WWUTT 953 My Peace I Give to You?

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Jesus said to his disciples, My peace I give to you, not as the world gives.

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So this is not a kind of peace that we would feel like in our bodies, but it is a peace that surpasses all understanding, when we understand the text.

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This is When We Understand The Text, a daily Bible commentary that we may be equipped for every good work in Jesus Christ our

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Lord. Please tell others about our ministry at www .utt .com.

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Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. I am a little congested here.

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I'm not even sure how long my voice is going to hold out, but we'll see how long we can go. We're hopefully finishing up John 14 today.

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I'll start in verse 25 and read to the end of the chapter. Jesus said to his disciples,

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These things I have spoken to you while I am still here. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the

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Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

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Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do

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I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you,

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I am going away and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the

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Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.

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I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the

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Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

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Rise, let us go from here. One of my favorite verses in the

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Gospel of John is here in verse 27, with Jesus saying, peace I leave with you.

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My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

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Understanding what we're talking about when we read about the peace of God in the

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Bible, this really became a turning point for me as a Christian. Knowing that we're not just talking about a relaxation in the body, a state of mind or being physically that we're at peace, or describing our living condition, or the place where we live, or something of that nature.

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I think the way that in our cultural vernacular, the way that peace gets used most often is the peace sign, or peace man, holding up two fingers, and saying something like, you live your way,

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I'll live life my way, don't tell me that I'm wrong, we'll just have peace with each other. Don't try to legislate morality, which is a total farce, because the left legislates their morality, and the right legislates their morality, and then you've got all kinds of gray middle areas as well.

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Everyone wants their morality legislated, but the way that we come and think of peace is just an absence of conflict.

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If things are easy for me, then I'm at peace. If you give me what it is that I want, if society and the government is able to provide for me all the things that I demand, then we'll have peace.

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Then everything is going to be just as it needs to be. And then some are content with not having peace at all.

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It's like they almost live for conflict, just to make things hard on other people. And for them, that might be a sense of peace.

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I feel the best when I am in conflict. So this is the way that we typically use peace in our culture, in the world today, just an absence of conflict, and then we have peace.

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When countries are not warring with one another, there's peace between those countries. Peace, in this case, is going to be something physiological.

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It's going to be something that we experience in our bodies, or something that we experience in our environment or our living situation.

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But when we're reading about peace in the Bible, Paul describes it in Philippians 4 as a peace that surpasses all understanding.

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Let me start in chapter 4, verse 4 of the book of Philippians. Paul says, Rejoice in the

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Lord always, I will say again, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone.

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The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything.

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But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

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And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

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What are we talking about there when we are talking about the peace of God that surpasses all understanding?

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Well, this peace that we're talking about means that we are not in conflict with God.

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So, yes, peace is an absence of conflict, but in the spiritual sense, in our relationship between us and God, it means that God's wrath is not upon us, and we are not fighting and rebelling against God.

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Peace with God means that he is not holding our sins against us. Christ has atoned for our sins.

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We have received that atonement by faith, and now we have right standing with the

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Father. Once enemies of God, now we have been adopted, and we are sons and daughters of God.

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And there is nothing to fear of God's judgment, because the wrath of God was satisfied with Christ's death on the cross.

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Through his resurrection from the grave, we know that the sting of death, which is the wages of sin, has been taken away.

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Though the body will die, our soul will go to live forever with God in glory. And then a day is coming when

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Christ returns, and even our bodies will be resurrected, and be made to be like his glorious body, and our souls reunited with those bodies.

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And then we will see him as he is, because we will be made to be like him. 1 John 3 .2

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All of this plays into an understanding of having peace with God. And like I said, this was really a turning point for me in my faith.

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I can't remember exactly when I came into this understanding, but it was sometime after 2007. It was somewhere between 07 and 2010.

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And it was after a very, very difficult chapter in my life, and I just did not feel relaxed.

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I felt stressed out. I felt depressed. I felt completely unable to make my life work, to get it going in the direction that I wanted it to go, to make things come together seamlessly, to get events to happen without conflict or drama.

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It seemed like I attracted drama. I couldn't get away from it. And so I felt very much not at peace.

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And yet I'm reading about peace in the Bible, that God will give us peace. I remember a friend of mine.

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This was sometime in the mid -2000s, but a friend of mine knew that I was kind of under duress at the time, just kind of felt like my life wasn't going anywhere.

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And she sent me a verse from Psalm 4 .8 that said, In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone,

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O Lord, make me dwell in safety. And I remember being very touched that she would send me that passage.

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At that particular time, I was actually battling some insomnia. So that was part of the reason why she chose that verse in particular.

