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Advent 2019: Peace - John 14:25-31 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

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If you would turn in your Bibles to the book of John, John chapter number 14.
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Today as we celebrate this season of Advent, we've already looked at the hope that we have in Christ.
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And we have looked at the joy that we have in Christ.
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And today we are going to look at the peace that we have in Christ.
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And it is amazing as we celebrate this time of Advent, we can look back to the fact that Jesus came to earth already.
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And we celebrate these things of Advent.
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But even more so, we have the future to look forward to of the kingdom of God that is coming.
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And the full ramification, the full sense in which we can experience these things will be realized in that time.
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And as I was preparing to speak on peace today, when Nathan came to me and asked me to speak on this,
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at first I was a little intimidated because really when you think about it, there's not a lot of sermons that we hear on peace.
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We hear a lot about hope. We hear a lot about love and joy.
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But peace is one of those areas that we don't really hear a lot about.
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And really the first thing that came into my mind when I thought about this topic of peace was that peace is almost elusive.
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You know, it's something that we all desire, that we all want to experience in our lives.
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And we all know that it should be a reality in our lives.
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But many times it's not.
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Many times it's something that we don't think that we can fully have right now.
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You know, when we look out in the world today and see everything that is going on,
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peace is probably one of the last words that I would describe what we see.
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You know, we have wars going on.
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We have the 2020 election coming up.
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We have everything in the world that is showing us that peace is not a reality.
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Yet when we look at scripture, we see that peace is mentioned all over the Bible.
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You know, we've already listened to Reese this morning and Nathan when he read the passage today talking about peace.
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And it's amazing that peace is mentioned in the Bible over 400 times.
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So this is something that is really talked about.
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But at the same time, it's something that we don't really grasp.
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And as I was thinking about this and as I was looking through,
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I ran across a survey of the American population.
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And in this dealing with how do we have peace in our lives?
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Do we have peace or do we have anxiety, fear, and worry?
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And I was reading and I found that about one in six Americans, according to a 2016 survey,
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one in six Americans take some sort of drugs that deal with anxiety or fear or antidepressants or stuff like that.
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One in six Americans.
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One in six Americans.
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I also saw a number that shocked me as well that suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in America.
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And the crazy thing about it is that it's the 10th leading cause,
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but with people who attempt suicide, there's 25 attempts for every one successful suicide.
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And so people commit or try to commit suicide, but they most of the time do not succeed.
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One in every 25 succeeds.
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And so this is definitely a rampant problem.
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And it's not just something of, you know, like older into adulthood, you know, kind of this hopeless sense.
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It's the second leading cause of death for those aged 15 to 24.
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So this idea of anxiety and fear and anger and just whatever else you have going on is something that affects every single one of us.
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And we see here that it's not just in the U.S., but really worldwide as well.
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So in a world where we see anything but peace, how do we as Christians experience peace in our lives?
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And is it something that we can experience or is it just something that we look forward to in the future?
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When we look at peace in the Bible, as I said, it's mentioned just about 400 times in Scripture.
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And it goes all the way back to the very beginning.
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In Numbers chapter 6, you might have heard this passage before.
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It's kind of a popular verse that Moses or God commands Moses to give this blessing to Aaron and to his sons.
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And he says,
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The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the Lord of Israel.
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You shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you.
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The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.
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The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
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So we see that this idea of peace is something that should be in our lives, that it's commanded, that God encourages us to experience peace.
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And even it's rooted so much in the Jewish culture as well.
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You know, when they greet one another, even to this day, they say shalom, which is the one Hebrew word I know.
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So that just goes to show you how prominent it is, which means peace.
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And so even in their greetings, the desire for peace, we all desire peace in our lives.
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And Jesus spoke about peace a lot.
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And in fact, he made it a priority because in this text that we are going to read today at the end of John chapter number 14,
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it is some of Jesus's last sayings to his disciples.
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This is the last night that he is going to be spending with his disciples.
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And he takes this time to comfort them and to give them peace.
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So we're going to start reading in John 14, starting in verse 25.
