Find Peace When Life Falls Apart | Book of John | Week 10

Hey, just when you think it can't get better, it gets better. Hey, no, I was gonna say, let's just keep singing. Anyway, hey, can I just tell y'all I love you? I mean, God says I have to, but that's why I love, right. But I, no, here's what I mean is, I think Flatirons should have a new slogan. It should be Flatirons Church, we're smoking what we're selling. Here's what I mean, okay? Right, you with me, right? So last week, I stood up here, and we just talked about how Jesus is calling out all these powers and principalities, how they're formed against us, right. It's not about flesh and blood, but there's a spiritual enemy formed against us, but it is making its way out in our flesh and blood. But here's the thing, all right. Last November, through this Be Free initiative, and you see all the stuff on the walls there at your campuses too, is that we drew a line in the sand and said, no more, not on our watch. Remember this? We said, hey, we are going to use everything we have, all of our energy, all of our attention, all of our prayer, all of our money, whatever that is, but we are going to end trafficking here, not just on the other side of the world, but we're gonna end human trafficking right here in the front range.

And I called to your attention, hey, there was a bill that was being introduced to our Senate downtown, anyway, but about the legalization of prostitution. And I had asked for you, hey, would you, and a lot of us did it as an act of worship right here, would you reach out to those senators and go, no, that's not okay. And this is what's so cool. Between all of you and your friends, we shut down their email system. We sent between 100 and 130,000 emails, all right? It's so good, all right, so, and I was supposed to go down Wednesday and testify about the lunacy of this whole thing, but I was just informed that it's 99%, it's already dead. It's dead on the floor, so come on, let's go. Yeah, woo, yeah, ooh, come on, yeah. Now, here's the thing, all right, this is what happens. This is what happens when the army of God says, hey, we're leaving the stands and we're fighting. We're fighting, right, all right? So it's a spiritual battle, and you know what? Take the win, y'all. Now, here's the other thing, all right. Because of the nature of those people, because they, I don't think they follow the same Jesus you and I follow. I don't know them, but they don't. Anyway, so anyway, and here's what I mean by that.

They'll bring it back, they're not done. And so here's what happens. If I have to go testify downtown this week, we'll put it out on all of our social media platforms, and I declare it in the name of Jesus, a snow day. You don't have to go to school, you don't have to go to work. You just gotta meet me down there at that Capitol building, and we are just gonna end the day and say not on our watch, okay, is that all right? All right, whew, I'm losing my voice. What? We're here for you. I know, we're, Jesus is here for us. We're gonna talk a lot about Jesus today. Hey, if you have your, we gotta jump into this, all right. Hey, I know some of you, you're always like, hey, during that last song, we're gonna slip out and go to Chili's. Don't. The last five minutes are the best. Maybe the five of the best minutes I've ever had in church. And that's because Jesus is about to do something, all right. I'm not that good, all right. So if you have your Bible or your study guide, and there's study guides at all of our lobbies on the book of John, we're gonna be primarily in John chapter 14, and I gotta be honest with you, I have loved this whole study. My back hurts, I'm gonna sit down, all right. We've tried to take a new look or a fresh perspective

around some stories that a lot of us grew up with, but we're trying to kind of push into them and look at them from a different angle and go like, hey, I never thought about it like that. Which is the beauty of Jesus's teachings, no matter how many times you go back to it, the deeper you go, the deeper it goes. Does that make sense? Like, there's another one, there's another one, there's another truth. And so the same thing's gonna happen today. We're gonna be in John chapter 14. Let me tell you where we're gonna set up, okay. We're gonna pick up the story where it's the night, later that night, Jesus is gonna be arrested and then on trial the next day and then crucified, right. Just a few hours, but he's in this upper room with his disciples, he's got about 12 disciples, and they eat the Passover meal, the Jewish Passover meal together. I gotta tell you, tensions are running high. I mean, it's a mess in there, because if you go back and read chapter 12 and 13 later, maybe today, right, in the last two chapters, he's had to break up a fight about who's gonna get to sit by Jesus. Like, who's gonna be vice president when you come into the kingdom. He tells them, hey, we're gonna go to Jerusalem and then they're gonna kill me,

and they all go, that's a bad idea, Lord, don't do that, right. And then he tells them, I've gotta go away for a while and you can't come with me, and then Peter swears loyalty to Jesus, and Jesus looks at him and goes, hey, Peter, nice try, you'll deny me three times before breakfast, all right. So by the time we get to chapter 14, it's pretty intense. Jesus has just silenced the room by washing all their feet, talked about a few weeks ago. Judas has slipped out the side door to go betray Jesus, so it's probably awkwardly quiet. Now, here's what I was wondering, this is what I do, it's what you pay me to do. I was wondering, do you think Jesus ever got nervous? And I know the answer's no, because he's Jesus, blah, blah, blah, right, but maybe a better word would be this, do you think he maybe, that night, felt a sense of urgency? Because, I mean, think about it, in about three hours, Jesus. He knows what's about to happen. He knows stuff's about to go down, right, right? And it's gonna get crazy and scary and everything that these disciples thought was true about God, about themselves, about life, it's gonna get shaken to the core. And their hearts are gonna be,

