John 16:16-33, Are You Ready?, Dr. John B. Carpenter

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John 16:16-33 Are You Ready?

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John chapter 16 verses 16 to 33 hear the word of the
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Lord a Little while and you will see me no longer and again a little while and you will see me
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So some of his disciples said to one another What is this that he says to us a little while and you will not see me and again a little while and you will
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See me and because I'm going to the father So they were saying what does he mean by a little while we do not know what he is talking about Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him
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So he said to them is this what you are asking yourselves? What I meant by saying a little while and you will not see me and again a little while and you will see me
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Truly truly I say to you you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice
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You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy When a woman is giving birth she has sorrow because her hour has come but when she has delivered the baby
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She no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world so also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and No one will take your joy from you in that day.
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You will ask nothing of me truly truly I say to you whatever you ask of the father in my name.
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He will give it to you until now You have asked nothing in my name asked and you will receive that your joy may be full.
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I Have said these things to you in figures of speech the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of Speech, but will tell you plainly about the father in that day
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You will ask in my name and I do not say to you that I will ask the father on your behalf
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For the father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God I came from the father and have come into the world and now
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I am leaving the world and I'm going to the father the disciples said ah Now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech
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Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you
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This is why we believe that you came from God Jesus answered them Do you now believe behold the hour is coming indeed.
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It has come When you will be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone
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Yet, I'm not alone for the father is with me I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace in the world
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You will have tribulation but take heart. I Have overcome the world
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May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his Holy Word Well, are you ready?
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And we sung the songs We've listened to the scripture Now you should be ready for it to be explained and applied to you.
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Are you? Well getting ready is one of the tricks you learn in life one of the skills you develop
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You need to know how to get ready in the morning Maybe for work give it a to go to sleep at night Go to get ready for bed or to get ready before you exercise when
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I ran track I had to learn how to get ready to run, you know Just go up there and start running as fast as you can
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I once saw a woman sprinter on our team start to sprint without adequately Getting ready and I just knew
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I remember watching her. That's no she's going to pull a muscle and she did She didn't get ready
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You might need to learn how to get ready for church They say Sunday morning worship is a
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Saturday night decision with our Sunday school now online You can use that to get ready some of you work at night
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And so on Saturday nights, you might want to try to get ready for church However, you can get off of work earlier if you can if it's at all possible, maybe read the
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Bible Maybe read the passage. We're gonna preach on Sunday morning pray try to get to bed earlier
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How do you get other people ready? That's even harder, isn't it? You want to get your children ready for life?
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If you're a teacher you get other people's children ready There's things coming in life that we want them to be ready for Well, they need an education at least some kind of education
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So we send them to school teachers really have to think carefully about what these students need
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What do they need preparation for what do they need to have to be ready for life? Well, they need
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English they need basic math. That's a noble task of course Some Christian parents in our day are a bit suspicious of what other things the schools might be teaching them that they don't really need
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To be ready or another hand some others or maybe also at the same time Think those are kids are exceptional and the public schools aren't meeting the needs of those kids and so they decide to homeschool their kids and we can sympathize
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Mary and I can sympathize with that because since we Home school. Well, I'm we meaning like mostly
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Mary like mostly like 95 % Mary homeschool our kids until high school, but we realized that if we just did that and Didn't expose them to other people other kids on their adults, you know
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Just insulated them at home and maybe some in church. Well, they might not be prepared for dealing with people
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So we constantly had our boys in sports and Cub Scouts musical lessons awanas
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Martial arts, you know, basically whatever we could find Sports can be a good way to learn how to work with people
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Sometimes people who are irritating, you know on your team, but they're not very good team workers or who are competing against you
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How to handle success or loss. I first put our boys in baseball because I wanted them to experience what it's like to lose and So they didn't grow up to be sore losers to my sort of disappointment
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The first baseball team they were on went undefeated How do you prepare people for the future in the last year of my father's life?
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He kept a journal in which he wrote some about whether his family was prepared for a future without him What if you were dying?
