't be troubled.

Your heart walks in somewhere

The heart Jesus is talking about is the center of your emotions, your imagination, your thoughts, who you are. Everyone walks in on a Sunday morning with a heart in some kind of condition. All the Oklahoma fans in the room were really happy, and Pastor Brady asked them for a shout. "Boomer." If you are not a college football fan, they beat their rival Texas the day before, and that is a big win.

Pastor Brady went to bed super angry. His team got beat in overtime at the last second, and he joked that he almost preached on hell that morning. He went to bed with anger issues. Troubled heart. He was troubled deep in his soul, and he woke up much better.

Then he asked the room to underline one word in verse 1: troubled. It is a different word than afraid. Not the same word.

Troubled is not the same as afraid

So what makes you afraid? Pastor Brady said he is not afraid of much. He grew up a heart patient and stared death in the face his whole life, so he got over those fears as a kid. He is living on borrowed time, and he is enjoying it.

He is afraid of snakes, though, and he had been waiting to tell this story. When he was at New Life, he said as a joke that the only good snake is a dead snake. He had no idea there is a real environmental movement in Colorado to preserve snakes. He knows there are good snakes that eat mice and insects. He runs from those too. It was a joke. Then he got out to the parking lot, and as he was leaving, a truck pulled in front of him. The driver gave him a scowl, and the bumper sticker on the back said, "Save the snakes." You can't script this.

He is afraid of heights as well. And he is afraid of Pam about half the time, which he figured every married man in the room understands.

But listen: fear is not necessarily a bad thing. All of us have primal fears that are necessary for our survival. When there is danger, we instinctively pull away from it. Being afraid is different than being troubled. When you see the word troubled, write down these three words. It means to be distressed, bothered, or aggravated.

Do not surrender your joy

Think about all the political ads. Pastor Brady saw 48 of them the day before, and not one was positive. Every ad, from both parties, was designed to aggravate him, to trouble him, to distress him, to cause him to be afraid. If the other person gets elected, it is all going to be Armageddon. He did not hear one uplifting, joyful "vote for me because I love you, I care about you." It was always "vote for me because the other person is awful." And there is about another month of it.

He wants the church to be informed voters and to read everything they are supposed to read, but he is not going to stand up and tell anyone how to fill out a ballot. "Y'all are smart," he said, smarter than he is. Read, pray, discern, and vote your biblical convictions. He has always said that. He and Pam and Abram had already sat down and filled out their ballot as a family. They vote every election.

"I refuse to surrender my joy to some politician."

Is he concerned? Absolutely. Does he see the big issues? Absolutely. Is he concerned about where we are headed? Absolutely. But his joy came at a great price. If you have ever lost your joy, you know how valuable it is once you get it back, and how valuable your peace is. Once you lose your peace, it is hard to get back. Once he found his joy and rediscovered his peace, he decided he would not let the things of this world ever take it from him again.

It is one thing to be concerned. You can even be righteously angry, and there is nothing wrong with righteous indignation. It just can't become unrighteous, and it cannot settle into your soul in a way that changes you as a human being. Pastor Brady said he is watching a lot of his friends who used to be fun to hang around, and they are just not fun anymore. They are aggravated all the time, distressed, bothered. His counsel: talk about it, put it before the Lord, and walk away. Go find your joy and live with the peace of the Lord.

You cannot reach people you are afraid of

So what troubles your heart? If you let those troubles linger, they can lead to an unhealthy fear. Pastor Brady has said this many times, and people get aggravated when he says it:

"You cannot reach people that you're afraid of."

You can't reach people you are fearful of or mad at. The last thing Jesus told us was to go into all the world and make disciples. That was not Pastor Brady's idea. Jesus said it. You won't go to some places if you are afraid of them, and you won't sit down and have healthy conversations with people if you are angry with them.

If he were the enemy and wanted to stop evangelism, to keep people from coming to Christ, he would make Christians afraid of non-Christians. Then you just stay away from them. They don't hear the gospel, they don't get to see your lives, and they end up in a place of eternity because we separated ourselves from them. You don't have to agree with them. You have to go. The command is for us to go into the world and be salt and light.