if you look at chapter 14, verse one, Jesus used the word troubled. Their hearts are gonna be troubled. So it's almost go time, and then after this meal, this final teaching, there's no more Bible studies. There's no more small group time together. There's no more parables. There's no more miracles. It's just gonna get dark and confusing until Sunday and the resurrection, and that's even confusing. And as he looks up and down the table, the men sitting there, it's a pretty ragged, motley crew. Remember, nothing changes in any of these disciples on a deep level until the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost six weeks from now, right? And Jesus knows all that is on the way. Right outside that door, he knows what's gonna happen, but he also knows this, over the next several hours, the next several weeks, life's gonna get crazy. So he starts and ends what we're gonna look at today with a version of the same kind of phrase. He starts with this. He says, let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. And then later, right before they go out to the place where he's gonna be arrested, Jesus prays for them, and then he wraps it up with this. He says, so I've said these things.

I'm gonna die and all that kind of stuff. I've said these things to you that in me, you may have, what's the word? Peace. In the world, though, you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world. So Jesus knows that they are about to walk into a time when their hearts are gonna be troubled, and they're gonna experience tribulation, and they're just like us. They're gonna be tempted to go like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. So whatever he tells them between those two lines, 14.1 and 16.33, is what Jesus wants ringing in their ears. It will be the most important truth he wants to leave them with. It's the lifeline that they, and by extension, we, we're gonna have to hold onto if any of us has a chance to make it through whatever troubled time is headed your way. And it's on the way. Got it? Now, hold onto that, all right? I'm gonna give you some nerdy Bible stuff. But it'll make a difference, I think. So, context, all right? In the beginning, God created the, and four of you know the Bible, good, all right. So in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. As part of that creation, he created this special place

called Eden, the Garden of Eden, where God and mankind, mankind made in his image, could live together and reign together and rule together. By the way, God doesn't need any help running the universe. But God made a decision to share his unique likeness with us, his unique creation, and live together in perfect unity and intimacy with us, sharing life together. That was the plan in the first three chapters of the Bible. Skip to the end. It's the plan of the last three chapters of the Bible. And that's always been the plan. The theme, the way we take notes around here is with our cameras, look at this. The theme of the Bible from cover to cover can be simplified down to one phrase, three words. God with us. Let's just say it together, one, two, three. God with us. That was always the plan in the beginning. It's still the plan today. And it will be the plan until Jesus shows up. God with us. So anytime in the Bible, or even today, you're gonna hear phrases like me talk about Eden, or when you, here's what we're gonna hear. We're gonna hear Jesus say, where I am, you will be also, or anyone who comes through the Father, or in my Father's house, or in the kingdom of God. They're all referring to the same thing.

God's gonna be with us. We talk a lot about it at Christmas, Emmanuel, but that's the whole plan, right? Doing life together in partnership over creation. Eternal life is not some place you go to after you die. It starts now. We're trying to live a God with us kind of life now. Now, go back to John chapter 14. Here we go. So Jesus is just wrapped up dinner, washed everybody's feet is an example of what a servant does because it's about love. Everything that happened, and everything that's about to happen is motivated by a loving God who's doing what he needs to do to rescue those that he loves. And the clock's ticking, right? Judas is already going round up the soldiers, right? And so he starts his final teaching to a room that just heard, so they're gonna murder me, and I'm going someplace and you can't come with me, and Peter, your leader, he will deny me three times. And I imagine everybody in that room, they felt troubled. And Jesus knows that, and that's the setup for 14.1. Let's look at it again. So he looks at the table and he goes, so let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, and then believe also in me.

Now, let's stop right there because we could spend the whole weekend just on those two sentences. Again, Jesus, he knows what's about to happen. The next few hours are going to be like rough, like troubling. By morning, they're gonna feel like God has abandoned me. They won't understand what's going on. They're gonna feel confused and scared and disappointed. And if I was them, I'd say, I think I bet on the wrong horse. I thought Jesus was the one that's gonna save us, and he's dead. Maybe I put my faith. in the wrong person. Now, time out here, all right. As I'm sitting in my kitchen writing this this week, here's my aha moment. A lot of us are in the same boat right now. Here's what I mean. Anybody here have a troubled heart? Anybody here overwhelmed by your life? Anybody crawl into one of these campuses or you got to your TV screen, whatever that is, and you're carrying a burden that's so heavy and overwhelming, I don't know how much longer I can do this. Anybody feeling scared, anxious, worried, depressed, shame, guilt, feeling con, if you feel like I am condemned,

