WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:07.520 Today we are going to take a posture of peace by being at home in God. 2 00:00:07.520 --> 00:00:12.800 Posture is a short audible fist bump to remind you God is with you in everything. 3 00:00:12.800 --> 00:00:18.740 Together we're going to be emboldened to take a daily posture of perfect peace. 4 00:00:18.740 --> 00:00:25.440 In John chapter 14 verses 1 and 3, Jesus says let not your hearts be troubled. 5 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:26.800 Believe in God. 6 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:29.400 Believe also in me. 7 00:00:29.400 --> 00:00:32.360 In my father's house are many rooms. 8 00:00:32.360 --> 00:00:38.480 If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 9 00:00:38.480 --> 00:00:45.320 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself 10 00:00:45.320 --> 00:00:49.840 that where I am, you may also be. 11 00:00:49.840 --> 00:00:55.000 And then in verse 5, Thomas questions Jesus and he says, Lord, we do not know where you 12 00:00:55.000 --> 00:00:56.380 are going. 13 00:00:56.380 --> 00:00:59.580 How can we know the way? 14 00:00:59.580 --> 00:01:06.320 And Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. 15 00:01:06.320 --> 00:01:10.220 No one comes to the father except through me. 16 00:01:10.220 --> 00:01:14.940 If you had known me, you would have known my father also. 17 00:01:14.940 --> 00:01:19.900 From now on, you do know him and have seen him. 18 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:25.460 Now often this scripture when it's referenced, it's interpreted as if Jesus is talking about 19 00:01:25.460 --> 00:01:31.140 heaven, our eternal home, which is accessed after we leave this world through physical 20 00:01:31.140 --> 00:01:32.820 death. 21 00:01:32.820 --> 00:01:37.660 But I don't think Jesus is talking about that heaven here. 22 00:01:37.660 --> 00:01:40.060 Okay, stick with me. 23 00:01:40.060 --> 00:01:47.500 I believe this place that he's talking about is being reunited with our father God. 24 00:01:47.500 --> 00:01:53.660 When Jesus says here, I go to prepare a place, I don't think he's talking about his ascension 25 00:01:53.780 --> 00:01:55.780 that happened after his death and resurrection. 26 00:01:55.780 --> 00:02:00.020 I believe he's talking about going into his death and resurrection, and he's talking about 27 00:02:00.020 --> 00:02:04.700 the place that's going to be accessible to us after he's resurrected. 28 00:02:04.700 --> 00:02:09.419 Because remember, when Jesus died, the veil was torn, the veil representing separation 29 00:02:09.419 --> 00:02:10.780 with God and man. 30 00:02:10.780 --> 00:02:15.260 There is no more separation because of what Jesus did. 31 00:02:15.260 --> 00:02:18.060 Heaven is not our ultimate destination. 32 00:02:18.060 --> 00:02:20.500 The father is. 33 00:02:20.500 --> 00:02:22.540 Now let me say this before I say anything else. 34 00:02:22.540 --> 00:02:23.540 Okay, stick with me. 35 00:02:23.540 --> 00:02:25.100 I believe heaven is a place. 36 00:02:25.100 --> 00:02:26.660 I believe hell is a place. 37 00:02:26.660 --> 00:02:32.340 Okay, I believe when you physically die, you go and live with your father, whichever father 38 00:02:32.340 --> 00:02:38.420 you choose, the father of lights, or the father of lies, you get to choose. 39 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:43.140 But the problem with heaven and hell for that matter, is that many of us have made those 40 00:02:43.140 --> 00:02:49.540 places the ultimate focus and goal of our lives, and probably not meaning to, we've 41 00:02:49.540 --> 00:02:55.700 bypassed the relationship with Father God that we have access to right now, today, in 42 00:02:55.700 --> 00:02:57.460 Jesus Christ. 43 00:02:57.460 --> 00:03:04.380 We have made the Christian life all about a future destination instead of a present relationship. 44 00:03:04.380 --> 00:03:11.340 So we spend our whole lives striving to get to a destination and avoid another one, instead 45 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:13.660 of resting in our relationship with God. 46 00:03:13.660 --> 00:03:16.500 And then we wonder, why are we so stressed out? 47 00:03:16.500 --> 00:03:18.160 Why are we so afraid? 48 00:03:18.160 --> 00:03:21.440 Why do we feel so unsafe all the time? 49 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:29.080 Colossians chapter 2, 10 says, in Christ, we have been brought to fullness. 50 00:03:29.080 --> 00:03:32.800 Life doesn't begin when we get to heaven. 51 00:03:32.800 --> 00:03:36.080 Life began at Jesus. 52 00:03:36.080 --> 00:03:39.340 His fullness is our starting point. 53 00:03:39.340 --> 00:03:45.720 And the Christian life is all about discovering and exploring that fullness in relationship 54 00:03:45.720 --> 00:03:47.240 with God. 55 00:03:47.240 --> 00:03:50.360 God is not waiting for us at the finish line. 56 00:03:50.360 --> 00:03:54.280 He is with us today in the journey. 57 00:03:54.280 --> 00:03:56.400 This is such good news. 58 00:03:56.400 --> 00:03:57.400 Now let's continue reading. 