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And I was very touched by it, and it was thoughtful, but I just didn't feel it. So, great.

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In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for the Lord makes me dwell in safety, but I just didn't feel that peace.

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Or Psalm 29 .11, May the Lord give strength to his people. May the Lord bless his people with peace.

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Okay, so peace is a blessing. It is something that God grants. Getting warmer here.

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Psalm 37 .37, Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace.

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Psalm 72 .7, In his days may the righteous flourish, and peace abound till the moon be no more.

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So apparently the Bible is even talking about how we can have a peace practically without limits.

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That there's never going to be any continued fight or battle with conflict even as we live in this life.

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I was reading passages like this, but I couldn't ever make sense of them. I remember this one too,

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Psalm 85 .10, Steadfast love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss each other.

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Well that was a little more helpful. So when I walk in righteousness, then I'm able to have peace.

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Now I wasn't actually walking in righteousness, I was doing some sinful things and then trying to justify those actions.

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So that would make sense as to why I wasn't feeling peace, but peace still didn't make sense to me.

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I was still trying to conceptualize peace as a relaxation of my body.

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Like I've got no cares or worries or concerns. I don't have any more debt. I know exactly where my life is going.

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Everything is as it should be. I've got the car I want. I'm sitting out back on a freshly mowed lawn in my lawn chair with a lemonade and it's 72 degrees outside.

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You know, ah, I'm at peace. That's the way that I was conceptualizing peace.

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And so expecting that God was going to give me that, it was kind of like a prosperity theology.

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I wasn't exactly asking for big houses or nice cars, but there was still a sense of prosperity light.

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That God was going to give me the desires of my heart, and I would therefore be at peace.

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And the desires of my heart being, of course, according to my flesh and not according to the will of God. But then, like I said,

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I came into a very stressful period of my life in the latter 2000s and could not seem to find that peace and was wondering why it was eluding me.

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And it was somewhere in my studies, somewhere of listening to sermons by guys like Paul Washer and John Piper and R .C.

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Sproul and Votie Bauckham. Somewhere in there, I remember hearing from someone, and I don't even remember who it was that said this now, but coming to an understanding of peace in the biblical sense is that we have peace with God.

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Our sins are not being held against us anymore. We can rest fully in Christ, and this peace that we have, knowing that we have eternal life with God and our past transgressions are not being held against us, we're not going to be judged by them because Jesus has forgiven us of our sins.

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This creates a peace in our spirits, and though we will feel vexed in our bodies, people will hurt our feelings.

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We will get kind of stressed out when things seem to be spiraling out of our control or we don't know what the future holds or maybe we lose a loved one or somebody that we trusted stabs us in the back and everything just seems to be unraveling and falling apart all around us.

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Of course we're going to face those things because we live in a fallen world, a world that has been subjected to futility because of our sin against God.

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This is the curse that God has placed on all creation. We can feel stressed out just because our body's getting older and our body's not able to handle some of the pressure it was able to handle when we were younger.

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Yet even in the midst of all of this, there is a peace in our spirits because we know ultimately our reward, what we have waiting for us, is eternal life with God in heaven.

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And so all this stuff on this world, on this globe that is causing us such pain and trouble and tribulation, we know it's temporary and it isn't going to last.

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All of it's going to go away, and we don't even have to take it with us when the Lord brings us into his heavenly kingdom.

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And just knowing that and resting upon the promises of God that he has given us in his

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Son and sealed in us by his Holy Spirit gives us peace. And it may not be a total peace in your body.

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You look at a guy like Charles Spurgeon, and there was probably not a man at that time in that area of England preaching the sermons that he preached.

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There probably wasn't a man that understood the peace of God through the promises of Christ better than Spurgeon did.

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And yet he lived a very stressful end of his life, and it was probably the stress that eventually killed him in his 50s, a very young age, considering.

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So it's not that the peace that we have may cause us a relaxation in our body. I think that it can.

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It's not guaranteed. But we have this hope and this assurance that is set before us in Christ that our sins are forgiven, that the trials and tribulations of this life don't go with us, and we have the promise of this eternal kingdom to come where there is no more crying, no more tears, no more pain, no more sickness, disease, death, or dying.

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All the former things will have passed away. We will no longer have corruptible bodies, but we will be incorruptible in these perfected bodies that have been made like our very creator so that we might dwell with him forever in glory.

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These are the promises that we have, and so therefore this causes us peace, certainly a peace in our souls, but maybe it also filters into a peace that you have in your body, because no matter what happens to you in this life, you know that heaven will be your reward.

