[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: The scripture reading this morning is going to be from John chapter sixteen if you want to turn with me and follow along.
[SPEAKER_00]: As I read prior to the sermon,
[SPEAKER_00]: As a reminder, Jesus is speaking to his disciples.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are filled with sorrow and with fear.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are discouraged.
[SPEAKER_00]: They are hours away from the betrayal and arrest.
[SPEAKER_00]: And only a little while from this conversation, Jesus will be crucified.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus gives these words to his eleven disciples that remain.
[SPEAKER_00]: beginning in verse twenty five I'll read through to the end of the chapter John sixteen verse twenty five Jesus says I have said these things to you in figures of speech the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the father in that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I will ask the father on your behalf for the father himself loves you
[SPEAKER_00]: because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: His disciples said, ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we believe that you came from God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus answered them.
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you now believe?
[SPEAKER_00]: The whole, the hour is coming, indeed it has come when you will be scattered each to his own home and you will leave me alone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yet I am not alone for the Father is with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.
[SPEAKER_00]: In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world until there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: to see each one today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Trust the Lord bless you and our time together this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: We reminded in this passage that the world is an enemy of Christ and as a believers in Christ, the world is also an enemy to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we forget that and we're surprised
[SPEAKER_01]: that the world does not love us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when we try to speak the truth about the gospel or some aspect of the biblical morality or truth, we sometimes are surprised about the opposition that comes from the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the world would seek to mold us into its own image
[SPEAKER_01]: But the Spirit of God is at work in us to mold us into the image of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when we're in step with the Spirit of God, we are going to be out of step with the world and vice versa.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we're in step with the world and the thinking and values of the world, we're going to be out of step with the Spirit of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this is why Jesus says there in verse thirty three in the world you have tribulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice verse thirty three again.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace in the world you have tribulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But take care of courage.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, with the soon arrest of Christ and the hasty trial and the crucifixion, it would seem like the world has won the victory.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus tells us the disciples that He has overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this victory that Jesus speaks of is so certain that he speaks of it in the past tense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice, he says, I have overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: This world that he uses here over come is the verb of the root Nike.
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I put that on the screen for you, you would recognize it as one of the leading
[SPEAKER_01]: sports brands in the world, the Nike, and it simply means victory.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what Jesus has won for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: In Christ, we have victory, ultimate victory in the end when we're with the Lord, but also victory today in our lives as we enable
[SPEAKER_01]: God to work in our lives and through us by His Spirit we are able to live in the victory that He has won already.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice how John will later say it in one John five or four and five.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now notice He's not
[SPEAKER_01]: talking about the quantity or the quality of our faith, but actually the object of our faith that makes the difference.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse five, you says, who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Jesus in this
[SPEAKER_01]: long passage from really from chapter thirteen we refer to it as the farewell discourse he has been revealing to them that there's a new era coming Jesus is soon going away and he's going to die and return to the Father but in his death he will defeat the power of Satan
[SPEAKER_01]: And He is going to remove the condemnation that is up on us and death, the eternal death, for all of us who have put our faith and trust in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He also has been promising the coming of the Spirit of God that is like Him and will be with us, like He has been with His disciples, but even in a greater way,
[SPEAKER_01]: will the Spirit of God be with us because He will be in us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He's been speaking these things through disciples, especially in this upper room discourse, but really even His whole ministry, many of the things they did not understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: They fully didn't fully comprehend what Jesus was saying many times and they would ask and
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus would explain, but I'm not sure that even after the explanation, they fully understood many of the things that Jesus was saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Jesus has been telling these things ahead of time so that they will be warned.
[SPEAKER_01]: They will be aware when they happen.
