Latest / REZ CHURCH Podcast / How to Stop Feeling Out of Control - March 15, 2026

Transcript

How to Stop Feeling Out of Control - March 15, 2026 · REZ CHURCH Podcast

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Well, good morning, everyone. For those of you who don't know
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me, my name is Vance Furtado. I'm elder here at Resurrection
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Church as well as a volunteer pastor, and we're so glad all of
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you are here at church. This morning.
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We're going to be taking another look at a passage in the Gospel
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of John, which we've been in John for quite a while, looking
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at what's called the Upper Room. And this message is called
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finding certainty in an uncertain world.
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All right, And we're going to be in John chapter 16, verse 25 to
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verse 33. Now, before we get into the
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Scripture, which we will be shortly, I'm going to share with
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you a statement that I think all of us would agree with here.
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It is Uncertainty stinks. Uncertainty stinks.
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Uncertainty means chaotic, crazy things that are happening around
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us. We feel as if our lives are
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totally out of control. We feel like we're all birds,
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just kind of trapped in a dust storm, just being blown about
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one way or the other. Now, I came to discover this
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afresh several years ago one Sunday here at our church.
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I had just taught the first session of a short term Bible
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class on Psalms and it was fun. I love to teach, all right.
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And we were having all kinds of good interaction and some
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questions were shared, some discussion we had afterwards.
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And I was looking forward to the following Sunday when again we
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would meet in the activity center and we would again take a
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look at Psalms. We never met again.
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The following day after that Sunday, I went to work at
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teaching at Nueva High School, the same thing I had done for
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almost 21 years. We were starting our fourth
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quarter. I had my lesson plans all
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written out for the entire week. I was ready.
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I was looking forward. I was getting a little worn
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after 20 some years in the classroom, not too far from
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retirement, but I was still loving what I was doing.
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We met for two days and then every school in the state of
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California closed. I didn't know it at the time,
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but my career as a teacher in that school was over.
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What happened? I can tell you in one horrible
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little word, COVID, the coronavirus.
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COVID had arrived in Kern County, and beginning with that
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week, we were all trying to survive, something that most of
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us had never experienced before, and that was a pandemic.
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Now, COVID affected all of us differently, even if you never
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got sick. And thankfully, as far as I
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know, I never actually caught COVID, but I knew lots of people
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who did. But even if you never got sick,
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there were so many hard uncertainties.
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For example, some of us were students during COVID.
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We have vivid memories of sitting alone at a kitchen table
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or maybe sitting in our bedrooms, and you're looking at
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this screen and you're trying to learn what the teacher is trying
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to communicate to you. You can't ask him any questions.
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Maybe mom or dad is there to help some, or maybe an older
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brother or sibling. Otherwise, you're on your own.
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And let me tell you what it was like for the teachers at the
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other end. Imagine being a teacher, looking
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at 30 individual little screens. Behind each one of those screens
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is one of your students. Some of the screens are dark.
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You don't know if they're there or if they're not.
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And you as a teacher are desperately trying to
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communicate, and you don't know what's being received at the
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other end. Remember grocery shopping during
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COVID? You know, I never knew toilet
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paper was that valuable. Did you?
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I mean, it was like, very treasure.
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A lot of us work during COVID. We had a new phrase that came
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into the language. It was used a lot working from
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home for me. I retired early then I had
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planned. And the reason was, was that I
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have trouble with hearing if there's a lot of talking going
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on. I have trouble distinguishing
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that individual conversation. It was one reason why I kept
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such a tight control on my classroom.
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Classroom management, all right. But now if my students come back
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with me the following school year and we all have masks and
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the students have these plexiglass barriers around their
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desks, I was having panic attacks thinking, how in the
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world can I hear what my students are saying to me?
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How can I communicate clearly to them?
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How can I manage a classroom if I cannot even hear what's going
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on? I retired.
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I knew I couldn't take it. And you know, the hardest of all
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was losing family and friends. I recall about two months into
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the pandemic, I got a phone call from my friend Mike.
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We have known each other since the 5th grade.
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We still communicate regularly with each other.
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His voice was breaking as he told me Bill has passed away.
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Our mutual friend Bill was my first friend that I had in town
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when my family moved here and I was seven years old.
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Bill and I became friends before we even started the 2nd grade.
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He passed away sadly hundreds of miles from his family because
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social isolation. He passed away in his sleep.
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Looking forward to the birth of his first grandchild, knowing
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his grandson would carry his name.
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He never saw his grandson. Uncertainty stinks, but there
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was a lesson COVID taught all of us.