He was not minimizing the world we live in. It is a troubled world, populated by violent extremists. There are incurable diseases right now that are scary, and some of the stuff coming out of Russia, people don't even know what it is or whether it is from a lab. The news reports are meant to cause you to be afraid, to bother you, to aggravate you. We live in economic uncertainty. Pastor Brady turns 60 in January, and this is not his first midterm election. It doesn't matter who is in the White House: at the midterms the market gets crazy, and it stays crazy until the first week of November. Then it settles down, no matter who is elected. The market wants certainty, and right now we are living in uncertainty. There is no predicting anything until the elections are over, and then there are about six months of peace before it starts all over again. "Everybody take a deep breath. This is not my first rodeo."

Why the disciples were troubled

Why did Jesus say it? Go back to chapter 13 and put yourself in the disciples' shoes. You are following Jesus. For 3,000 years, Pastor Brady said, they had been waiting on Messiah. Suddenly this man appears, checks all the boxes, and does all the things. He could be the Son of God. They are living under oppressive Roman rule, and the one they thought would liberate them from extreme taxation and violent oppression says, "By the way, I'm about to die. And when I die, I'm going to a place where you can't join me right now."

They had signed up for a revolution. Jesus was saying a revolution is going to happen, just not the one you think. It will forever change humankind, but it will not follow the patterns and rules they had set for it. In fact, it would be upside down.

He also looked at the group and told them one of them would betray Him, and that Peter would deny Him. Peter answered, in effect: all these other knuckleheads, I understand why you would think that about them, but I am Peter. You said I'm the rock on which you're going to build the church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail. And Jesus took a deep breath and said, no, you are going to deny me.

They had all of this in their hearts. They were troubled. They were walking behind Him, mumbling, talking, gossiping. And Jesus stopped and said, do not let your hearts be troubled.

Pastor Brady said it to the Village Church the same way. He is living in the same world, the same news cycle, the same economy, and the same neighborhoods. He is not in some magic box somewhere. He understands what is going on in the world. He just refuses to let his heart be troubled.

So how is that possible? He loves that Jesus says "don't do something" and then doesn't stop to tell them how. Go be good. Well, how? By the power of the Holy Spirit. Don't be troubled. Well, how? John 14 answers that question. Write these three things down, and the next time you feel your heart get troubled, come back to these notes.

We know the way

Pastor Brady promised they would stay in John 14 the whole day, then clarified that nobody was going to be there all day. He knew what time the Broncos game started and would have everyone home by the second quarter. Then he read a verse everybody knows, that even unbelievers know.

Stop there. You either believe that or you don't. Is it a bumper sticker, or is it the way you live your life? Humans have been looking for the truth since the beginning. My truth, our truth, what is the truth? Jesus says, I am the way. I am the path. I am the truth. There is no other source of life, and no one comes to the Father except through Him. So when people say Jesus was just a good teacher, just a prophet, someone who just loved poor people, no. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or He is the Lord. You don't make this kind of claim unless you are the Messiah. You don't say this unless you are God. It is one of the most radical things Jesus ever says.

And God has you on a path, whether you know it or not. You were in church that morning because the Holy Spirit led you there. Monday is going to come, and if you will allow Him, He is going to put His hand on your life, whether you feel it or not. The Bible says He will lead you in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. That is going to happen Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. When you get back on Sunday, you will look at the week behind you and say, the Lord led me. The Lord had His hand on me.

There is nothing more unsettling than being lost in a strange and dangerous place. Pastor Brady is not a fan of camping. He likes camping up until bedtime. Then he wants to check in somewhere, get a hot shower, and sleep, and he will join you by the campfire again the next morning. Here is why.

When he was seven years old, his dad took the family camping. They grew up very poor. When he says poor, he means one pair of shoes and two pairs of pants. His dad had some old borrowed camping equipment, and there was no weather app back then. He took them out in the spring of the year by the Sabine River in North Louisiana and pitched a tent that was probably worth $12 and smelled bad. They had a fire, they caught some fish, and they went to bed. Around midnight a monster thunderstorm rolled in: lightning, hail, torrential rain. The tent was cheap, so they started getting wet. His dad panicked. The river was rising, and he knew the creek would rise and they had to get out of that place. Seven-year-old Brady was terrified, and he saw fear on his dad's face. They grabbed everything they could, threw it in the back of the pickup, jumped in, and drove through the storm to get back to their house about 45 minutes away. That's why he doesn't camp. He can still see that night.