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How would you think are you married people how would you prepare your spouse for a future without you or anyone else who might depend
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On you. What about your children? You can get life insurance Hopefully to take care of financial needs and that could be a responsible thing to do
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One of my favorite TV shows Breaking Bad Starts with a high school chemistry teacher named Walter White being diagnosed with lung cancer terminal lung cancer
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But only about he's only given like a year or two to live and hasn't managed to save up much money For his family on a teacher's salary and his his family is not ready
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For him to die and so he decides to put his chemistry expertise to some use they will make money
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To prepare for when he's gone turns out to be very successful at it And what he's of course what he does with it is make drugs.
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It's it's that his evil decision is so Responsible in a way even loving kind of it makes him so sympathetic
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What would you be willing to do to prepare your family for the future That's what
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Jesus has been doing here in John from the beginning of chapter 13 where he took up the towel
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He washed the disciples feet to now this four solid chapters of Instruction and all of it in the last few hours after the
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Lord's Supper All of that in these chapters here before his arrest and all of it meant to prepare his disciples
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For what's coming to make them ready? This is all about getting them ready and he does that here at the end of all that instruction
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Just before that last prayer in four major parts first the realization second the exaltation third petition and finally tribulation first realization to be ready
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They need to realize that Jesus is leaving Now so far they've been in denial
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Right psychologists called denial the first stage of grief Denial is the first stage of grief the refusal to accept the fact that you're losing someone
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Or maybe you've already lost someone some people even though the person the funeral is gone.
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They can't accept that they've that they're dead or Maybe that you're losing your life get a terminal diagnosis
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Some people refuse to take the medicine they need that I could actually save them or give them a few more years of life or the
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Surgery or the therapy that they need because they're in denial about the diagnosis
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They just refuse to accept it then add to that for here for these Apostles Their religious indoctrination that the
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Messiah would be a king who overcame all their enemies. That's what they're expecting Jesus to be He's got overcome
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The Romans and lead them to triumph and it's so because of all that it's hard for these Apostles to accept what
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Jesus is saying here Now here Jesus is preparing his disciples by making them face facts
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To come to the realization that they are going to be without him. He's assured them
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That he's not abandoning them as orphans. Remember that he's sending the Holy Spirit Remember the word paraclete the helper to be in them
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He said that's to your advantage In other words, it's better for you to have the Holy Spirit inside you rather than just having him
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Jesus beside them but still it's a bitter pill to swallow and so now he speaks plainly a little while and You will see me no longer
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He's going away by dying in a little while He's about to be in just a couple of short hours arrested crucified and his body put into tune indeed
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It's a very little while In fact, it's by the end of the day in which he's talking and again a little while and you will see me
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At that they don't quite understand Then he'll be raised from the dead it appear to them and so they will see him
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But they're confused by this too and they're bewildered minds full of full of grief and anxiety and fear and Denial, they can't even accept that he'll be gone for a little while and so they mumble among themselves
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What's all this talk? About a little while. What's he mean? Now first they need to realize that he will be gone in death or for a short time
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He's preparing them for that so that when it happens By the end of this day, they won't be totally crushed now
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Some people think we need to keep the reality of death from people kind of just deny it Pretend it doesn't exist keep it from kids, especially
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Insulate them from it now, maybe for very young ones They can't handle it yet But there comes a time when they need to learn that death is real come to the realization of the bitterness of death
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I think the aunt who told my teenage cousin not to look at the hearse being loaded with the corpse What wasn't preparing her for reality?
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I wonder whether God made our pets Short -lived, you know, he could have made dogs where they live a hundred years
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Why didn't do that? It made our pets short -lived so that eventually we'll have to bury them as a way to prepare us for what's coming
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On Sunday morning about ten years ago on our way to church. We found our dog dead beside the road and wasn't hit by cars
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Started to walk away and just lie down and died and we were busy all day that Sunday But the next day
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Monday the boys were in school But I purposely waited for until our boys were back from school and we buried her together
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You have to come to the realization that death is real and that's what
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Jesus is doing here with his own death Of course his death was only for a little while and so he declares in verse 20 truly truly
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I say to you the other was this is solemn. It's truly truly. This is serious. This is real.