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Jesus says,
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These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
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he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
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Peace I leave with you.
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My peace I give to you.
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Not as the world gives do I give to you.
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Let not your hearts be troubled.
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Neither let them be afraid.
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You heard me say to you, I am going away and I will come to you.
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If you loved me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.
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And now I have told you before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe.
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I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming.
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He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me,
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so that the world may know that I love the Father.
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Rise, let us go from here.
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So there's a lot of things going on in this text, and we won't necessarily touch on everything.
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I want to really focus in on what Jesus says in verse number 27, where he says,
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Peace I leave with you.
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My peace I give to you.
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Not as the world gives do I give to you.
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Let not your hearts be troubled.
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Neither let them be afraid.
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And so Jesus draws this distinction of two places.
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He shows how the world has its offering of peace.
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And he shows how his offering of peace is completely different than what the world gives.
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And so I want to focus at the beginning on what kind of peace does the world try to offer us.
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We already see that the world that we have around us is anything but peaceful.
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And yet so often we try to go in the route that it tells us to on how to find peace.
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You know, if I were to take a survey here and ask everybody in this room, you know,
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if you suffer at any time in your life from anxiety or fear or maybe depression,
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I would imagine that almost everybody would raise their hand.
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You know, whether you are suffering from that right now or have in the past
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or most likely will in the future, it's very much a reality, you know,
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that we will suffer troubles in this world.
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And when we do, what do we go to in order to try to help us in that time?
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The world, of course, does not have a picture of the gospel.
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The world doesn't have a picture of who God is.
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And so then the natural result, the natural place to look
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is either in your surroundings or most of the time in yourself.
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And how many times do we read and even see in the bookstores of these tons of books
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that show how to help yourself, you know, like these self-help books?
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You know, some of them have great things to offer.
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Some of them have ways in which that we can improve, you know,
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our surroundings around us.
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But all of them fall short in this way and the fact that they ultimately look to yourself
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in order to fix your own problems.
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And it's amazing how even we as Christians fall in that trap as well.
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You know, I look back in my life and I see difficulties and see problems that I have in my life.
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And for the most part, the beginning reaction, the first thing that I go to is not really to the Bible
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or to prayer, but it's thinking to myself, how do I fix this problem?
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Right?
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Like I have this problem in my life.
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I am suffering fear from it, insecurity, anxiety.
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And how do I solve this in order to get away from this feeling?
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Like nobody enjoys suffering anxiety.
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Nobody enjoys suffering fear.
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And so our natural reaction is to quickly see how can we solve this problem?
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How can we run away from this problem in order to come to a more peaceful state of mind?
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And that's exactly what the world teaches us to do.
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The world teaches us that, you know, our problems are something that we should try to run away from
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or either figure out in ourselves of how we can fix our own problems,
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of looking to us and looking to us as the solution to what we have going on in our life.
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And so often we fall into this trap and we begin to look to ourselves and try to figure it out.
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And what does that usually cause?
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I don't know about for you, but for me, that just causes more fear, more worry,
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and more anxiety because I begin to realize how inept I am to figure out the problems that I have going on in life.
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You know, and it really affects all stages of life.
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You know, it was kind of funny.
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I don't know if you guys have watched Frozen 2, but you know, the scene with Olaf where he is in the woods.
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Hopefully there's no spoilers.
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I'm sorry.
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And so he's singing this song and there's all sorts of things going wrong all around him.
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And he's singing this song saying, you know what?
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This doesn't make sense right now that I'm young, but when I'm old, I will understand all things
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and everything will be just fine with life.
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And the funny part about that song is because all of us in the audience realize how far away from truth that is.
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You know, we have this hope as children that, you know, one day everything in life will make sense.
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Everything will run perfectly smooth exactly how I want it to.
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And then we find a horrible reality, you know, in our minds that when we grow up, that's not exactly what it is.
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In fact, there are more problems that arise.
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You know, when you were from 10 years old to 20 years old to 30 years old to 40 years old.
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There are constantly things coming up in our life that cause anxiety and worry and fear.