you don't have any idea why. I have so much guilt in my life and you're asking yourself things like, why is this happening? Where's God and why won't he help me? My body is literally in trouble, my marriage isn't, my wife doesn't even know how much trouble our marriage is in. My emotions are in trouble, my heart is broken, my heart's in trouble and yeah, yeah, because you live in a world of trouble every day and it's gonna shake us to the heart and knowing that, Jesus looks at that room of people and again, by extension, he's saying this to us right now, he goes, hey, let not your heart be troubled. And I'll be honest with you, my response to that is well, thanks a lot for that, Jesus. Easier said than done. How am I supposed to do that? And Jesus responds like this, you gotta believe in God. You also gotta believe in me. And that word believe, it's a Greek word, pastuo, put your trust in, put your faith in God. Here's what he's saying, the only way that your heart's gonna move from trouble to peace is you gotta put your trust in God and also, you have to first put your faith in Jesus and Jesus is about to make it abundantly clear, you cannot have one or the other. In order to trust in God, you have to first

put your trust in Jesus, you cannot claim to have God, you cannot claim to follow God or love God and reject Jesus over and over and over. He hammers this home, all right. Jesus is gonna say in a few minutes, the most offensive thing to 21st century minds, he's gonna say this, you cannot know God, you can't come to God without going through me. You can't claim to know God, trust God and reject me. It's not, he's not saying like, you can come to God, but it's gonna be really hard, no, no, it's impossible to know God unless I make it possible. So what Jesus is saying is this and he's talking about us, all right. Every one of us, because we're created in God's image, we all have the ability, the choice to put our trust in something every day. And we do that, but that we believe or we have faith in to take away what's troubling my heart. I'm gonna go after that, because it'll take away the trouble in my heart. But when Jesus says, don't let your heart be troubled and the only way for that to happen, you gotta put your faith, your trust in God and the only way you can do that is you gotta put your faith in me, there's no other way. Now again, all right, brace yourself. Because Jesus is about, I'm just setting it up, all right. He's about to say the most exclusive declaration and at the same time, make the most inclusive declaration.

Now I want you to watch this, all right. He's just said, your heart's troubled because you're living and navigating a really rough, troubling world, but you don't have to stay troubled. But you do have the way out, you have to trust God. But to do that, you gotta trust me first. Jesus, please don't hear this wrong, Jesus is not minimizing what you're going through. He's not looking at you going like, get over it. If you had more faith, you wouldn't have a troubled heart. If you were a better Christian, your heart wouldn't be troubled. No, no, no, he's actually acknowledging to the room here and there, right. I get it, you ought to be troubled. Because what you're walking through and about to walk through is gonna be hard, painful, unfair, confusing. And because of that, here's the goal of today. He's trying to get us to look up from our troubled circumstances and fix our eyes on our only hope to make it through. Amen, I need you to talk to me, amen. I know we sprung forward and you guys are, it's just four o'clock in the morning your time, but amen. Okay, so let's get back to this, all right. I did not come here to talk to the monitor, all right. So here we go, verse two. He says this, in my father's house are many rooms.

Right there, I bet if I was at that table, and this is how I started to study the word, I tried to put myself in that room. If I was in that room and looked up and down that table, when he said that, I bet all the foreheads wrinkled up. They looked at each other and went, did he just say in my father's house? Did Jesus just call big, eternal, holy, scary, Jehovah, almighty God, like his own personal father? Yeah, no one's called him that before. That's my father. I was listening to a friend of mine, he's gonna be here for the men's conference. He teaches at Church of 1122, Joby Martin. We were talking this past week. Come on, Joby, he's listening. Hi, Joby. Anyway, I told him, I talked to him earlier this week. Hey, buddy, I'm totally plagiarizing you. I'm ripping off everything. He goes, whatever, I do it to you all the time. I'm like, okay, let's go, all right, so. If I get this wrong, blame Joby, but Joby pointed this out. And some of you, because I know who you are, you're gonna get out your, you're gonna email me going, you're off by two numbers. Thank you, all right? So in the Old Testament, before Jesus was born, God is referred to as Father around a dozen times,

and never in reference to, he's my Father. In the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus refers to God as his Father 189 times, 100 times in the book of John, and 23 of those times in chapter 14. So what's the big deal? It's such a big deal. Because Jesus wants us to know that, hey, trouble's on the way, it's probably already hit, circumstances are gonna get rough, your heart's gonna be troubled, but Jesus wants you to know this, that your Father has got ya, amen? And you can trust him. See, Jesus is blowing up, Christians, I'm gonna blow up a lot of your bubbles today. Jesus is blowing up our immediate response to God as, we think about God and go, God's looking for slaves that just obey. And if we don't, there'll be consequences, that's called religion. But Jesus is saying here at the table, no, no, no, no, no, when your heart's troubled, you're not looking for a far-off, like God demanding obedience, you know what you're looking for? You're looking for a relationship with your Father who's reaching out to his kids, going, come over here. Jesus is painting, no one's ever done this before, Jesus is painting a picture of a family

gathered together to live with our Father forever, God with us, right? Like, we're his family, we're a bit dysfunctional. Why do you say that? Because you're here, that's why, all right? That's Joby's joke, I'm just ripping it off. All right, so look at this again, in my Father's house are many rooms, and if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for ya? See, in the same way, eternal life is not something that happens or begins after your funeral, you go to some Disney castle in outer space, something like that, that's kinda how I grew up. Eternal life is living every day with God. And it's the same way, when I say heaven, there's a place called heaven, here's what most of us do, because if we were raised around church at all, we immediately jump to some descriptions that we find in the book of Revelation, heaven. Oh, it's this big, big, big city, it's got big gates, streets of gold. I heard in one song, we all get our own mansion, something like that. What Jesus is describing is so much better. He says, if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also. And you know the way to where I'm going. So what is Jesus saying here?