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So Jesus says to his disciples, Peace I leave with you. My peace

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I give to you. Assurance of salvation. Knowing the promises of God that he has given to his disciples, and remember that this has come right after he has said,

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I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, and he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

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So remembering the words of Christ to his disciples is what is going to grow in them this peace that they have, a peace that surpasses all understanding.

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It surpasses all understanding because it's peace with God, and it surpasses all understanding because it's not peace that we would experience in any worldly pleasure or possession, but it is a peace that is eternal.

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We will always have that peace with God. We know that it is promised us even here in this life, and we will certainly be experiencing it forever in glory with our

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Heavenly Father. So this is not a peace as the world gives. It's not something psychological or psychosomatic.

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It's not based upon our circumstances, but it is the joy of the

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Lord, which is our strength. It's not as the world gives you peace. It's as I give you peace, so let not your hearts be troubled.

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Don't fall into despair. Don't despair in the things that you go through in this life.

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You will be delivered from them. Christ has promised us that he would. So do not consider it strange when you face this fiery trial as though something strange were happening to you, as Peter said, but rejoice in that you've been considered worthy to endure these sufferings.

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James said in James 1 that we rejoice whenever we face trials of many kinds, knowing that these trials that we're going through are producing steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that we would rely all the more on Christ and his promises for us.

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So this is a peace not according to the world, but it is according to Christ and what he has guaranteed.

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Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Do not be afraid of what the world can do to you, because as we read in Romans 8, if God is for us, who can be against us?

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Jesus goes on with his disciples, You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you.

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If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the

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Father is greater than I. Now Jesus here is not saying that because you didn't rejoice when I told you that I'm leaving, because remember the disciples didn't want him to leave, they wanted him to stay there with them.

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And when he says to them, if you loved me, you would have rejoiced, just because they didn't jump for joy, this is not Jesus saying, well,

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I guess you don't love me. It's that their love has not matured. They don't love Christ with the

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Holy Spirit living within their hearts, because the Holy Spirit has not been given yet. So that's what Jesus simply means here.

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He's talking about a mature love that they don't yet have. So if you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I'm going to the

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Father. That means that Jesus will be with them wherever they go. Right now he can only be with them in body, and as he's going to send them out into the world, it wouldn't be possible for him to be with all 12 of his apostles wherever it is that they might be spread out in the empire, preaching the gospel of Christ.

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But as he's going back to the Father, seated at the right hand of the throne of God, now he's once again in a position of omnipresence, and he can be with all of them no matter where they are.

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I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. You will see your

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Savior seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And in that we rejoice, knowing that Christ, our advocate, is interceding for us before the

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Father, seated at his right hand. Verse 29, And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe.

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You will have faith. You will not doubt. You will not despair. You will know that everything that I have promised you and everything that I have said to you is going to happen.

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Will happen. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming.

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Of course, that's a reference to Satan. And Satan has entered into whom? He has entered into Judas Iscariot.

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So when they go into the garden, it's going to be Judas with the mob that's going to come and turn Jesus over to the priests, the

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Pharisees, and the small army that they have with them. And this is all going to be the working of Satan.

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But Jesus clarifies, he has no claim over me. The reason why

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Satan is going to be successful at getting Jesus arrested, tried, and put to death is because, verse 31,

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Jesus said, I do as the Father has commanded me. So Jesus is laying his own life down for the sheep, as he talked about with his disciples back in John 10.

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I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the

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Father. Rise, let us go from here. And that's where we'll pick up next week when we come back to our study of the

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Gospel of John, beginning in chapter 15. Let's conclude with prayer. Our Heavenly Father, we thank you for the peace that we have been given in our

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Lord Jesus Christ. And may we not take this for granted. May it not just be something that we think that we always have and we just kind of cast it by the wayside.

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But let us dwell on this peace every day and rejoice in our Heavenly Father that we have it. That in you, our sins are forgiven because of what

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Christ has done for us. And in this, in the forgiveness of sins that Christ has bestowed upon us, satisfying the wrath of God, the atonement with his bloodshed on the cross, we know that we have peace with God.

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We have fellowship with God. You are not burning in rage against us, but you are receiving us as sons and daughters in your precious love and with very great promises of a kingdom that is to come.

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And so I pray knowing this, knowing this in the promises of Christ that we've been given, it stirs in our hearts a peace that surpasses all understanding and giving us rest even in this life as we wait for the appearance of our

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Lord and Savior. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. You've been listening to When We Understand the

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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, Gabe will be going through a New Testament study.

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Then on Thursday, we look at an Old Testament book. On Friday, we take questions from the listeners and viewers.