[SPEAKER_01]: and also to strengthen their faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: In this passage verse twenty-five to thirty-three, he gives three important truths that belong to us that are in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not new things.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been saying similar kind of things before, but now Jesus brings this reminder, this closing statements to them,
[SPEAKER_01]: in this section to bring an end really to this is teaching in this discourse.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's using it to encourage them and therefore us also to encourage us and to acknowledge us in our faith.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's look together at these things first of all.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a relationship with God the Father because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you know, there was a twenty-five to twenty-eight.
[SPEAKER_01]: He speaks about this new relationship that we have with the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Verse twenty-five says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: The hour is coming.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, it will tell you plainly about the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's talking about
[SPEAKER_01]: an increased knowledge of the Father without God's revelation to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We would not be able to know God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We wouldn't be able to have a relationship with Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Jesus came, He wasn't like just like the prophets of old who told about Jesus and gave prophecy in mornings and so forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus was the very embodiment of God as the revelation of the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the Emmanuel of the God with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Remember, back to chapter one, John verse X, he says, no one has seen God at any time.
[SPEAKER_01]: The only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, he has explained him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then again, in chapter twelve, verse forty-four, and following he says, and Jesus cried out and said, whoever believes in me believes not in me, but in him who sent me.
[SPEAKER_01]: And whoever sees me sees him who sent me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have come into the world as light so that those who believe in me may not remain in the darkness.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so Jesus is the revelation of God the Father, and He's been speaking to them, but in this, as He calls it, figures of speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that word really can refer to the parables.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can refer to the different kinds of metaphors that He uses, much like you see in the Old Testament with the Psalms and Proverbs.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those would come under this heading
[SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of, as we said, a lot of what he said, the people didn't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And even the disciples were often just a bit confused and weren't really able to completely grasp what he was referring to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of that reason is they were not ready to understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: And part of the reason was that Christ was not ready to completely reveal all that
[SPEAKER_01]: He was teaching them.
[SPEAKER_01]: But after his death and resurrection, now they are ready and he's ready for them to come into a full understanding of the gospel of what Jesus came to do and what he had accomplished for them in salvation and the sanctification
[SPEAKER_01]: all that God has done for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so after the resurrection, Jesus begins to teach them on a different level of understanding of what they had before.
[SPEAKER_01]: You remember, moved out in Luke, twenty-four, and that passage where Jesus meets up with the two that's on the road to Amaz after the death of Christ and they are very sad and
[SPEAKER_01]: talking about the things that have happened and Jesus comes along and joins them and it doesn't reveal himself to them as who he is.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in verse twenty seven says, then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, there was the Old Testament.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in one way of referring to all of the Old Testament, he says he interpreted to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an incredible thought there is.
[SPEAKER_01]: You think about Jesus revealing to them the things in the Scripture that they had not seen.
[SPEAKER_01]: They didn't understand, but that it pointed to Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as promised, the Holy Spirit came and asked to in dwell the believers and everyone who puts their faith in trust and Christ receives the Spirit of God
[SPEAKER_01]: who comes and dwells literally within us and He enables us to understand God's Word and to grow in our relationship and our understanding of God and what He's done for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: A second part of this relationship that changes is direct access to the Father through Jesus Christ and in prayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: verse twenty six notice he says on that day you will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I will request of the father in your behalf for the father himself loves you and because you have loved me and have believed that I came forth from the father I came forth from the father and have come into the world I am leaving the world again and going to the father
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, in the Old Testament, God had revealed Himself to Israel as a father.
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't see believers praying to God as a father, not especially not in a personal way, like Jesus does in the way He teaches them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of the sinfulness of man and the holiness of God, there is a separation
[SPEAKER_01]: and there's a need for a mediator between God and man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And especially when you get to the time of the nation of being established, you see that God established the sacrificial system, the priesthood and the temple, all is means of the people being able to approach God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in many ways, you see all of this being done
[SPEAKER_01]: so that the people recognize that God is holy and they are sinful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there is this huge chasm between God and man.