This is so, so good. He's saying, God's your Father, and there's room for you to come over here and move in with him and join the family, but for that to be possible, I gotta do some stuff. I need to go and do everything necessary to prepare a place for you. And when I'm done, I'm gonna come back and take you to that place. What place? Well, where I am. What place is Jesus referring to that he is preparing so that you can join him? And here's the thing that just blew my mind this week in study. The place is him. Well, what does that mean? It means in order for you and I to call God our Father and live with him, God with us, Jesus is gonna have to prepare some stuff. What stuff? A place. What place? A way. A way to that place. How is he gonna do that? Tomorrow, he's gonna get nailed to a cross to pay for every sin, every untruth that separates you from God, and he's gonna replace it with truth.

He's gonna make a way back where there was no way. He's gonna be buried in a tomb, and three days later, he's gonna rise from the dead. He's gonna walk out of the tomb. He's gonna replace death with life. He's gonna walk out of the tomb and sin to the right hand of God the Father. The place that Jesus is preparing for you is Jesus. And when he has done that, he will come back for you and I so that we can be with him, God with us. See, the thing that makes heaven heaven isn't streets of gold or angels or harps. I just don't dig harp music. I mean, if you do, okay, we're not gonna hang out, but that's all right, right? No, the thing that makes heaven heaven is Jesus. See, that's what these next four very troubling days are gonna be all about. That's what Jesus has been teaching me. He looks at me and goes like, hey guys, listen, that's been the plan all along. You know where I'm going. And Thomas speaks up. Lord, we do not know where you're going. How can you say we know the way? Now, like I hinted at earlier, what, put on a seatbelt, right? What Jesus is about to say is, I'm gonna say the most, I was gonna say one of the most, but it's not. It's the most outrageous, exclusive,

inclusive statements of all time. Of all the things that you read in the Bible that came out of Jesus, all the words, right? The most outrageous thing that he ever said had nothing to do with politics or marriage or gender or parenting or pro this or anti, no, no, no. All the things, we just yell at each other about that. They don't hold a candle to the most divisive, controversial statement. It's an absolute, there's no middle ground here. It's not up for a discussion or a vote. Well, it's a matter of interpretation. No, it's not. It's a foundational truth of the universe, and Jesus is about to drop it on him. Because when Thomas asks, how can we know the way to get to God? Here's what Jesus says, I'm the way. Come on, and the truth, and the life. Now, here it is, right? And no one gets to the Father unless they go through me. Now, here's 21st century, hang on, right? For a lot of us, sirens just went off in our head, and our brains are about to explode. So this is an imaginary conversation you're having with me right now. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, Pastor Jim. So you're telling me, in all of human history, 7,000, 7 billion, I don't care, right? In all the cultures of the world, of all time,

of all the religious systems and faith systems, of all the world, you're saying that Jesus is the only way, the only truth, and the only life, which would mean that all the other ones aren't? Which means it's only Jesus, and anything or anyone else won't take you to where you need to get to, because they're not true, and they don't lead to life, which means they end in death. You're saying Jesus is the only way, truth, and life. I didn't say it. They will crucify you if you say that, but Jesus said it. And many of us respond, well, that's pretty narrow-minded. Write this down, it is, without apology. It's so narrow, it's like this little gate. And you go, well, I don't think that's fair. It doesn't matter. I'm gonna rip Joby off again. Check your name tag right now, okay? I'm pretty sure it doesn't say Sovereign God of the Universe, because he's the only one that says this is the way. God Almighty sent his one and only son, Jesus, and it is exclusively through Jesus that a person can know God. Salvation is found in no other name. But here's the other thing. It's also available and inclusive of everybody on the planet. Everybody is welcome to enter through Jesus. And to top it off, Jesus has already done everything necessary to prepare a place,

makes it possible for any of us in the whole planet to just walk right into the kingdom of God. It's not based on how much money you make, your marriage, your divorce, what country you live in, how you're raised, it isn't based on either this be right things or wrong things. No, no, it's only Jesus. He's available to everyone. But everybody has to come in the same way, faith. No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. Write this down. Jesus is exclusively inclusive. Jesus is the only way. And everybody's invited to come to the Father. Everybody. You see, Jesus, he's different than every other religion because every other religion says, here's the plan. You go live your life the best way that you can. One day you'll stand before a judge who will decide, are you good enough to be in the presence of a perfectly holy God? And here's what's going on in your head. You know you don't stand a chance. I don't. You can spend the rest of your life trying to do enough good things to counterbalance the bad stuff you used to do. Listen, I know some of our stories. There's not enough days left to do that. So, sidebar, so a couple weeks ago,