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It is so easy for us to have a false sense of security because
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things just kind of seem to keep happening according to a
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pattern. We wake up the next day, we go
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to work, we hang out with our friends, we make our plans.
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Everything seems stable. It seems predictable, the
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reality we make our plans, cast our dreams and aspirations, but
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only Almighty God knows what's really going to happen.
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That's what COVID reminded us of.
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It's what the prophet Jeremiah said 2600 years ago.
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Here's what he wrote. I know, Lord, that a person's
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way is not their own. No one who walks determines his
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own steps. Now, that uncertainty, that
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anxiety, that instability that we went through during the COVID
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pandemic, that same kinds of feelings and emotions is exactly
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what the disciples were experiencing as they were
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listening to Jesus in that upper room.
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Because Jesus had been their certainty.
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He had been their focus. He had been the rock that had
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always been there for three years, and now he was saying
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crazy stuff. One of you will betray me.
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I'm going away. You cannot follow me now, but
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you will follow me later. What?
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It was scary. Uncertainty is scary.
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And because they were frightened, because we get
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frightened. Jesus speaks what He says in
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verses beginning at verse 25 of verse 33.
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Here's the main idea that we're focusing on.
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True certainty outshines false confidence.
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Now as we start reading these verses, Please remember this
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what we're going to be hearing. These are the last words that
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Jesus taught them before He died.
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So it's important. Let's start reading now.
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John 16, beginning at verse 25. These things, I have said these
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things to you in figures of speech.
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The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in
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figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.
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In that day you will ask in my name.
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I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf,
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for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me
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and have believed that I came from God.
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I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I
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am leaving the world and going to the Father, The disciples
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said. Now you are speaking plainly,
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not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all
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things and do not need anyone to question you.
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This is why we believe that you came from God.
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Jesus answered them. Do you now believe?
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Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come when you will
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be scattered, each to his own home, and you will leave me
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alone. Yet I am not alone, for the
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Father is with me. I have said these things to you,
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that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have
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tribulation or trouble. But take heart, I have overcome
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the world again. True certainty outshines false
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confidence. Jesus is giving us here 2
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certainties that we can absolutely count upon.
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The first one is in verses 25 to 28.
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And the first certainty is simply this, the Father's love
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for us. We all know real love is always
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backed up by action, isn't it? It's backed up by evidence.
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So Jesus here in these this first paragraph, he gives us
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three pieces of evidence of the Father's love.
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The first one is in verse 28, the Father sent Jesus.
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Verse 28 is the entire gospel in one sentence.
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Jesus came from the Father. He entered the world, and now
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that his work will be shortly finished, he is going back to
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the Father. That's the whole thing right
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there. Now why?
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Why did the Father send Jesus? Because we were absolutely
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doomed unless Jesus saved us. According to Ephesians 2 verses
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one to five, we were dead, spiritually dead in our
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trespasses and sins, but God sent his Son Jesus.
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Romans 58. God demonstrates his own love
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for us in this, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
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for us. Easter is coming up in just a
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few weeks. Easter is a time when we can
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invite people to church, our friends, our family, people
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living in the neighborhood around us, what we call loving
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our 10 or reaching out to our circles.
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It's a time that we can share that message That's in verse 28
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that the Father sent his son so that all of us could have a
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relationship with God. The fact that he said Jesus is
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always proof of his love. Second, Jesus says here we're
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going to have clear knowledge of the Father.
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Jesus is saying, I'm not going to have to speak basically in
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those figures of speech. See, Jesus had been doing his
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very, very best to communicate God's truth to his disciples,
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but his disciples to put a charitably, we're kind of dumb
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spiritually. They were dense, obtuse, so
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Jesus had to use stories and actions to communicate to them,
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and even then they didn't get it.
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So they were arguing at the beginning of the time in the
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upper room about which one of them is the greatest.
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So Jesus, according to John 13, he dresses himself as a slave
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and goes around and washes the feet of every disciple,
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including the disciple Judas, who will betray him.
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It's an example of servanthood they would never forget.
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Jesus tells them I'm the vine, you're the branches apart from
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me. You can do what is it exactly?
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But he's saying here, there will come a time you will learn
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plainly, clearly knowledge about my Father.
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And that will happen when the Holy Spirit shows up, the spirit
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of truth. Until then, everything's going
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to be kind of unclear and a bit murky.
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You know, sort of like sometimes my nephews, they like to take
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off their swim goggles and throw it into the swimming pool and
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then dive after him. All right.
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Why? They can see it down there.
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Now imagine taking swim goggles and throwing them into some
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fishing hole. Yeah.
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Find them. That's kind of like what the
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disciples in terms of what they could pick up on.
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Truth. It was murky.