[SPEAKER_01]: And God has come near, but not so near that the people could see Him or just talk to Him casually.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do see some individuals who had a close relationship with, and you see, especially before the temple was established, that people were said to have walked with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it wasn't that God was at arms length from people, but there was still this problem of man's sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have this establishment of the sacrifices in the priesthood and the temple where the people could come and the priest, the high priest could go in and to the holy of Holies and make a Talmud for their sins.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with the coming of Jesus, He brought
[SPEAKER_01]: access to the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: By His death, returning to the Father, He became the mediator of a new covenant, a new relationship with the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is our high priest that gives us access to the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: His Jesus has been his already in these chapters told the disciples that they are now to pray in Jesus' name
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you've been with us in the last few chapters, you know, that prayer in Jesus' name is not just adding on to the end of our prayer in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's the way in which we pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the attitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's our way of coming to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the acknowledgment of the merits of what Christ did for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: is finished work on the crosses, death, burial, resurrection.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's prayer that is in accordance with what Jesus wants or his will is in his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also for the glory of God, and if we pray according to what God wants, it is to the glory of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's approaching God from that perspective in Jesus' name.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus also in this quickly here in these verses clarified that praying His name didn't mean that they prayed to Him so that He could pray to the Father as if they didn't have access to the Father or as if the Father really wasn't that interested in them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he quickly reminds them that there is this mutual love between the Father and the Son.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because we are united to the Son, we are also united to the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in fact, John will later highlight this point in one John chapter four in verse nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Notice he says, by this,
[SPEAKER_01]: the love of God was manifested to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He says, in this, He's going back to by this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what shows us the love of God?
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, 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.
[SPEAKER_01]: for appreciation, speaking to the satisfaction that God is satisfied with the finished work of Christ on the cross.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of that payment was made, we can have our sins forgiven and we can be right with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can have a relationship with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we can approach God directly now because of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus has given us this direct access and He invites us to come into the very throne room of God into the very holy of Holies with confidence as a son approaches his father.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an amazing thing and it was something that the Jews
[SPEAKER_01]: coming out of the history in the culture of the Old Testament would not have thought of or would think no that can't be.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Only the high priest can approach and he must offer up sacrifices for himself and slave ball and all of these things have to be done.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can't just go into the presence of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus is now introducing to them
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's been demonstrating to them by his own prayer that there is a new approach to God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because of Christ and what he's going to accomplish for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: This confidence or sometimes translated boldness does not mean though that we forget who God is.
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that we approach God just kind of clippantly, or that we don't approach Him with reverence, remembering who He is, and that we approach Him appropriately.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're invited to come boldly because of Christ, but at the same time, we're still approaching a Holy God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus, you remember earlier in Matthew six, one of the places where Jesus teaches them how to pray.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he says, pray in this way, in verse nine, Matthew six, nine, our Father, who is in heaven, how to be your name.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he starts at our Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, the Jews recognized that God was a father to them, but he was really more a father to the nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they didn't use this filial term like, you know, Abba is a way that you address your father, children, but adults as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's family, it's a father.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, Jesus says, our father,
[SPEAKER_01]: But he reminds them that he is in heaven.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's not like our earthly father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he is to be hallowed.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is to be reverenced.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is holy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Holy or hallowed is your name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought about one Timothy six.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I thought it was thinking about this, we're Paul there.
[SPEAKER_01]: reminds us a little bit of who God is.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says verse fifteen and sixteen, He who is the blessed and only sovereign, the king of kings and lord of lords, who alone has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, who no man has seen or can see, to him be honored and eternal might.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is our God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's an incredible truth that in Christ, because of Christ, we can approach God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to be in a temple.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to go to a priest.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have to pray through a mediator of some kind.
[SPEAKER_01]: But because of the merits of Christ, we can, at any moment, just speak to our Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is an incredible privilege that I think we take for granted to we forget what a great, incredible privilege that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, secondly, in this passage, we see that we have confidence because of Christ of verse twenty nine.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says his disciples said, behold, you're now speaking openly and are not using figures of speech.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we know that
[SPEAKER_01]: You know all things and have no need for anyone to question you.