I'm at this big birthday party with a bunch of friends and I'm sitting at a table with some friends of mine and I'm not being offensive here, but they are super Catholics. Anybody know some super Catholics? All right, yeah. Yeah, my grandma. I mean, they don't miss, I mean, they don't miss mass. You can go on vacation. They go to church on vacation. That's better, I don't, I'm sorry. They say prayers. They go to confession. They don't miss confession. They take the sacraments. They have beads. They pray to saints. They are super Catholic. And so I'm sitting at dinner and I'm talking because they're really good friends of mine. I'm talking, we're talking about faith and I ask her, I'm not gonna say her name, like, hey, hey, listen, if you died tonight, would you be with God? And you know what she said? I don't know, I hope so. And that broke my heart because I love her. And she has no confidence. She has no assurance of where she stands with God. So she's trying to, every day, she's trying to earn,

prove to God that she is worth saving by keeping all the rules that her church has laid on her that says it's necessary to be with God. So in her mind, here's what the future looks like. She's gonna stand before God, fingers crossed, and hope she's done enough to earn her way in and maybe there's enough saints that'll vote for her or however it works, right? And you know what she doesn't have? Grace. All she needs is Jesus. Jesus alone is her way in, not Jesus plus what your church says you gotta do on top of that. Jesus is the only way, but also everybody's invited to come in. Everybody comes in the same way, not based on your nationality or your skin color or your money, everybody's invited the same way. You know why? Because through all the time, all over the planet, we all have one thing in common. We have a sin problem that we don't know how, we don't have the capacity to fix that. And every other religion says, that's on you. That's on you to figure it out and fix it. But only Jesus has the ability to pay the price that we cannot pay for ourself. And deep down inside, you know that's true about you, which is why your heart is always troubled and why you're always exhausted.

Am I good enough? Am I good enough? Have I done enough? Have I been too much bad stuff? How's the scales going, right? Is it karma? No, Jesus is the only way, and Jesus is the truth. And this is where a lot of us, we're sitting in attention right now, just what we heard Jesus say, because it runs into what you thought or assumed was true. And here's the problem with today's world. So many, let me give you one of them, okay? We have neutered truth by putting a pronoun in front of it. Like, this is my truth, what's yours, all right? But in reality, okay, your truth is actually your opinion, or what you want to be true, or what you wish was true. But listen, write this down. Your opinion does not change what God says is actually true. What you believe is true does not change what God says is true. Your feelings don't change truth, because truth is not a feeling, and it's not based on, well, my personal experience. No, truth is a person, and his name is Jesus, amen? See, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. If you want life, you need Jesus. Right now, if your heart is troubled,

and you think this world can offer any solution other than temporary happiness, you will wear yourself out, because happiness is always based on what is happening in the ever-changing circumstances of your life, and you're trying to make sense of it all. And anything the world says, I can help, it is fleeting. Jesus' life, because he offers joy, and he's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Today, let me tell you, if your heart is troubled, it's because you got a hole in your soul that only Jesus can satisfy and give you life, because he says, I'm the way, the truth, and the life, and I'm the only one who can fix that, and no one comes to the Father in any other way except through faith in me. Verse seven, if you had known me, if you know me, you know my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen him. And Philip goes, Lord, just show us, just show us God. Show us the Father, that's all we're asking for. And Jesus says, have I been with you so long, and you still don't know me? Philip, come on, whoever has seen me, listen to me, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father's in me, like this? The words that I speak, I didn't come up with them, not on my authority, the Father who dwells in me

does all the works that you've been seeing me do. Believe me when I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, or else just believe in the works for themselves. And this is the part of the sermon, I gotta give Jobie credit for this, buddy. Thank you again, right? You know what makes you smart, is you just surround yourself with smarter people, and then you claim it for yourself. Anyway, so anyway, I want you to look at something that I've never thought about this way before. So we're gonna skip a bunch of these verses, you can read and study it this week, but Jesus is about to get to the part, to the Father again, or he's pointing to the Father, but in this chapter, Jesus refers to God as the Father 23 times, because Jesus knows, if I can just get you to place, where you can know and trust God as your Father, your troubled heart would experience peace, and later Jesus says, peace I give you, not temporary peace, conditional world peace, no, I give you my peace. So 23 times, God's my Father. I don't know what you think of when you think of God as your Father. For a lot of us, it's all good, because we had a good Father, I had a really good Father. He wasn't perfect, but some of you did not have a good Father.