59 00:03:57.400 --> 00:04:00.360 John 14, let's go to verse 18. 60 00:04:00.360 --> 00:04:06.100 Jesus says this, he says, I will not leave you as orphans. 61 00:04:06.100 --> 00:04:10.100 I will not leave you as orphans. 62 00:04:10.100 --> 00:04:12.360 I will come to you. 63 00:04:12.360 --> 00:04:18.440 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me because I 64 00:04:18.440 --> 00:04:19.440 live. 65 00:04:19.440 --> 00:04:21.399 You also will live in that day. 66 00:04:21.399 --> 00:04:26.960 You will know that I am in my father and you are in me and I am in you. 67 00:04:26.960 --> 00:04:28.760 He's talking about oneness here. 68 00:04:28.760 --> 00:04:30.920 He's talking about unity here. 69 00:04:30.920 --> 00:04:36.780 Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me and he who loves me 70 00:04:36.780 --> 00:04:40.320 will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. 71 00:04:40.320 --> 00:04:42.680 He's talking about making a choice here. 72 00:04:42.680 --> 00:04:44.160 Are you going to choose me? 73 00:04:44.160 --> 00:04:49.680 Now Judas, not Iscariot, not the one who betrayed him, said this to Jesus, Lord, how is it that 74 00:04:49.680 --> 00:04:52.980 you will manifest yourself to us and not the world? 75 00:04:52.980 --> 00:04:57.120 And Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love 76 00:04:57.120 --> 00:04:59.920 him and we will come to him and make. 77 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:06.560 our home with Him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words and the word that you hear is 78 00:05:06.560 --> 00:05:12.080 not mine but the Father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still 79 00:05:12.080 --> 00:05:18.080 with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach 80 00:05:18.080 --> 00:05:24.480 you all things and will bring to your remembrance all I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, 81 00:05:25.200 --> 00:05:35.840 my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, 82 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:44.000 neither let them be afraid. Jesus starts out chapter 14 by saying let your hearts not be 83 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:49.280 troubled and then He goes ending the chapter with saying the same thing, do not let your hearts be 84 00:05:49.280 --> 00:05:58.160 troubled, do not be afraid. Now let's remember what Jesus said in verse 3, He says, I'm sorry, 85 00:05:58.160 --> 00:06:05.280 in verse 2 He says, if it were not so I would not have told you. Jesus can't tell you something 86 00:06:05.280 --> 00:06:12.320 that's untrue. So if He's telling you to live unafraid it means it's possible to live unafraid. 87 00:06:12.320 --> 00:06:19.040 So the question is not, can we live unafraid? The question is, how can we live unafraid? 88 00:06:19.920 --> 00:06:26.240 And Jesus tells us in verse 1, He says, let your hearts not be troubled, believe in God, 89 00:06:26.240 --> 00:06:33.920 believe also in me. We live in unafraid by believing in Jesus and believing what He said 90 00:06:33.920 --> 00:06:40.480 is true. Jesus knows the disciples that He's talking to here are going to really struggle 91 00:06:40.480 --> 00:06:46.720 when Jesus is arrested and killed because it's not going to look like the victory Jesus promised. 92 00:06:46.720 --> 00:06:52.320 There's going to be a gap between what Jesus said and what they are seeing. Now remember what we 93 00:06:52.320 --> 00:06:58.080 talked about in last week's episode, you know, making the choice to believe what He said, not 94 00:06:58.080 --> 00:07:05.360 what we see, making our ultimate focus the Word of God and not so much the facts of our circumstances. 95 00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:12.720 Jesus knows that His disciples are going to need to make a choice. They are going to need to choose 96 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:20.880 Him, not their circumstances. And when they make that choice, they are going to live lives directed 97 00:07:20.880 --> 00:07:29.360 by His peace and not dictated to by fear. Let me ask you a question, are you afraid right now? 98 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:37.360 Do you feel unsafe? This has been a huge struggle for me and part of my testimony in overcoming 99 00:07:37.360 --> 00:07:44.480 anxiety. I just always felt unsafe because I used to believe that I was stuck in this world 100 00:07:44.480 --> 00:07:52.480 without a place to land. I do not feel at home in this world, so I felt unprotected and I felt 101 00:07:52.480 --> 00:07:57.920 vulnerable and I felt like I needed to just hold out and survive until I got to heaven because 102 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:05.680 I thought heaven was my home. Therefore, I believed and lived like home was a long ways off. 103 00:08:06.720 --> 00:08:15.280 But heaven is not my home, the Father is my home. Now we live in a world that has chosen a father 104 00:08:15.280 --> 00:08:22.080 that is not our father. And a world filled with people who are fathered by the father of lies 105 00:08:22.080 --> 00:08:29.680 is a world that is unsafe and lacking and to be completely blunt, operating like an abandoned 106 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:37.200 orphan left to defend itself. So the world under that belief system within that fatherhood is 107 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:43.440 convinced that fear is a virtue because the world is desperately trying to protect itself 108 00:08:44.080 --> 00:08:51.600 and the world wants you to be afraid with it. The world wants you to believe that fear is wisdom. 