But here is what he noticed, and it is one of two stories about his dad that marked him as a young man.

"Once we got in the cab of the truck, my dad knew the way home."

Even in a storm, with the creek swelling and the river rising, his dad was behind the wheel, and Brady knew they would get home. They did. They all slept until about noon the next day, exhausted, but his dad got them home safe.

The second story came about a year later at the Louisiana State Fair in Shreveport. It was Saturday night, going down the midway, and his dad told the boys there were a lot of people there and to stay close to him and Mom. With so much going on, Brady wandered off. He turned around and couldn't find Dad or Mom. He was lost at the state fair, among thousands of people on the midway. Then he heard a familiar whistle. His dad had a small chipped front tooth he never repaired, and it gave him a very distinct whistle that he trained bird dogs and boys with. When Brady heard it, he froze, because he knew it was his dad. He turned around, and his dad was about 20 feet away, watching him the whole time. He has never forgotten that.

So when you hear "I am the way, the truth, and the life," take a deep breath. You are in a better place than you deserve. He has led you into a place you would never have imagined on your own. Think about 25 years ago. Would you have thought you would be where you are now? You have had hard times and difficult times, but you are right where you are supposed to be. Remember how frightened you were back then, wondering if you were in God's will, if you were going to make it. Twenty years from now, you are going to be right where you are supposed to be. He is the way. He is the truth. He is the life. That is why you don't let your heart be troubled.

God hears us

He is listening.

Stop at "I will do whatever you ask." This puts the burden on us. Point one said God's hand is on you and leading you, but you have a responsibility. You need to start asking again. Then skip down to verse 18: "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." Isn't that comforting?

There has to come a time when we get into it every single day. You need to be having holy conversations with the Lord. How often do you talk to Him during the day? It can't just be a 10-minute devo while you read Pastor Brady's Facebook post in the morning. He is trying to spur you on to a lot more than a few sentences on Facebook. That post comes out of the holy conversations he is having long before he writes anything, so that when he opens the Bible, God's Word is amplified in his life. Write this down:

"Jesus leans into conversations with us hoping that we'll lean into conversations with him."

He initiates it. He is not sitting in heaven thinking, I haven't heard from them in a while, so I'm just going to ghost. God has not ghosted you. He is not giving up on the friendship. He is going to keep prodding, prompting, and consoling. He is coming after you. And the goal is that He wants us to ask for bold things.

Here is what happens when you get troubled. It is human nature: we retreat to safe places. That is the essence of tribalism. When you feel threatened, you start hanging out with people who are just like you, because it feels safe. That is how humans have survived in very dangerous places. You don't go hang out with strangers when you feel threatened. The problem is that when we start feeling safe, we stop asking. We stop praying for bold things. We stop praying for the sick. We stop having conversations with our neighbors. We stop helping those who are trapped. We start playing it safe. And we stop because we feel abandoned, because we believe God is not listening to us. He has heard every word. It is a lie of the enemy that God has stopped listening.

Pastor Brady told about a friend of his. About 25 years ago, when the Iron Curtain fell, Christians discovered what was on the other side of the communist curtain: a lot of children in places like Romania, Bulgaria, Budapest, and Russia whom communism had abandoned. At its core, communism says the health of the state is more important than the health of the person. That is the evil of it. If you were a child abandoned by your parents, the state took care of you, but there was no kindness, no love, and no Jesus, because communism had gotten rid of religion and replaced it with political ideology. Christians found hundreds of thousands of abandoned children in Russia and the former Russian Federation.

His friend went over and adopted more than one child out of Russia. He told Pastor Brady that when he walked into the Russian orphanage, it was full of babies, toddlers, and little children, 125 of them, and there was no crying. No sound. It was silent. Nobody was talking and no babies were crying. So he asked the woman there why the babies were not crying. The answer, as his friend told it:

"Their crying no longer mattered because nobody was listening anyway."

Now think about this, because this is us. If you don't think God is listening, you stop talking. That is the ploy of the enemy. He wants to convince you that God is mute, deaf, and silent, and our response is, well, then I'm not talking to Him either, and the whole conversation shuts down. This is what Jesus is saying: ask anything according to my will. Ask me. Ask bold things. You are going to do great things, but I want you to initiate the conversation, because I am listening. And if God is listening, then don't let your hearts be troubled.