Yeah, I'll say, he was a bad man. He was hurtful, he was mean, he was abusive. Said the most hateful, hurtful things to you, some of you's going, I don't even know, he wasn't even around. But God is a good, good Father. He's not like your bad dad. And the thing you love about your dad the most reminds you of God. So time out, soapbox, let me talk to all the dads at all of our campuses, online, I'm gonna talk to just the dads, all right. Did you know the most influential person in your child's life as to how he or she will view God in the future as Father will be based on how you treated him. And they're not gonna try to do this, they're gonna project the version of Father they experienced with you onto God, which sounds like a lot of pressure, doesn't it, Dad? Which it is. See, if you're always angry and yelling and stomping around the house, if you're always finding fault and being critical of them, if you're always busy with other more important things, if you're not present or involved in their life, because it's just a season, but it's been 10 years of season, right. Something happens in their soul, not intentionally, and they transfer that to God,

and their whole life will be either lived out of that definition of God or trying to work around it. See, we live in a country where there are more kids being raised without their dad in their home than there are kids being raised with their dad in the home, and we wonder why our country's so jacked up. Hey, dads, I'm just talking to Flatiron's dad, I'm not in charge of the world, I'm your teacher, all right. Hey, dads, if you wanna change the world, do not give up on your kids. Keep fighting for your children, get involved in your children's life, show up, be present in your kid's life. Never let a day go by where you don't say and they don't remember you demonstrating and saying, I love you, I am proud of you. That's their breath. So, dads, step back in. Let's go back to John chapter 14. Jesus has this passion that we know God as Father, and again, we don't have time to unpack all this, but Jesus is gonna say this, I'm going away, but I'm not gonna leave you as an orphan. Read it, it says right there, like a fatherless child. No, I'm gonna send a helper, all right, referring to the Holy Spirit. In different versions say, the Greek word's paraklete. I'm gonna send you myself. God the Father deposits his own spirit

inside of a person, as a helper, as a counselor, as an advocate, as a teacher. He says this, he's gonna remind you of all the things that I taught you are true. When do I need that? When your heart is troubled. And you need to remember, oh yeah, that's the way. That's the truth, that's where I find life. Now, you don't have to turn, but if you flip to the right in your Bible to Galatians chapter five. This is the part I've never thought about this way. Over in Galatians five, Paul, who wrote this letter, he refers to something known as the fruit of the Spirit. If we ever talk about this face-to-face, don't call it fruits of the Spirit, I'll punch you in the face. Fruit of the Spirit, okay, because I don't have that fruit, apparently. And whenever I've taught this, here's how I've always taught about the fruit of the Spirit. When a person is firmly rooted in Jesus and filled with the Spirit of God, a person's life begins to change on the inside. You know that kind of a healthy apple tree? Apples just come out of it, right? And when a person is filled with the Spirit, will naturally over time begin to produce the attributes of Jesus, which is true, it's absolutely true. Here's what I'm gonna go out on a limb on,

but what if it's more? What if when Jesus sends his Spirit into a person, the fruit of the Spirit is not just what comes out of us when we're rooted in Jesus, what if the fruit of the Spirit is the filter through which we begin to see and understand how God the Father sees us? With that, we're gonna work through it. With that, comfort your troubled heart. If you believe God saw you like this, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Let's just work it. Hey, everybody look up here, right? He loves you. Yeah, I hear that, I'll be singing all day. No, it's not just a letter. God loves you. God your Father loves you because he's your dad and you're his daughter or his son, all right? If you just live out that reality, that you are truly unconditionally loved by God, not based on how your day or week went or how your marriage is going or how your addiction is going, all right? It would change everything. Later, read this later, right? In John 17, Jesus tells us that God loves you the same way, level, that he loves Jesus,

which you do not believe. I mean, Jesus, yeah, but that guy, really? But what if you did? What if you lived your life from that place that, here's a picture, this kinda takes my breath. Close your eyes, everybody, right? I want you to picture, as best you can, the face of God the Father and he's staring into the face of Jesus the Son. And just think about what's on God's face as he looks at his son. Now, here's what I want you to do. Jesus steps to the side and you stand in that place and God's face doesn't change. And again, you don't believe that because here's what you're wrestling with right now. You can open your eyes now, right? Some of you are asleep, right? You're projecting your doubts onto God. Yeah, but what about, and what about, and what about, what about? Tozer, the author, he said this. The most important thing about you is what you think about when you think about God. He loves you and joy. God has joy toward you. And I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about you. Not because you deserve it and that gave him joy, because you're just his child, okay? Here's what's gonna happen

about 12, 31 o'clock this afternoon, all right? I'm gonna get in my truck and I'm gonna drive back to Fort Leavenworth and I'm gonna get in my farm and I'm gonna pull in the garage, I'm gonna walk up four steps and I'm gonna open the door and I will be met by Gus, my three-year-old black lab. He'll be right there and he will lose his mind. I don't know how it happens, he just bounces. And he doesn't even like, it's like Tigger. He's like, boing, boing, boing, boing, boing. And then he'll have an orange stuffy animal or something because he has to bring me a gift or something like that and then he'll spin around in circles and he will not stop until I get down on the floor and give him some love. It doesn't matter if I've been gone for five minutes or a week. It's like, you're here, I have missed you. Gus is the definition of joy. Now, all metaphors fall apart but if the difference between me and Gus is this, what's the difference between me and God? It's infinite. And can you imagine that when you open the door and turn your face toward God, he feels joy towards you? You're here, you're home. A level of joy, this might be sacrilegious, that would cause God to bounce up and down because finally, you're God, you're with me