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You will weep and lament realize that Don't live in this fantasy world.
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We're all insulated from from death and disappointments I don't like going to funerals and it's all triumph and it's all like happiness.
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This is a celebration No, it's not come to the reality. There's some bitterness to it not to make matters worse, but the world will rejoice
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Now there's a snapshot of the world. It's what he means when he says the world the world is here rejoicing when Jesus's people are weeping and lamenting
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The world is a society of people in rebellion against God and so they are rejoicing When they think they destroyed the kingdom of God by killing its king
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They're happy when you're sad Now, are you prepared to live in a world?
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That's that depraved you realize that speech of realization Do you realize the world around you is that opposed to you?
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They're what makes you weep and lament makes them happy and vice versa They're that opposed to Christ that they're actually made glad by his death.
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Are you ready to go back into that world? After the service is over. It's that completely opposed to what you love
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Now the Jesus is with us physically that he died for us is what we're supposed to come to terms with you know
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The Lord's Supper we have to do something This is what Jesus himself gave us to do something that impacts our senses not just words
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But something we we can taste it. We can feel it. We see the bread in the cup Just as Jesus could have been literally seen by us if we were with him
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We can touch it just as Jesus could have literally been touched We taste it we hear the words and all of this is to impact us so that we come to the realization of what he did
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This shard of bread This blood like juice is like his blood
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Yet some still don't get it As though this is something we do for God To earn something from him or that he really is in the bread in the juice physically still
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But Paul said that we do this to proclaim the Lord's death Until he comes implying that he is not physically with us
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Not in the bread in the juice. We need that realization Now, of course now we can face that realization because we have the helper.
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We have the Holy Spirit with us He leads us into all truth. Remember the Lord Jesus told us just before this passage that the spirit of truth
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Has come as part of the spirit. He's a spirit of truth. He doesn't inspire Falsehood or just glib sayings that make you feel better, but are just not true
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He's not behind that. He's behind truth He guided the Apostle to all truth in verse 13 so that we can have a perfect a complete
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New Testament And now he is active among us He's taking what is from Jesus his words his teachings like this at John chapter 16, and he's declaring it to us
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He's inspiring it. He's illuminating it As though we can hear
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Jesus speaking to us through them still And so we realize that even though we don't have
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Jesus beside us We have the spirit inside us.
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I remember he said that's to our advantage So we can be ready
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Now you ready second Exaltation Now as dreary and sobering is the realization of death particularly
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Christ death sounds We need the exaltation Jesus brings we need the joy
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And the second half of verse 20 you will be sorrowful That's the reality of our life in this world
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But your sorrow will be turned to joy because of the resurrection
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Because of the little while of his death that little while is over and he's no longer dead
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That's where we live. Now. We don't live in the little while of Sorrow, we live in the long eternal while of his resurrection
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And so we don't need to pretend that we're living through the passion again You know during Lent Again, as though there's a season we need to go through this season of sorrow again.
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No, we're in the age of resurrection We're in the age of joy. We remember the sorrow we remember it
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But we have now The joy even now when we have to face death
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We can have the joy of knowing that eventually that the sorrow of death will be turned to an a long gone memory and We'll have only joy
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That at the end there will be for us Exaltation not depression not disillusion
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Jesus compares it to a woman giving birth. He says in verse 21. She has sorrow because her hour has come
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Jesus has already admitted that his soul is troubled because his hour has come But for the joy what's on the other side of that agony the shame that cold hard death
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He went through the sorrow and came back out alive again a pregnant woman might be apprehensive
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Maybe nervous, but the pain that she's going to go through even today with modern anesthesia and medicines
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Pregnancy involves morning sickness and giving birth that gives at least some discomfort But most mothers don't think of the pain they went through to deliver the baby
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But only of the joy of a newborn child with them I never yet heard a mother saying, you know, I went through all that pain and all
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I got was this lousy, baby You know, she's gonna talk like that, you know It's not like my parents were at the beach and all
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I got was this lousy teacher not nothing like that I went through pain and childbirth and all I got was this baby No, they think only now of the baby forget the pain of the childbirth and so will be with us about death
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Sure, we may have to face it now, but there will come a time of a pure exaltation in which we forget about yeah,
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I remember way back those those old days of that that death But now it's all gone.