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And because of that, it really begins to dampen our walk with Christ.
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You know, we begin to focus a lot on what the problems are in life rather than focusing on Christ himself.
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And so the world tries to offer, you know, the solutions to this problem of peace,
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of saying that you must look to yourself, you must look to other people in order to solve that.
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But Jesus, here in this text, draws us to a completely different focus.
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Instead, he realizes the fact that these disciples are about to go through something
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that they cannot possibly imagine right now what they're about to go through.
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You know, in the back of their minds, they are thinking that Jesus is the Messiah.
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And their picture of the Messiah is, hey, he is going to come and going to get rid of this Roman Empire
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that we have suppressing us.
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And we are going to be rulers and we're finally going to be free.
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And what Jesus has come to do has not set us free from the problems that we have in this world,
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but rather has come to set us free with a relationship with God and having peace with God.
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And so he is speaking to his disciples in this way of saying, hey, you know what?
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I am about to leave you, you know, which, of course, comes as a shock to disciples.
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If you read up earlier in John chapter 14, Jesus is saying how he is going to go away to the Father.
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And Philip says, hey, like, where are you going?
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We're going to follow after you.
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And Jesus tells him that he is going to the Father and that he will one day, you know, come to the Father as well,
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but that Jesus is leaving.
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And this thought process is something that's totally foreign to the disciples that they don't understand.
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And so Jesus is preparing them for this time that he is going to be crucified,
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that he is going to leave them, but he's not going to leave them hopeless.
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He's not going to leave them alone.
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He gives them the comfort that he is going to give them the Holy Spirit.
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And as we look to this comfort, I want us to turn in our Bibles to Romans chapter 8.
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And as we see here in Romans chapter 8, we're going to be looking at verse number 5.
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And as I was thinking about this, of trying to accomplish this work in our own life, of working it out in the flesh,
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my brain, I thought back to in school I heard this story analogy from Benjamin Franklin.
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So Benjamin Franklin was a guy who really tried to pursue after good morals,
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of living a good life, of knowing that if you live the way that you should, you know, in essence, you should have peace in life.
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And so Benjamin Franklin pursued after that.
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And so he wrote a list of 13 morals, 13 attitudes that he wanted to try to keep,
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and to achieve almost this moral perfection.
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And so what he did was he wrote out these 13 principles,
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and each week he would focus on one principle that he would try to live out,
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you know, in order to be able to live a better life,
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and the ultimate end of finding peace in life.
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And so what he found was that the week that he would focus on the one moral,
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he would usually do pretty well in that, right?
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Like if your brain is focused on something, you know, you tend to succeed in that.
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But the other 12 would kind of be lacking.
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And so he's like, okay, no worries.
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This first week, you know, we've got this one down.
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We'll move on to the second.
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So the second week comes, he focuses in on the second moral, does pretty well,
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but then finds that he starts to lack in the first one again.
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And this is just a constant rotation and problem that, you know, he would do well on one,
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but then the others would suffer because he wasn't really putting a lot of attention and focus in that.
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And isn't that true in our lives as well, where, you know, when we see problems in our lives,
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a lot of times, you know, we can kind of face those head on and tackle one at a time.
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But you notice that the other problems that you had in life tend to rise up a little bit more during that time
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to where it's like, man, I cannot focus my attention on everything that I have going on.
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I can maybe conquer this one area for a little while in my own natural self, you know, we think.
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But these other areas become problems again and just leads to more anxiety and more fear.
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And Paul talks about this in Romans chapter number eight.
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And he says, starting in verse number five, he says,
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For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
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But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot.
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Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
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And we see the most important thing here, the fact that if we begin to trust and depend on our flesh
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in order to get us out of this problem, it will only lead to more problems.
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Paul here shows that this is just a completely different mindset.
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That we must take our mind off of the flesh, off of what we can do to solve our problems,
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and to put our mind on Christ.
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And so the first thing that we need to do and we need to make sure of is the fact that we do indeed have a relationship with God.