and all he wants to do is embrace you. Have you ever thought about God like that? That when he thinks about you, he thinks about joy? Let me talk to all the moms, I don't need to dad's me. Hey, let me talk to all the moms in the room. Hey, at the end of the day, long day, and you finally got everybody where they need to go, get everybody fed, washed, tucked away, asleep, and you sit down in your chair going, God whispers in your ear, way to go, girl, well done. Nobody died today, take the win. You didn't think God thought that about you, did you, ladies? Love, joy, peace, peace. God's not worried about you. He's not anxious about you, He's not disappointed in you. You are, you're so disappointed in God. Listen, you have, this is gonna blow your mind. You have never done anything that has taken God by surprise where he thinks, well, if I had known she was gonna do that, I never would have saved her in the first place. You're so hard on yourself. I'll do prophecy, 10 years from now, you're gonna look back at your life, and you know what you're gonna discover? You still suck at life. And here's what I mean by that. You're gonna sit in a chair going, I thought I'd have that all worked out by now. I thought I'd be further down the road, right? Or should I say, I thought I'd be better than this.

That's you, God has never felt that towards you. He's not worried about you, he's not disappointed about you. When he thinks about you, he feels peace. She's gonna be fine, he's gonna be all right. Patience, whoa, please pause there. I just want you to think about the level of patience God has extended in your direction. I mean, God has watched you and I go through just the most embarrassing, awkward, you did what again, right? Goofy parts of our life. The best picture I have is the parents, remember when you thought your kid was potty trained and you went to Walmart? About aisle four, they're not. And like, clean up on aisle four, right, right? And you just look at them, you know, and you're just patient with them, right? You don't really like them a lot, right? So I'm making this up, I'm making this up. I wonder, and I'm making this up, right? If the angels in heaven or the great cloud of witnesses around the throne of God, the Bible says, are watching us, I wonder if they ever say to God, like, really, her? Him, of all the people on the planet, you chose him? And here's what I think God would say to them. Get back in your lane, right? Back off, I'm not done with him yet. It's just gonna take a little more time to get past aisle four.

And God waits patiently for us just to open our eyes and go, there's my will for your life and my purpose. When everybody, including yourself, has given up on you. Now, God, you know why? He's patient. And God's kindness for you never ends in his goodness. That makes sense in the moment, but in the rear view mirror, it does. My wife wrote her favorite song. If I play it, she's just gonna put the covers over and cry, right? Your goodness is running after, it's running after me. And all my life you have been faithful. All my life you have been so, so good. Ain't that true? In the moment, a storm, but looking back, how am I still here? And gentle, self-controlled, my goodness. How many times have you and I, how many times have we deserved what we had coming? We deserve punishment, we deserve wrath, you know why? Because we were wrong. We did the wrong thing. We were bad, we were guilty, and instead of giving us what we deserve, God, our Father's response towards us is gentleness. Okay, so I know, here, I'm gonna tell a story. I know some of you, Jim, will you move on and stop talking about this, but I'm not gonna move on.

I'm up here and you're down there, so you're welcome to go start your own church if you want, but I'm gonna, here's the story, all right? So about seven years ago, I was in a rough stretch of road. I was mentally, spiritually, I was just a mess, exhausted. And the elders of this church loved me enough to temporarily take me out of leadership, sabbatical, Jesus jail, whatever, I called it a lot of things, right? But all along the way, they said, Jim, so that you can come back and lead, so that you, so that, so that. It's not a slow firing, it's so that, right? But in a moment, it felt like crushing. And you have your story. Now I, I kicked and screamed, and then they put Rob and I on a plane to Mexico City. I didn't buy those tickets, you all did, but anyway, they sent me down to Mexico City where our friends James and Aaron Henderson, missionaries down there, we'd go spend time with them, and we loved them so dearly. And when we got there, we found out that James and Aaron were hosting a retreat, like church service in their yard of their house, and honestly, the last place on this planet I wanna be is church. So they said, well, why don't you come over at noon, church will be over, and then we can just hang out

for the rest of the day. And so we were in our hotel, we took an Uber over to their house, got there about noon, and in true Mexico City fashion, church is just getting started. Like, praise the Lord, okay? So we sat on the back row, and we are troubled. I'm an emotional mess, and we're trying to sing along, and Robyn, bless her heart, she made like half a song and went in the house. Thank you, dear, all right? And I was out there singing, Si, Senor, Si, I don't know. I don't speak Spanish at all. I'm just winging it, all right? And then, all right, so we sit down, I just like, and the guest teacher's name's Daniel. He stands up, he starts teaching out of Matthew 11 how Jesus is, Jesus is about to describe the Father to us. So whatever comes out of Jesus' mouth next is that, hey, I wanna tell you what God your Father is really like. And he reads Matthew 11, he says this. I'll try, all right? So, come to me, all you who are working hard, all you who are laboring, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, and here he is. For I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your soul. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I'm on the back row going, I call bull crap.