[SPEAKER_01]: By this, we believe that you came from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We believe that you came from God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus answered them, do you now believe?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because our sorry, behold, in our hours coming and has already come, you will be scattered.
[SPEAKER_01]: Each one to his own home and to leave me alone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yet I'm not alone because the father is with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the disciples give a good testimony here concerning their faith in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it seems that it was spoken a little too soon and with a little bit too much self-confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can almost hear it in their voice.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we believe.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't we do that sometimes?
[SPEAKER_01]: We come with that attitude.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've got, yeah, I'm in control now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter earlier had spoken with that kind of confidence and said, Lord, although everybody, you know, desert you or leaves you, I won't.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now,
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus collectively warns them as he warned Peter earlier about this same kind of self-confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, do you believe?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, do you now believe?
[SPEAKER_01]: They did believe, but Jesus is warning them that their faith is not as strong as they think it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because soon, just in a matter of hours, they're going to see the crowds and they're going to see the soldiers and they're going to see Jesus giving himself over to them and they're going to scatter.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to run.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're going to be afraid.
[SPEAKER_01]: A better attitude would have been like the father who brings his son
[SPEAKER_01]: To Jesus and on behalf of His Son, He says, I do believe, help my unbelief.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is the attitude that we need to have before the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do believe that we acknowledge that we're weak and we need you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need your help.
[SPEAKER_01]: We need your grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then we have confidence, yes, we have boldness even to approach into the Father and to call upon His name.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have confidence that He loves us.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that our sins are forgiven, but it can't be a self-confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: It can't be a self-righteous kind of confidence.
[SPEAKER_01]: Our confidence must be because of the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all about Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: and because of Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're able to live as overcomers by taking up the Word of God and dependence upon the Spirit of God who enables us and helps us and gives us grace.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we have relationship with God the Father because of Christ, we have confidence because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then thirdly we have peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was first thirty-three again.
[SPEAKER_01]: These things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the world you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: As long as we are in the world, we will have tribulation, or that could be translated affliction.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's from a word that means to be pressed.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can think about being pressed in on every side, as it gives you a bit of the imagery here of what he's speaking of as being in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: Later, in the next chapter chapter, chapter, seventeenth verse, fifteenth, Jesus, it is prayer for them, for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Peter would say in one Peter four, verse twelve, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trials, sorry, at the fiery trial among you, which comes up on you for your testing, as though some strange thing had happened to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We do that, don't we?
[SPEAKER_01]: When difficult these calm, when trials come, sometimes we think, well, how is that happening to me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, why are you letting that happen to me?
[SPEAKER_01]: We shouldn't have any trouble, as if we shouldn't have any problems.
[SPEAKER_01]: But God has the purpose for us in our trials.
[SPEAKER_01]: And although it may appear at times as we look at the world around us and where everything is going, it may appear that the
[SPEAKER_01]: This kingdom of the world is winning.
[SPEAKER_01]: The kingdom of darkness is winning.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Jesus, by his death and resurrection, has already overcome the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so he admonishes us to take courage, take courage in that, take courage in him, and in his victory that he has already won.
[SPEAKER_01]: In our Christian life, we have many battles and sometimes we will be defeated in battle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes we will fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: Many times we will fail.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the war has been won by Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because we are in Him, we become recipients of all that He is and all that He has.
[SPEAKER_01]: by His grace, we have become victorious in Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul would say it this way, that even in death, we have victory in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: One Corinthians fifteen at the end of that chapter, verse fifty five, oh death, where is your victory?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh death, where is your sting?
[SPEAKER_01]: Now the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law.
[SPEAKER_01]: But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the peace that Jesus is telling us disciples about, even with the troubles that they're getting ready to face.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they live in a time when they face many trials and troubles to live for Jesus to speak for Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: They were persecuted, they were killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: They lost their homes.