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You know, we see here in later on or earlier on in Romans chapter number five and in Colossians as well
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that Jesus Christ has come to the earth in order that we might have peace with God.
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His death on the cross and his resurrection provided us an opportunity to have a relationship with God.
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That we were enemies of God because of our sin, but because Christ came and died on the cross to pay for our sins,
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if we trust and depend on him and his sacrifice, we have peace with God.
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And so our standing with God is not one where God is looking to destroy us,
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but rather God loves us and cares for us and has a relationship with us.
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But just because we have peace with God doesn't always mean that we experience peace.
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You know, just because we have the status of peace with God doesn't mean that in our hearts,
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we all the time, 24-7, experience the peace that we so greatly desire.
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In fact, I would say a lot of times the opposite is true,
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where even though we know that we have peace with God,
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getting from the knowing to feeling sometimes takes a really long time.
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And it's something that we continue to struggle with and continue to try to endure.
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And so as we look at the passage in Romans of what Paul is saying here,
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that our minds so often go to the flesh, which only leads to destruction,
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that we must set our minds on Christ in order to really experience this victory.
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A lot of times what I notice in the more conservative movement that we find ourselves in,
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that there's a lot of emphasis placed on our condition before Christ, right?
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That we are sinners, depraved, and worthy of God's judgment, which is totally true.
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And it's really good that we focus in on that,
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because when we see how bad we are and see how great Christ is,
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it gives us a lot of hope to realize that,
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hey, I'm not the solver of my problems, but rather Christ is.
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But I think one area where we find a little bit of weakness is,
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when we now have a relationship with God,
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we are not the same person as what we once were.
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We are not depraved sinners.
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Rather, we have Christ's righteousness in us.
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And a lot of times I know in my life,
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my brain has just been fixed on the fact that,
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oh, I am a sinner.
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You know, I almost expect to do wrong rather than do right.
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I expect, you know, to fail rather than succeed.
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And a lot of times I have an incorrect mindset in that.
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And we see that Paul corrects this in verse number nine of this text,
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where he says,
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you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
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If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you,
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anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
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But if Christ is in you,
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although the body is dead because of sin,
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the spirit is life because of righteousness.
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If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
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he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies
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through his spirit who dwells in you.
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And so Paul mentions this problem that we have in our lives, right?
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Where we still have this sinful flesh in us that constantly fails,
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that is constantly inclined to do wrong,
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to do incorrect,
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to have a wrong thought process.
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But at the same time,
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it's not that that is the only thing that we have in us.
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We have the spirit of Christ in us.
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We have Christ's righteousness in us.
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And the fact that, you know,
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we should not necessarily anticipate,
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oh, you know what,
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I am going to sin and almost have this mindset of failure.
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But rather,
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we need to rest and trust in the fact that we have Christ's righteousness in us.
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That there is nothing that the enemy can throw at us,
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or nothing that we can experience in which we do not have hope in.
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That we do not have the power of Christ in us.
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And that's what Jesus is drawing the disciples back to,
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back in our text of John 14,
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where he says that,
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you know what,
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the peace that the world offers is not something that's complete.
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It is something that is always going to fail you.
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The peace that I offer you is something that is complete,
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because the peace that I offer you indwells you.
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And that is the Holy Spirit.
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And so we see here that Jesus is comforting his disciples during this time.
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And now what I really want to focus in on is,
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how do we experience this peace from God?
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And like I said earlier,
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there are so many times in our lives where we know the truth.
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I would venture to say that in this congregation,
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we know more truth than probably a lot of Christians throughout church history.
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I don't think knowledge is something that we are lacking in,
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or what is the real problem.
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The real problem, I believe,
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is getting the knowledge down to how we feel,
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and down to the emotional level.
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You know,
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I can know a lot of things about God,
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but still not experience the peace that God has for us to offer.
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So how do we go about doing that?
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You know,
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Jesus here encourages his disciples to let not your hearts be troubled,
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and don't let them be afraid,
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and to go back to his commands,
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and go back to what he has said,
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and to live and to rest in that.