God, you're not, that's not true. You're not gentle. Ever pray that prayer, anybody? I'm the only one, right? Yeah, you're mean and cruel, because this hurts, it's not fair. And I don't like it. But over the coming weeks and months, I experienced the gentleness of God, the faithfulness and the self-control of God, patiently waiting, go ahead, Jim. Throw your tantrum, stomp your foot, yell, cuss, cry, scream, because I get it. You're embarrassed, you're scared, you're ashamed. I didn't know what to do. My whole life was a panic. And here's why I tell you all that, because the context of all this is that don't let your heart be troubled. I got you, right? I think God brought you here today to speak to your troubled heart. This is how he arranges the universe. See, the hardest part of faith isn't that Jesus is the only way, truth, or life. That's not what you're gonna be talking about at lunch today, right? There's only one way to the Father. That's, all right, right? If God is truly God, it would make sense

that he'd be the one who says, this is how you come to me, right? The hardest part for me would be, why would he do that for someone like me or you? Because I know me, which is why I keep on trying to find a way to fix or find a solution to my own troubled heart. And folks, nothing works. Oh, they're gonna start playing cry music, here we go. Here's what I believe, though. I believe, I bet a lot on this. Whatever trouble you walk in this room with, campus with, today, after being washed in the word and hearing the promises of Jesus, it's lighter than it was. When you stop and consider, and we're gonna stop here in a minute. Consider the love and the peace and the patience, the posture that God the Father has toward you and the lengths that he's willing to go has gone because he just wants to be, he wants to be in your life and he wants you to be in his life. And he knows the closer you get, the better it is because in this world, you will have trouble. And when you're convinced, when you know, when you believe and you have faith and you trust in God and trust what Jesus made possible for you, you know what you're gonna walk outta here with in a minute? Peace. Anybody want peace?

So here's what I wanna do. So here's what we always do is I pray, we sing a song and then you go back into chaos. I just like to sit. Can we just sit in this moment? And then we're gonna have a time of prayer and then we're gonna sing a song and then walk into chaos. But our hearts won't be. Will you just close your eyes all over campus and just let this kinda sink in before we rush on to the next thing? Let's go, let's do it. Okay, I'm gonna call out Joe. Come here, he's there. Hey, will you sing, will you sing that song Robin really likes a lot? Here we go. All my life you have been faith. All my life you have been so, so good. With every breath that I make. Oh, I will sing of the goodness of God. Oh, your goodness is running out, it's running out to me. Your goodness is running out, it's running out to me. My life laid down, surrender now, I give you everything. Your goodness is running out, it's running out to me. Yeah, okay, last night I made an audible call. We're gonna do something here to close our service out. It's a risk. A couple weeks ago, we said, hey, if you want your life to move from where it is back towards God,

we had a lot of people in all of our auditoriums walk towards the front. That's not a conditional thing, but sometimes I need to experience, I need to move from one place to another because I don't wanna live that life anymore. You understand, right? So here's what I'm gonna ask you, and you're gonna wait for somebody else to go first, but then it'll be popcorn, you watch this, right? Does anybody here have a troubled heart? Anybody carrying something really heavy? Anybody carrying pain and fear? You can't even stand up straight, you got so much guilt and shame on your back? I don't know. Anybody's marriage in trouble? Anybody has a... Anybody in trouble with their kids or their parents? Just fill in the blank. Anybody got a troubled heart? Here's what I'm gonna ask of all our auditoriums right now. Would you be willing to stand up so we can pray for you? There you go, come on. You thought you were the only one. I told you we're a mess. That takes some courage there. Now, we're gonna be the church right now, and if you don't want this to happen, just go, no, no, no, no, okay?

But I'm gonna ask a person, not the whole row, we're not gonna tackle anybody, right? A person on your row, would you be willing to stand up and put your hand on him? Just as a, like, you're not alone. Whew. You know what this is called? It's called the church. Why don't we do this more often? We're gonna pray, and then I'm gonna say amen, and then we're all gonna stand up and we're gonna sing. It's beautiful, I got a beautiful view. I'm gonna stand up, I got a beautiful view. I'm gonna stand up, I got a beautiful view. So Jesus, you have done everything to prepare a way and a place, you've destroyed death, and you made all that possible so we can walk right up and say, Father God, I need you in my life. I need help in my time of trouble, I need peace. I don't know how to fix this part of my life. I don't know what to do, and so I'm coming to you like my kids used to run up to me and just say, I just need some help, Dad. And so we're coming to our heavenly Father right now. And I believe all parts of the Trinity are working together to make this moment possible because Jesus, you've made a way that we can stand with our Father, and our Father puts his own spirit in us and begins to heal our troubled hearts. What had to happen for this moment to be possible?

But you're good. But you're good. So we praise you, God the Father, and we praise you, God the Son, and we praise you, Holy Spirit, three in one. Your goodness just keeps on running after us to this moment right now. We love you, we need you, we worship you. And let this be our closing thought. Oh, how you love us, your sons and daughters. In Jesus' name I pray, amen, amen? Let's just stand up, let's worship together, here we go.