Gyroscopic Hearts

Sermon:

From John 13-16, we see three themes intertwined:

The command to love
The gift of peace
The issuing of many promises

We are moving from chapter 13 to 14 today. Last week, we saw Jesus’ lion/lamb leadership. Deep humility adjoined with full authority. His purpose was simply this – he wants his disciples to love one another. Not only to love their fellow apostles, but also to lay a foundation of love for the future of the church at large.

This theme of love wraps Jesus’ discourse starting here in chapter 13:31-35

31 When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. 33 Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ 34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

And it continues in 15:12, ““This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.”

What can keep them from loving one another? Obviously plenty of things. But there’s one issue in view in this section of scripture. Namely, panic, fear, anxiety, reactivity.

All of the things that love requires – generosity of heart, patience, loyalty, sacrifice – all of these attitudes tend to be short-circuited by anxiety, panic, fear, etc…

That’s exactly what we see when the disciples abandon both Jesus and, to some degree, one another. Though Peter had promised to lay down his life for Jesus, his love was uprooted by fear.

Angela and I had this experience recently. We had a bunch of unexpected duties dropped on us. We were already quite tired. When these responsibilities dropped on us, we both kind of panicked. We weren’t sure we had enough energy to do what had to be done. And so we got a little short with one another. We both went into self-preservation mode. The point is that the smallest amount of panic had a very practical impact on our desire to love one another.

One of the major themes of 13-17 is Jesus call for the disciples to love one another. One of the major obstacles to them doing that is, what we might call “reactivity.”

And so you’re going to see a second, supporting emphasis from 14-16: Do not let your hearts be troubled.

See that in 14:1, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.”

And again in vs. 27, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

This theme appears again in chapter 15. Immediately after commanding them to love one another, “These things I command you, so that you will love one another.” (15:17)

Jesus tells them to expect hatred and hostility from the world (18-25). And then at the beginning of chapter 16 he says, ““I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.” (16:1-4)

What does he mean by falling away? He means falling away from their loving one another and him.

So that’s the larger context of John 14-16. A command to love coupled with a command to be calm. The command to be calm is in support of the command to love.

This is why elders must be sober minded. The last book the Leadership Team read together was all about sober mindedness. It was an anti reactivity book really. It had to do with those famous word Kipling wrote, “if you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs.”

Bad things will happen to you. Hard times will come. Unless the Lord helps you, you will turn on the people you’ve been called to love. You will bicker with them. Blame them. You might even abandon them. You cannot do agape love unless you know how to handle anxiety.

Unfortunately, many Christians only know how to handle anxiety by carefully managing their circumstances. The only way they know how to be consistently calm is by exerting a great deal of control over their circumstances. But this approach is totally counterproductive to loving like God wants us to love. You can’t be loyal, be sacrificial, patient, and so forth if you must constantly stay in the shallow end of the pool. Love in always eventually going to require you to get into things over your head.

And so beginning in 14:1, Jesus gives us a better way.

Let not your hearts be troubled.

The word for troubled is “tarraso.” It means shaken up. The disciples circumstances are extraordinary turbulent. They will remain that way throughout the rest of their lives. The mission Jesus gave them will keep pushing them into shaky circumstances. The very kinds of situations that will tempt them to be anxious and in their anxiety, abandon both Christ and one another.

They could make great efforts at controlling their circumstances, doing their best to avoid turbulence, keeping the scope and ambition of their lives very small and simple. But that would not be loving. So the only option is to develop a kind of internal stability in the midst of external shakiness.

Gyroscopic Hearts

Earlier in the week, I posted a homework assignment in preparation for this sermon. I asked you to watch some videos about gyroscopes.

A gyroscope is a device that consists of a spinning mass, such as a rotor or a wheel, mounted in a way that allows it to rotate freely in any direction. When the mass spins, it exhibits a remarkable property called gyroscopic stability, meaning it resists changes to its orientation due to angular momentum. This stability makes gyroscopes incredibly useful in real-world applications.

Gyroscopes are widely used in videography to produce smooth, steady camera shots, even when the operator is moving or the environment is unstable. In this context, gyroscopic stabilizers—often integrated into handheld gimbals or mounted rigs—use rapidly spinning rotors or electronic sensors to detect and counteract unwanted motion, such as shakes or tilts. By maintaining a consistent orientation, they ensure the camera remains level and fluid, eliminating the jarring effects of footsteps or wind. This technology is a game-changer for filmmakers shooting dynamic scenes, like chasing a subject through a crowd or capturing aerial footage from a drone, delivering professional-quality stills and videos that feel effortlessly calm and controlled.

So by gyroscopic hearts, I mean an inner disposition that can remain steady in turbulent times. The disciples are about to sail through some incredibly rough waters. Not only will they see Jesus arrested, tortured, and crucified, but they will also see the devastating limits of their own faithfulness to him. There is plenty of external turbulence to shake them. But Jesus is saying that they can exercise some authority over their anxiety. Thanks to his work on their behalf, they don’t have to let it all get to them. They can move through the rough seas of circumstances with a heart that is remarkably calm.

And as I keep saying, that kind of gyroscopic heart is a necessary precondition for love. The Kipling poem essentially says, “only when you can keep your head while all around you are losing theirs” – will you be a man.” And Jesus says, “only when you can keep your while all around you are losing theirs” – will you be able to love.