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And a lot of times,
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you know,
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we don't do that.
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We allow our hearts,
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and we allow our thoughts to drift away from Christ,
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and then focus in on the problems of life.
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And here's the great thing about finding peace with God,
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is the fact that when we were enemies of God,
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when we tried to find peace,
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we had to try to fix our problems,
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or run away from our problems.
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But instead,
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now that we have a relationship with God,
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Christ does not encourage us to just run away from our problems.
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You know,
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he tells us all throughout the New Testament,
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all throughout his word,
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that you will experience trials.
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You will experience things that come into your life.
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But instead of trying to run away from it,
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instead of trying to figure it out,
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the greatest thing in the world,
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the most comforting thing in the world,
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is he says,
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come to me with it.
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We are to come to Christ.
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Peace is not found in trying to run away from something,
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or trying to escape,
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but rather peace is found in a person.
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And that person is Christ.
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And we are to run to Christ,
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and to depend on him,
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and to not try to run away from our troubles,
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but rather to take what is going on in our lives,
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to take our fears,
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to take our anxieties,
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to take the struggles that we have,
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and bring them to Christ,
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and ask him to work in our hearts through this time.
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And you know what?
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As we do this,
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it's not something that is necessarily a quick fix.
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You know, I think in our culture today,
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we want something that solves the problem immediately, right?
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And I think, you know,
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to some of the things that I do,
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so I like to invest in the stock market.
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I enjoy investing in businesses and companies.
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And here's the thing.
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A lot of people lose money when they invest.
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I think almost 90% of people
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who invest in the stock market lose money.
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And why is that?
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You know, when we look at it,
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you know, it's constantly rising over time.
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Like, why would you lose money?
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And the thing is that most people who do it
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are desiring to get rich really quickly, right?
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Like, that's what we want.
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We want to be a millionaire, like, in a day.
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And so we figure out,
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okay, how can I do this?
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And we try to do all these things really fast.
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You know, whereas if we were more slow at it,
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you know, the people who really make money
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in the stock market don't make money
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in the stock market in two days.
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They make money in the stock market
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over three, four, five decades
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of just letting the money sit in there
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and letting the market do its work
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rather than them getting too involved with it.
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And a lot of times,
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our spiritual life is the same way too,
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where we see problems
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and we want them fixed immediately.
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You know, I am experiencing anxiety.
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I don't want to feel anxiety anymore
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and I want to be solved in a day with this.
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And in reality, life doesn't work that way.
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It takes time and it takes patience
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and it takes a building of a relationship.
26:55
You know, if you think about it,
26:56
you know, the person,
26:57
if you are married,
26:59
most likely you didn't meet that person
27:01
and get married to them in a week.
27:03
You know, it took time
27:05
to develop that relationship.
27:07
It took time to develop that trust,
27:09
to develop that love for the other person.
27:13
And the same way goes
27:14
with our relationship with Christ.
27:16
You know, we may be struggling with fear.
27:18
We may be struggling with anxiety.
27:19
But the more and more
27:21
that we get to know Christ
27:22
and the more and more that we learn
27:24
to take our troubles to Him
27:25
rather than trying to fix it on our own,
27:28
the more we will experience the peace
27:31
that He has to offer.
27:33
And this is something that we grow in
27:36
in our Christian life.
27:38
And like I said,
27:39
maybe you are sitting here today
27:40
and you are struggling
27:42
with this idea of peace
27:44
or this idea of having anxiety
27:46
and fear and depression.
27:49
Like, I don't know your heart,
27:50
but I would venture to say
27:51
that the statistics that I read
27:53
at the beginning
27:53
are probably pretty true
27:55
with what we experience here
27:56
in this room.
27:58
And I want to let you know
28:00
that my heart goes out for you.
28:02
And we see here in the Bible
28:04
that God cares so much about you.
28:06
You know, He mentions over 400 times
28:09
of how we can have peace with God.
28:11
This is something that is so important
28:13
to grasp and to understand in our lives.