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It was unclear, but that's going to change.
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You know what? Also, just to kind of tie in
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with what Pastor Daniel was sharing last Sunday, where he
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was telling us about how, you know, in in Old Testament times,
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how difficult it was for people to be able to access God, to be
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able to come into his presence. And you remember all those
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courts they had to go through and a lot of the courts, a lot
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of those parts of the temple nobody could ever enter.
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They didn't qualify. Well, now, as a result of Jesus,
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we can all boldly enter the presence of God.
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We can boldly access, according to Hebrews 416, the throne of
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grace. When we're told, we can boldly
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come into God's presence. Guys, that's the same Greek word
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translated here. We can hear from the Father
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plainly. You know, the third evidence of
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the Father's love for us is maybe the best one of all, and
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that's this. The Father wants to answer our
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prayers. Matter of fact, He is waiting
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impatiently for us to come into His presence and ask in the name
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of his son. Now that deserves a bit of an
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explanation, so here it is. In the Bible, God's name
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represents God himself. So for example in Proverbs 1810
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it says there the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the
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righteous run into it and are safe.
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God's name represents God, Jesus's name.
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Obviously represents him as the Son of God.
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When we are praying in Jesus name, that means we're asking
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God to do something just like Jesus would ask his father to do
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something. Number of years ago all of us
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were kind of running around with these bracelets or these hats or
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T-shirts and that had 4 letters all in caps.
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WWJD. What would Jesus do?
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Based upon an old old book called In His Steps by Charles
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Sheldon. What Jesus is talking about here
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is not WWJD. What would Jesus do?
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Think of it this way, when we pray to the Father in Jesus
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name, it is WWJP. What would Jesus pray?
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And now you might say, OK, Vance, that's about as helpful
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as nothing. How in the world are we supposed
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to figure out what Jesus would pray?
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I mean, I know what I pray. I know what I want right now.
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My dresser at home, I've had it for over a year, is a gift
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certificate to the wars. I know what I want, OK?
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Linda keeps putting me off and it's drives me crazy.
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But what does Jesus want? You know what helps us to figure
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that out guys is 2 things. First thing to understand what's
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important to Jesus is to look at what and how did Jesus pray?
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For example, Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer.
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We call it the Lord's Prayer. It starts off our Father who are
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in heaven, who is in heaven hallowed or make holy your name.
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Oh, God wants us to honor and glorify his Father.
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Jesus wants us to do that. Forgive us our sins as we
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forgive those who sin against us.
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Oh, Jesus wants us to extend forgiveness to others, whether
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we want to or not. Jesus also would pull all
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nighters when it came to prayer. Before he picked his 12
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disciples, we're told he spent the whole night in prayer to
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God. The next morning he picked the
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12, including Judas. Pastor Daniel's sermon next
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Sunday is chapter 17 of John. Chapter 17 is Jesus's prayer.
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It shows us what's important to him.
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And by the way, what's important to him is us.
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He's going to go to Gethsemane where he'll be arrested.
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He will pray, Father, not my will, but yours be done.
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He will go to the cross, and he will pray for those soldiers who
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are murdering him. And he will say, Father, forgive
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them for they do not know what they do.
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If we look at how Jesus prayed and if we look how he prayed,
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we're going to learn a lot about what we should pray about.
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Secondly, we have to have to spend time with Jesus.
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There is no quick three steps. There is No 4 principles.
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It's not that easy. We get to know somebody by
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spending time with somebody. It's the same thing with Jesus,
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spending time in his word, pursuing him in prayer,
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meditating, which simply means to think over and over again
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about maybe a scripture that jumps out at us.
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You ever notice how people who have been married a long time,
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like say 50 or 60 years, and a picture is taken of them?
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You ever notice how they start to look alike?
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We spend time with Jesus. We're going to start looking a
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little bit like Jesus, Amen. And we're going to have a
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clearer understanding of what it means to pray in such a way that
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it honors Jesus, that it honors His Father.
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Let me tell you something I've learned in prayer.
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And sometimes when I am praying and I don't know how to pray for
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a situation, I will actually ask the Lord Lord, how should I pray
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about this? And He will give me direction.
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I wish I would have figured that out a long time ago.
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If we're walking with Him, we'll have a better understanding of
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His heart. Here's an easy way to remember
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this quality. Time with Jesus equals coming to
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know Jesus equals learning to pray like Jesus.
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Now I think the Lord wanted to immediately follow this up with
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what He's going to say next at verse 33, but at this point
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Jesus got interrupted by his disciples.
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So let's take a look at verses 29 and 30 for just a moment.