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I have this resurrection so they remember he's speaking first of the Apostles will experience some sorrow for a little while as Jesus is dead
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But he says in verse 22, I will see you again notice his emphasis now is on him
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Seeing them he says I Will see you Now sure, they will see him.
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But most importantly he will see them because he will be raised from the dead. I Will see you again implies is going to be raised and then you're then when that happens
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He's raised your hearts will rejoice and so they did when Jesus appeared to them in chapter 20 verse 20
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John here He's locked they're locked in a room because they're traumatized They're living in fear that they would be the next ones hauled off and crucified and then
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Jesus appears to them he sees them and They were glad and he says at the end of verse 21.
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No one will take your joy from you eternal joy Now that's where we live right now we can remember the sorrow and We remember in the
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Lord's Supper but now we live in the era of Exaltation the joy that Jesus gives to all who believe in him, which cannot be taken away because his resurrection
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Can't be taken away. It can't be undone. Can't be canceled What Ended our joy before the sorrow of his death
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Has now been ended Jesus has risen from the dead and begun the end of death now
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We might still have to realize it we still might have to taste it, but we live in the era in Which its end?
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has begun and It's an era of joy Are you ready?
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third petition Jesus prepares us for what's coming for life ahead by telling us to petition the father other words pray ask
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God For what you need? now the era of joy is an era of prayer and An era of our having a direct relationship of the father which results in our asking him
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When we need something Starting verse 23. He says in that day. He's looking forward now
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He's talking to these disciples in that day after that little while when he's gone and then he's raised
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So that day he's talking about here is our day now. So we're living in that day He's talking about after a little while while Jesus has gone and down he's now raised up in our day
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You will ask nothing of me I'm speaking directly to these disciples. He's telling them that when he's raised and gone no more.
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Will they come to him and ask? You know him as Jesus to get
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God to do for them what they need But that they'll be able to write relate directly to the father.
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That's why now we normally pray to the father in the name of Jesus Now that's name of Jesus that's not just a tagline
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It's not kind of a magic word we tack on at the end of a prayer. It finally makes it work It's a statement that you know,
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I'm praying this to directly to the father because of my
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Association with Jesus because I believe in him because I'm seeking to further
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The mission that he started I'm with him. We're saying when we say in the name of Jesus.
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I'm with I'm with your son father That's why you listening to me To be ready pray in verse 23
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Another of those serious, you know, truly truly pay attention to this Truly truly
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I say to you Whatever you ask of the father in my name Always because you're associated with him because you're with him
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He will give it to you So we ask again in the name in Jesus's name for his glory to accomplish his
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Mission we're with him for his mission seeking first his kingdom like when a policeman says stop in the name of the law
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He means that you know, he doesn't have a right to tell you to stop just because he wants you to stop But to fulfill the law
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Because the law is with him because he that policeman is on the side of the law He could tell you to stop to achieve the purpose the laws for So here when we pray to for the purpose
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Jesus came in the name of Jesus for his purpose For him to achieve his mission Remember his mission gathering the lost sheep into one seeking and saving the lost bringing in the kingdom of God Then when we do that, we can pray directly to the father and he says
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The father will give it give what we ask He'll achieve
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Jesus's mission he will glorify God And so Jesus tells us in this time after his resurrection a time of a realizing sure come to the realization sure there is death
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Still for a little while longer, but there is joy That his end has begun
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And so now we petition the father personally we ask he says invites us to ask to pray
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Why? No prayer can seem like such a chore Sometimes it's exercising washing the dishes
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Like it's no fun So something you got to do check it off your list But Jesus advised us to pray so that here's the purpose of our praying in Jesus's name
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So that on the words because in verse 24 our joy May be full
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So he's inviting us to pray To make us happy Notice it's not though.