28:17
And it's something that is a lot of times
28:19
so hard to feel
28:20
because, like I said,
28:22
we almost get into a rush with it
28:24
and we think that our problems
28:25
can be solved in a day
28:26
rather than realizing
28:28
that it is a lifetime
28:29
of a relationship with Christ.
28:30
And so I want to offer you hope today.
28:35
The hope that Christ offers us.
28:38
Which is found in this last verse
28:40
that I love
28:41
that just really stuck out to me.
28:44
And Jesus says,
28:45
in verse number 30,
28:46
He says,
28:47
I will no longer talk much with you
28:49
for the ruler of this world is coming.
28:52
He has no claim on me,
28:55
but I do as the Father has commanded me.
28:58
And so often in our lives,
29:00
we see how the enemy attacks us
29:03
and we see how the enemy attacks
29:04
the people that we love.
29:06
And we begin to think
29:07
that He is the one
29:08
who has the power
29:10
and the control
29:11
in those areas of life.
29:13
And Jesus here is saying that,
29:15
you know what?
29:15
Everything in this life
29:16
that's coming up
29:17
for these disciples
29:18
is going to look like the enemy
29:20
is the one who's in control.
29:22
You know, in just a few short hours,
29:24
Jesus is going to be betrayed
29:25
by one of His own.
29:27
He is going to be taken before Pilate.
29:30
He's going to be taken before the people.
29:32
And they are going to
29:33
completely betray Him
29:35
and have Him crucified.
29:37
And the disciples are going to have
29:38
the world turned upside down
29:40
in about 24 hours.
29:43
And He's saying,
29:43
listen,
29:44
it's going to look like
29:45
the enemy
29:46
is in complete control of this.
29:48
It's going to look like
29:49
the enemy has won this battle.
29:52
But I want you to know
29:53
that the enemy has no power.
29:57
The ruler of the world is coming,
29:59
but He has no claim on me.
30:01
But I do as the Father
30:02
has commanded me.
30:04
And I want to offer you
30:05
that same hope
30:06
that we have
30:07
that in your life
30:08
you may feel
30:09
that the enemy
30:10
has power over you.
30:12
You may feel
30:12
completely hopeless.
30:14
You may feel like
30:15
there's nothing
30:15
that can get you
30:16
out of the place
30:18
that you are in life
30:19
right now.
30:19
That there's just
30:20
too many things
30:21
that have gone on.
30:22
Maybe it's stuff
30:23
that you have done
30:24
that you're just saying,
30:25
man, I cannot be forgiven of this.
30:27
Or maybe it's anxiety
30:29
or fear
30:29
or just even looking
30:31
to the future
30:31
and saying,
30:31
hey, I can't handle this.
30:33
I can't do this.
30:33
The enemy is winning
30:35
right now in my life.
30:37
And I want to encourage you
30:38
that that is not the truth.
30:40
That is the lie
30:41
that the enemy
30:42
is trying to bring
30:43
into your heart.
30:44
But the reality is
30:46
that Jesus Christ
30:47
has overcome.
30:48
Jesus did not stay dead
30:51
but he rose again
30:52
conquering the death
30:55
and the ultimate death
30:56
and now allowing us
30:59
to have peace with God
31:01
through his resurrection
31:03
through his payment.
31:05
And how we can experience
31:06
that in our lives today
31:08
by taking our fears
31:10
and anxieties
31:11
and instead of trying
31:12
to solve the problem ourselves
31:14
rather taking them to Christ
31:17
and being open
31:18
and honest with him.
31:19
You know, I find it interesting
31:20
in my life
31:21
a lot of times when I pray
31:22
it's almost like
31:23
I try to cover
31:25
and make my prayer
31:26
sound a lot better
31:27
than what I feel.
31:29
You know?
31:29
I begin to think,
31:30
man, I can't really say
31:31
this to God
31:32
because, man,
31:33
what would he think
31:34
if I thought this?
31:35
And then realizing,
31:36
wait, he already sees
31:37
what I'm thinking.
31:38
He already sees
31:39
the fear that I have.