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His disciples said, Now you are speaking plainly and not using
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figurative speech. Now we know that you know all
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things and do not need anyone to question you.
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This is why we believe that you came from God.
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We got it. You came from God, guys.
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They've been hanging out with him for over three years.
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Talk about Captain Obvious. But they're so proud of their
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insight. Jesus, do we get gold stars now?
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You see their insight, and granted, it's a true insight
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that they do have about Jesus. He indeed is from God.
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He indeed knows their hearts even before they speak it, just
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as He knows each and every one of our hearts.
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The problem guys, is this. This is false confidence.
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They think they finally have the inside track on understanding
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Jesus. One guy, DA Carson, wrote this.
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No misunderstanding is more pathetic than that which thinks
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it no longer exists. You need to catch the skepticism
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in Jesus's question. Do you now believe you see?
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And he tells them immediately after he asked them that
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question. He tells them their immediate
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future, their professed belief, is so fragile it will
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immediately collapse In a few hours.
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They will all desert the one they said they would never
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desert. They would all fail.
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There is not a disciple of Jesus who does not fail repeatedly.
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We all do it, We all screw up, but Jesus still loves us.
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Remember this, Our faith is rooted in Christ, not upon our
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failures. I have struggled since I was a
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teenager with a ferocious temper.
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I'm so thankful. Here I am, 65 years old, and
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it's at least finally God's knocked enough edges off, beat
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me all over the head enough times.
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I've apologized I don't know how many times, but at least I'm
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finally growing in that area of my life.
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But I failed and I failed and I failed.
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My students were sometimes scared of me.
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My family was sometimes scared of me.
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Our failure, our faith, is rooted in Christ, not upon our
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failures. Jesus never gives up on any
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child of His. So the disciples are approaching
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failure brought on by false confidence.
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But you know what? That's not His last word to
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them. His last word that He teaches
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them is in verse 33. I have said these things to you,
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that in me you may have peace, in the world you will have
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tribulation or trouble. But take heart, I have overcome
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the world. Now, just at the face value,
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Jesus statement doesn't seem to make much sense because we know
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what's going to happen. If you've read the gospels, he's
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going to be arrested, He's going to be falsely accused in trials.
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He's going to be savagely beaten.
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He's going to be crucified, which I'm so thankful that all
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of the gospel simply tell us he was crucified.
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They don't go into the details because it was probably one of
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the most horrible deaths that anyone could ever experience.
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And he's going to die in spite of all of that.
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He says I have overcome. Here's why.
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Jesus says that there's two stories, both of them absolutely
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true, that are happening at this time. 1 is what we read about
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the events in the gospels. The other is true about what was
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happening behind the scenes spiritually.
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So, for example, Paul, he wrote to the Philippian Christians.
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Most of what he wrote in Philippians 2, beginning at
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verse 5 to 11 is a worship song. But here's what he wrote
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describing Jesus's victory, because that's the second
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certainty sharing Jesus's victory.
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He wrote this in your relationship with one another
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have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature
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God, did not consider a quality with God something to be used to
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His own advantage, but rather he made himself nothing.
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By taking the very nature of a servant being made in human
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likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
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himself by becoming obedient to the faith, obedient to death,
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sorry, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him in the
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highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
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that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on
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earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that
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Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
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Second certainty again, Jesus. We are sharing in Jesus victory
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to the Christians living in the little city of Colossae.
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Paul wrote this. When you were dead in your sins
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and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive in
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Christ. He forgave all our sins.
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Having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which
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stood against us and condemned us, He has taken it away,
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nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers
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and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them,
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triumphing over them by the cross.
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Paul is telling us this Jesus clobbered, Jesus stomped, Jesus
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crushed, Jesus ground his 2 feet into Satan's face and plans and
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we share Jesus's victory. That's pretty awesome.
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That's why he says I, I have overcome.
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He hasn't even gone through the horrible death yet, but already
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his victory is assured. Now what's it like to share in
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someone else's victory like what Jesus did for us?
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The picture you're going to see momentarily on the screens is my
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daughter Kathleen. And what she's doing in this
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picture is she is completing not her first, but her second
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marathon, 26 miles, five hours. I took that picture.
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I was there. I was taking pictures as fast as
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I could with my little phone. Why?
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Because I was excited. That's my girl now.
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I didn't act like that she would have killed me, but that's how I
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felt. I got to celebrate.
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Even though I didn't run the marathon, I still got to
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celebrate her finishing that grueling experience.
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You see where I'm going with this?
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I hope you do. Jesus went through all kinds of
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hard, hard things for us, and we can share, and we do share.
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Every believer shares in Jesus's victory.