[SPEAKER_01]: All kinds of things happen to believers, especially during this first century.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Jesus is saying in the world you have the friction.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in me, you have peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus gives Lord gives two kinds of peace for those of us
[SPEAKER_01]: that put our faith and trust in Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: When we turn to Him in saving faith, we have peace with God.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we were saved, we're enemies of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: A strange to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this division, as I spoke of, because of our sin.
[SPEAKER_01]: But now because of Christ, we're no longer enemies, but sons.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we have this new relationship with Him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Romans five one says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then in Romans eight, he says in verse one, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we have peace with God, but not only that,
[SPEAKER_01]: We have, for those in the, as believers, when we set our mind and our heart upon Christ to trust Him, we have the peace of God.
[SPEAKER_01]: We live even through trouble, through trials, with the peace of God that He gives us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to show you this verse in Isaiah.
[SPEAKER_01]: thought I thought I was going to give it to you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Doesn't look like it's there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I missed that.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I twenty six, you might want to make a note and you can go and look at it later.
[SPEAKER_01]: As I twenty six in verse three, the steadfast of mind, you will keep in perfect peace because he trust in you speaking to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: steadfast of mine, you will keep in perfect peace because he trusts in you.
[SPEAKER_01]: In other words, the one who sets their mind steadfastly to trust in the Lord has peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: God gives perfect peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: He goes on in verse four to say, and to acknowledge us because of that, trust in y'all way forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: or in yaw, yaw Himself, we have an everlasting rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what Jesus is talking about because in Him and what He has won for us, we can have this peace, peace, only peace with God, and sons, but we can live in the peace of God that He supplies
[SPEAKER_01]: Paul says that this way in Philippians four or six and seven, be anxious for nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: But in everything by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is only part of what God does for us because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He says it to His disciples in the midst of what's coming up on them.
[SPEAKER_01]: And He says it to us as we live in the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: This week ahead, we don't know what's ahead of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know what kind of troubles or trials or pressures that we're going to face.
[SPEAKER_01]: But when we set our hearts in minds to trust Him, He gives us His peace.
[SPEAKER_01]: The story is told of an older Christian lady who lived in London during World War II.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the war as the German bombers came many times at night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the raids that people were having defined the shelters, underground shelters at night.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you can imagine, many people would be worried, fearful, not able to sleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: but story told this old lady who was able to sleep through all of that as if nothing was happening at all.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so when she was asked, you know, how is this possible?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on with you?
[SPEAKER_01]: She says, well, the Bible says that my God neither slumbers nor sleeps.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's no need for both of us to stay awake.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know how that's really true or not, but it was told to be true.
[SPEAKER_01]: And no doubt there's been many saints like that who in the midst of everything that makes you fearful.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can lay down and go to sleep.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because we have a God who's faithful.
[SPEAKER_01]: He is at the rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's steadfast.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's in control.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in control of the world of what's happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's sovereign.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's in control of our lives.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's working as a heavenly father who knows what's best for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of Christ, we have a relationship with God, the Father.
[SPEAKER_01]: Because of Christ, we have confidence to live for the Lord.
[SPEAKER_01]: And because of Christ, we have peace, even during times of tribulation.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the victory that Christ has won for us.
[SPEAKER_01]: May we go forth today and this week with this relationship and in this confidence and in this peace that God has given to us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.
[SPEAKER_01]: Father, thank you for your Word, thank you for
[SPEAKER_01]: the blessings that we have because of Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Lord, I pray that we would not assume upon these blessings as if we deserve them, but may we ever be thankful and humble before you and live our Christian lives and dependents upon you, walking, allowing the Spirit of God to lead us and guide us and enable us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, Father, for Christ, what you accomplished.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, that He is overcome the world in the condemnation and judgment on our behalf so that we can have life so that we can be sons of God the Father and how this new eternal relationship with you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We thank you in praise you in Jesus name, amen.