We have found real peace

This is what Pastor Brady said at the start of the message. He is not letting the fabric of this world rob him of something that was given to him as a great gift.

Jesus says His peace is different, because it is different. The world is offering you peace right now if you will just agree. That is not possible for us. We can't agree to their terms, because we have something else: a gift we did not have to earn, given because we believed.

The world can give you temporary peace. It just doesn't last very long. All the bills are paid, everything is going well, the weather is good, your mother-in-law is gone for a day, whatever has been causing you stress. But the peace of the world is fragile, it is elusive, and it is dependent on present circumstances. Pastor Brady asked the young people in the room to listen: don't buy into the formula they are offering you. What is true today is not going to be true tomorrow. What you agree to today will not be the same thing they ask you to agree to tomorrow, so you will have to compromise, compromise, compromise to keep that peace.

The peace Jesus offers is built on the firm foundation the church had just sung about: on Christ, I build my life on His foundation. It doesn't change. It is not shifting sand. It is here today and it will be here tomorrow, unmovable, unshakable, and unstoppable. Keep your feet planted right there. The storms will come, the rains will come, the winds will pelt against you, but your feet will not be moved. He asked all the older people in the room who know this to be true to say amen.

The peace of Jesus is internal, it is unshakable, and it is not dependent on present circumstances. Write that down. The whole world can blow up today, and his peace will be the same tomorrow. No matter what flashes across the news or alerts him on his phone:

"My peace is internal, not external."

If your peace is based on external circumstances, good luck. You will always be a mess. The world and the people in it cannot give you lasting peace, and here is why: they are not in charge. They think they are. The Bible says that in the end every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. Jesus is King, and He is the Prince of Peace.

Not troubled, and not afraid

Remember what verse 1 says: do not let your hearts be troubled. Verse 27 says it again and adds something: do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. Those are two very different things. Guard your heart above all else, for it is the wellspring of life. And don't be afraid.

Pastor Brady's word to the church: be engaged, get involved, do your part. But no matter what happens and no matter how it shakes out, don't be afraid. Do not let fear rule your heart and mind.

A settled soul

Then he asked everyone to close their eyes so he could pray over them. He said he was not minimizing what anyone was feeling or what is happening in the world. He was offering something different: to walk out of there with a settled soul, by the power of the Holy Spirit. He wanted them to remember that language, a settled soul.

Before he prayed, he told them he could not change all their circumstances, but they could change the condition of their heart that day by saying yes to Jesus. This is the prayer as Pastor Brady prayed it.

Kids in the church, and the Lord's Table

After the prayer, Pastor Brady wanted to say something: he loves that you can hear kids in the church. That's the village. He told the moms and dads that if their child is making noises in the service, it gives their pastor great joy. It doesn't bother him. He never had children's church. His children's church was sitting in a wooden pew next to his mom for 16 years, and if he misbehaved, he said, there was a little violence. He is not advocating violence, he added, but he is advocating for your kids being in the church.

Then he led the church to the Lord's Table. He breaks his bread in half to remind him that we are in a broken world, which is what the whole message had been about. But the good news is that the Table is a prophetic moment. Don't ever lose the sense of wonder of what it is. You are proclaiming something that is not yet, but will be. Not everything has been repaired, but it is going to be. It feels broken, messy, and ugly right now, but that is not how it is going to end. We hold up the bread not because everything is awesome, but because we know who is in charge, declaring that Jesus is Lord and proclaiming His body and what happened on the cross.

Holding up the cup, he asked everyone to take a moment to be grateful for grace, for restoration, for making all things new, and for the forgiveness of sins that can't be earned and can only be received.

Pastor Joseph sends the church out

Pastor Brady called Pastor Joseph up to pray over the church and lead them out. Pastor Joseph asked how many had been ministered to by that word, said he knew he was, and asked the church to thank Pastor Brady. Then he said it was good to be in church on an incredible Sunday, and he gave an invitation:

"If you're in this room and you're like, man, that message ministered to me, but I still just got a little bit of that trouble on my heart. Can I encourage you and invite you down as we dismiss? There'll be some folks down here to pray. Come down. Let them pray over you because God loves it when you participate in your healing."

Pastor Joseph closed by saying they would be back next week, and that Pastor Brady, he, and Lindsay would be down front. If you are new, they would love for you to come introduce yourself.

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