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We celebrate with Jesus. Now there are three important
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things that Jesus is telling us in verse 33, and I want to just
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point them out to you. All right, first of all, please
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notice that Jesus says we may have peace.
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Whether we have Jesus peace or not depends upon our choice.
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He wants to give us His peace. We have to choose to accept it.
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We have to let go of our uncertainties, our anxieties,
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our fears so that we can receive His peace.
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Sort of like, you know, imagine a dog with a nasty smelling,
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filthy chew toy and the owner is trying to get that out of the
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dog's mouth because the owner got a really nice new chewed toy
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and it even still has the squeaker in it and the dog won't
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let go. We have to let go to experience
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his peace. Secondly, Jesus tells us up
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front we will have trouble. Unavoidable.
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We will have trouble, but that's how we grow in the Christian
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life. I like what one guy said.
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We are not saved from trouble, we are saved in trouble.
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You know, about a week and a half ago, there was absolutely
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no way I could be up here doing this message.
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See, I came down with that nasty thing called the norovirus.
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I had every one of those symptoms.
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You know how people, we like to say that when you're sick, you
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feel like it got hit by a truck? Well, I think I got hit by a
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truck and then I got hit again by the truck.
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And then the truck just kind of parked on top of me.
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And I kept saying, Lord, I got to preach.
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I got to preach as I'm running to the bathroom again.
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We will have trouble, but Jesus is right with us through every
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trouble. The third thing he says is that
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he has overcome. You know that word overcome.
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Nike stole that word. It's nikao in Greek.
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It simply means to be victorious.
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And The thing is, the way Jesus said that is that victory is
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permanent. Jesus won, we share that
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victory. That's a certainty.
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And you know what? A year from now, I could tell
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you again, Jesus won. We share that victory. 10,000
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years from now it is still true. There will never be a time when
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Jesus did not win and we share that victory.
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That's a certainty. So again, true certainty
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outshines false confidence. Now, maybe you're here this
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morning and you're not a Christian.
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At least you don't think you are.
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You're not a Christian and but you're curious.
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First of all, let me tell you, we're glad you're here.
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We're glad you're here to here and to share and be with us.
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But if you're not a Christian, let me just ask you to consider
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something. We all experience uncertainties,
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fears every single day. But what if you had someone in
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your life who would always be there?
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Who would be the one certain person to help you, who loves
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you, who wants to have a relationship with you?
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Would you come to him? That's the gospel Jesus offers
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to take away every wrong we've ever done.
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It's called sin so that we can have a relationship with God
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Himself. Now, if you would like to have
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that relationship, I'm going to pray a prayer in just a moment,
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and I would invite you to pray with me.
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And all you're doing at that time is inviting Jesus into your
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life to be your Lord and to be your Savior.
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So I'm going to ask now that we all bow our heads and close our
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eyes simply so that there's no distractions.
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Again, if you want to know Jesus, pray this prayer either
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out loud or silently with me. Dear Jesus, I ask you to come
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into my heart. I ask you to be my Savior and
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Lord. I ask you to cleanse me of my
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sin, to give me a new heart. I want to know you.
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I want to walk with you. I want you in my life.
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Lord Jesus. Now if you prayed that prayer
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with me, would you simply raise your hand so that I can see it?
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Thank you. Amen.
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Let's go ahead and stand, please.
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We have a few things that are going to happen before we have
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communion. But let me say, first of all, if
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you prayed to ask Jesus into your life, welcome to the
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family. If you'll notice over here and
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over here on the back wall, we have two tables that says, I
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raised my hand. We have people there.
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And if you just ask Jesus to come into your life, I would
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invite you to visit the folks we have at those tables simply
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because we want to help you in your new walk with the Lord.
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Now, Christians, let me talk to you for just a moment, All
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right? If you're struggling with
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uncertainty like all of us do, there are two things that we can
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do from this text that will help us, all right?
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These are both applications, all right?
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And both of them have the same word focus.
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If we're struggling with uncertainty, anxiety, with
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fears, first thing, focus upon the Father's love.
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Secondly, focus upon Jesus victory.
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And when I say focus, I mean the kind of focus that we do when
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we're playing some kind of computer game or we're watching
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something. It's like everything else sort
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of fades away, and that's what we're dealing with.
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That's the kind of focus we have to have.
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If we do that, God will come alongside and give us that
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certainty, even though we live in a very uncertain world.
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But we have to focus on Him now. I'm going to invite the prayer
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team to come forward. If you want to come forward with
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prayer, which I think is a great thing to do, please come forward
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as Lee prays. And then after this time, we
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will be celebrating communion. You come as the Lord leads.