31:40
He already sees
31:40
the insecurity
31:41
and the lack of trust
31:42
that I have in him.
31:43
And I know
31:44
that I should trust him.
31:45
I know that he's powerful
31:47
enough to do this
31:47
but I don't feel this way.
31:50
And the key to that
31:50
is not letting that
31:53
soak in and sit right there
31:54
but rather just taking it
31:55
to Christ in that moment
31:57
of saying,
31:58
God, I know I should trust you.
32:00
I know you are powerful.
32:01
I know you're sovereign.
32:02
You created this whole world
32:03
and this little problem
32:05
that I have
32:05
is really big in my life
32:07
right now
32:07
but I know
32:08
that you can work in it.
32:10
I know that you can solve it.
32:11
And realizing that
32:13
it might not be something
32:14
that he just takes away
32:15
right now.
32:17
You know,
32:17
we look at Paul
32:18
and we see how Paul
32:20
was struggling with this issue
32:21
and he says,
32:22
you know what?
32:22
I've prayed to God
32:23
that he would take it away
32:25
three times
32:25
and he hasn't.
32:27
But I know that he's working it
32:28
for his will
32:29
and for his purpose.
32:31
There's a lot of times
32:31
in our life
32:32
that that's the same way
32:33
where we have things
32:34
in our life
32:35
that are really dominating
32:37
our thoughts
32:37
and we just wish
32:39
that God would just
32:40
take it away.
32:41
We wish that God
32:42
would just remove it
32:42
so I could have peace.
32:44
But the thing is
32:45
that a lot of times
32:46
in those areas
32:47
it causes our hearts
32:49
to turn to Christ
32:51
where we wouldn't
32:51
normally do that.
32:53
And sometimes
32:54
God allows those things
32:56
to stay in our life
32:57
longer than what
32:58
we would like
32:58
for them to stay
32:59
in order that we might
33:01
have a closer relationship
33:02
with him
33:02
through that
33:03
and by taking it to him
33:05
and by depending
33:06
on him
33:07
for his strength
33:09
through that.
33:10
And so I want to
33:11
encourage you
33:11
today that
33:13
Jesus Christ
33:14
is the victor.
33:15
That we have
33:16
peace with God
33:17
which is the most
33:18
important thing
33:19
in the world
33:19
but that we can also
33:21
not only just have
33:21
this status of peace
33:22
with God
33:23
but we can experience
33:24
the peace of God
33:26
today
33:26
by resting
33:27
and depending
33:28
on him.
33:29
And as the season
33:31
of Advent
33:31
as we talked about
33:32
at the beginning
33:32
we see that
33:34
Jesus Christ
33:35
has come
33:35
we see that
33:36
the peace
33:37
is here
33:38
but that the peace
33:39
that we experience
33:40
now is even just
33:41
a small portion
33:42
of what we will
33:43
experience
33:44
when his kingdom
33:46
finally arrives
33:47
here on earth.
33:48
And I want to
33:48
close with this
33:50
amazing prophecy
33:52
that Isaiah says
33:53
in Isaiah 9
33:54
and he says
33:56
and he will be called
33:57
speaking of Jesus
33:58
wonderful counselor
34:00
mighty God
34:01
everlasting father
34:03
the prince
34:04
of peace
34:06
of the increase
34:07
of his government
34:08
and of peace
34:09
there will be
34:10
no end.
34:12
So in our lives
34:13
today
34:14
we can experience
34:15
peace
34:16
but we ultimately
34:17
look forward
34:18
to the future
34:19
of Christ's kingdom
34:20
and knowing
34:21
that Christ
34:22
will win
34:22
that this verse
34:24
at the end
34:24
of John 14
34:25
is true
34:25
that the enemy
34:26
will ultimately
34:27
be defeated
34:28
and that Christ
34:29
will rule
34:30
and reign on earth
34:31
and we will be
34:32
with him
34:32
for all
34:33
eternity.
34:35
May we rest
34:36
in that truth
34:37
today.
34:38
Let's pray.
34:39
Let's pray.