So let’s spend the remainder of our time thinking about how to develop agency over our anxiety and get these gyroscopic hearts.

The Gyroscopic Heart is a Gift from God (1:27)

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”

We Have to Grow Into Using the Gift

Some of you have or will buy your children a guitar. There will be multiple kids in our congregation who will receive, at some point or another, a guitar for Christmas or their birthday. Some of those kids will play around with it for a bit, probably learn a few chords, and then let it sit in the corner of their room. A smaller number of kids will take that same gift and actually learn how to use it.

This is the state of the church regarding the issue of anxiety. Christ has given everybody the gift of a gyroscopic heart. We have, thanks to Christ, some authority over our anxiety. We don’t have to merely let it take over. We don’t have to control our lives, staying in the shallow end of the pool of love, mission, ambition, etc… Jesus has given us the gift of peace that passes all understanding.

But we must learn how to use the gift.

Now it is crucial to understand that all the gifts Jesus gives us need to be activated and cultivated by the use of our will. This is why we will often see God’s gifts presented to us at two levels.

On the one hand, they really are gifts. They come to us based solely on God’s gracious initiation. The bible is clear about this.

But on the other hand, you really won’t find a grace-based gift ever presented to people without some language connected to the will.

Salvation

That’s how the gift of salvation is presented. God has done everything. You must believe.

Spiritual Gifts

That’s how the various spiritual gifts are presented. Listen to how Paul talks about spiritual gifts in Romans 12:6-8

Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

See the two levels? On the one hand, these are gifts of grace. On the other hand, human will is involved in activating and cultivating these gifts.

Internal Stability

And that’s what we see here. The gift in view is what we’re calling gyroscopic hearts. The common way of talking about this is a kind of peace that passes understanding. And here again we see both the language of sovereignty and human responsibility.

On the one hand we see that this peace is something Jesus gives us. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.”

But we also see the human will involved. That is represented in the phrase, “let not your heart be troubled.”

We learn how to exercise authority over anxiety by working on the mind.

RC Sproul once said, “The word of God can be in the mind without being in the heart; but it cannot be in the heart without first being in the mind.”

We can see the role of the mind coming through in vs. 1-3

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me.” Believe. That’s a mental thing.

And then we see in vs. 2-3 a promise.

In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.”

That’s what we put into our minds in order to develop gyroscopic hearts. We fill our minds with the promises of God.

Gyroscopes only work because an internal wheel is spinning. The stability of the thing mounted on the gyroscope is dependent on the activity of the gyroscope itself. If I were to buy a fancy camera mount that includes a gyroscope. And then proceeded to superglue all of its internal components. All stability would cease.

Your internal stability is really dependent on the internal activity of faith. And the promises of God spin the internal wheel of faith and produce the spiritual equivalent of gyroscopic stability.

So now we can see how a third element of this larger passage (14-16) works in relation to the other two elements.

The big idea is love
The main opponent to love is panic
Many promises are issued in these chapters as a means of spinning the internal wheel of faith which creates a kind of internal stability in spite of turbulent circumstances.

In chapter 14, we have the following promises:

I go to prepare a place for you – and I will return. (1-3)
You shall do greater works then me. (12)
I will answer your prayers. (13-14)
I will give you the Holy Spirit (15-21)
I will give you my peace (27)

And there are many additional promises in chapters 15-16. All of these help us do what Jesus commands in vs. 1, “Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God, believe also in me.”

One last point. The verb tense for believe is important.

The tense in the Greek is present and active. This conveys the idea of ongoing action. This reveals a big blindspot in the Christian understanding of faith and trust. Many Christians think of placing their trust in Christ. Being saved by faith, etc… They think of trust as a one time action.

That kind of approach isn’t going to help you in trying circumstances. But the kind Jesus prescribes here will. He is prescribing a minute by minute rehearsal of God’s varied promises.

Look at Colossians 3:12-16

Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.

So here we have an emphasis on love.

But look at the very next thing Paul mentions (15)

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.

They can’t love if they don’t have peace. They can’t love if they don’t know how to resist panic and find internal stability amidst shaky circumstances.

And then Paul prescribes a pathway to accessing this peace (16)

And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

There are other passages like this – where we see a clear connection between peace and actively thinking about the promises of God.

Philippians 4:6-7

do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Review:

We can’t love until we learn how to “let not our hearts be troubled.”
Jesus has given us the gift of a gyroscopic heart but we need to learn how to use that gift
Using it involves the ongoing rehearsing of God’s promises which spin the internal wheel of faith.
This is an active work. We don’t just read a promise here or there and expect to become stable. We definitely don’t want to confuse our laziness with God’s unfaithfulness.

Thanks to Jesus, Internal peace is possible. But learning how to live in that peace takes work. Specifically a constant filling of the mind with the promises of God.

Communion:

There is a reason why Jesus leads with the promise in vs. 2

“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.

This promise has multiple levels of interpretation. One of which is simply this. Jesus’ first “leaving” was to go to the cross. And there, by his sacrifice, he made a place for us in God’s family. He moved us from being at enmity with God to being at peace with him and being pleasing to him on account of Christ.

Every other promise given to God’s people is rooted in this gospel promise. God loves us. Not because of anything we’ve done, but because of what Christ has done on our behalf.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. – 1 John 4:18

What kind of love?

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. – 1 John 4:9-10

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.