109 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:56.640 And they're wanting you to be afraid because they're trying to identify with someone. 110 00:08:57.360 --> 00:09:01.920 They're trying to feel safe. They want to feel like, hey, we're all in this together. We've all 111 00:09:01.920 --> 00:09:06.400 been abandoned, so we might as well just try our hardest to exist in this abandonment the best we 112 00:09:06.400 --> 00:09:12.960 can. Let's be afraid together. Let's defend ourselves. And if we're not aware, we will get 113 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:19.120 caught in that swirl of the abandonment campaign and believe that we're orphans and that we must 114 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:24.800 protect ourselves, we must provide for ourselves, and we must create our own identity. But Jesus 115 00:09:24.800 --> 00:09:33.600 said in John 14, you are not an orphan. You are not an orphan. You have not been abandoned. You 116 00:09:33.600 --> 00:09:43.680 have a father and he's a good father. He is your source. He is your home. He is your safety. You 117 00:09:43.680 --> 00:09:49.840 don't feel at home here in this world because you're not of this world, but you are at home 118 00:09:49.840 --> 00:09:57.440 in God while you live here. So you don't have to abandon your peace. You don't have to live afraid 119 00:09:57.440 --> 00:09:59.920 and you don't have to wait for heaven in order 120 00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:04.880 order to live in joy and peace and purpose. 121 00:10:04.880 --> 00:10:07.200 You don't have to wait to reach heaven 122 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:09.960 to breathe in his goodness and live out his peace. 123 00:10:09.960 --> 00:10:11.780 You can do that today. 124 00:10:13.360 --> 00:10:15.680 There are Christians out there, sadly, 125 00:10:15.680 --> 00:10:19.760 who believe that the best they can do here on earth 126 00:10:19.760 --> 00:10:24.440 in this world is to survive by defending themselves 127 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:26.760 against the world, the flesh, and the devil. 128 00:10:26.760 --> 00:10:29.200 And they just wanna survive until they can make it 129 00:10:29.200 --> 00:10:32.240 to heaven because they believe Jesus left 130 00:10:32.240 --> 00:10:34.960 and he's waiting for them somewhere in the distant future 131 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:36.800 for us to get to him. 132 00:10:36.800 --> 00:10:40.340 But the children of God are not abandoned. 133 00:10:40.340 --> 00:10:42.640 We are abiding. 134 00:10:42.640 --> 00:10:44.240 We are one with God. 135 00:10:44.240 --> 00:10:46.560 He lives in us and we live in him. 136 00:10:46.560 --> 00:10:49.480 Heaven is not our home, he is. 137 00:10:49.480 --> 00:10:51.160 Heaven is a wonderful place 138 00:10:51.160 --> 00:10:53.200 and we will be there someday soon. 139 00:10:53.200 --> 00:10:55.280 But we don't have to wait for heaven 140 00:10:55.280 --> 00:10:57.360 to live in its reality today. 141 00:10:57.400 --> 00:10:59.060 Jesus brought heaven to earth 142 00:10:59.060 --> 00:11:03.680 and we are living out heaven here on earth if we choose to. 143 00:11:03.680 --> 00:11:05.600 I have good news for you today. 144 00:11:05.600 --> 00:11:08.560 You're not fatherless and you're not homeless. 145 00:11:08.560 --> 00:11:12.100 You are safe in him. 146 00:11:12.100 --> 00:11:14.640 You don't have to wait to reach heaven 147 00:11:14.640 --> 00:11:16.700 to breathe in his goodness. 148 00:11:16.700 --> 00:11:19.240 You can do it today, okay? 149 00:11:19.240 --> 00:11:23.400 Because we are at home with God because he is our home. 150 00:11:23.400 --> 00:11:24.800 So today I wanna encourage you, 151 00:11:24.800 --> 00:11:27.080 if you're living afraid, 152 00:11:27.760 --> 00:11:29.000 if you're feeling unsafe, 153 00:11:29.880 --> 00:11:32.840 there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, 154 00:11:32.840 --> 00:11:37.560 but there is an invitation to live from a better reality 155 00:11:37.560 --> 00:11:39.480 and that is reality of his kingdom. 156 00:11:39.480 --> 00:11:42.120 So I wanna encourage you today, believe. 157 00:11:42.120 --> 00:11:45.000 Make the choice to believe what he said 158 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:47.500 over what you may be seeing or experiencing 159 00:11:47.500 --> 00:11:49.120 in your current circumstances 160 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:52.560 and allow that peace to infiltrate 161 00:11:52.560 --> 00:11:55.280 the facts of your circumstances today.