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It's not pray for joy. It's not Pray to be happier Pray to be relieved of depression
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Although you may need to do that from time to time so that you can fulfill your mission Jesus's mission, but pray in Jesus's name for his mission and the result of that of you being so you're so wrapped up and furthering what
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Jesus came to do Because you're praying in his name you're praying for his cause praying for him because you're associated with him
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You're so wrapped up in that that directs what you pray for the result of that for you
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Is joy? You will be in CS Lewis's words surprised
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By joy, you know surprise. I wasn't looking for it. I thought I was going after I was going after Jesus's mission for God's kingdom and That's what
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I got. What a surprise joy You didn't pursue it directly So many other people do looking for the money that they are sure that will make them happy the big house the nice car
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The relationship the thrills know you pursued Jesus to further his mission for his kingdom to come and you're surprised then by joy someone said
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Happiness is like a butterfly and when you chase it, it will elude you But if you turn your attention to other things
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Here Jesus, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder
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Here Jesus is saying that other thing that you can chase that will make you happy. It's not happiness itself
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But his mission is himself. It's prayer in Jesus's name for his sake to further what he came to do
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So We pray now directly to the father because now we have a relationship Directly with him
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It's not just one of these modern slogans people like people do like it. You have a relationship with God. It's true
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It's what he's talking about here up to now The disciples have been relating only to Jesus if they want something or needed to know something
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Well, they asked Jesus their relationship to God. The father was here was up to now Only through Jesus, but here
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Jesus says in verse 23 that in that day again, that's our day So I talk about us now. This is our condition.
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You will ask nothing of me In other words, you'll ask the father In verse 24 up till now you have asked nothing from the father
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Right disciples before Jesus is raised. They haven't been asking the father in my name Because you haven't been relating to God the father but only only with Jesus the
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Son Now that he's going away after that little while, but he's gone away That will change so in verse 25
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He is going to tell them plainly about the father then in verse 26 in that day our day
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You will ask the father in my name So that's what we do now
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That's why we do it. We ask the father directly we go directly to him in Jesus name Of course
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And then Jesus says is not that we should pray to him pray to the son pray to Jesus to get to the father
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He says I do not say to you that I will ask the father on your behalf I may sound a little difficult think about that.
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I Do not say to you. I was what are you talking about Jesus? He said I'm not saying to you that I'll ask the father on your behalf.
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I'm not talking about that I'll tell you about praying to me to get to the father Now, yes, Jesus is our great high priest praying for us as we can see in the next chapter, but he says
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I'm not saying Pray to me To get the father to do what you want.
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That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about a direct relationship with with God Something Muslims by the way, they deny that we can have we can obey him
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But you don't have a relationship with him. Jesus says we can't have it. Jesus eliminates the need for intermediaries between us and God Because of what
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Jesus does here. We don't need someone else other than God to get to the father
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Now something the father is kind of cold. He's distant and We need to ask the mediators, you know who are little closer to God than we are
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To help us get to him, you know, it helps it's not what you know It's who you know, you have connections can get you what you want.
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Some people think the same as with God got to have connections Get on his good side someone who's already on his good side for us
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I'm not on his good side, but I know someone who is, you know, Peter or maybe with Mary and so they pray to the
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Saints or to Mary and she's one of his favorites Because Jesus the Son will do almost anything his mother asked him to do and of course didn't the father's gonna do what the son?
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Asked him to do. It's the way you kind of go up the chain of command Well, that's the way many people believe but here
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Jesus says that we can go directly To the father. He's not cold. He's not distant indeed in verse 27.
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He says for the father Himself Loves you. It's not as always
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I Son, I love you The father can't stand you but still the father will give you what you want
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If I if I asked him to but just because he loves me so much, but he hates you No, it's not it at all the father himself
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Notice the emphasis himself Not because the son coaxes him
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Certainly not because Jesus's mother talks him into it. That doesn't happen at all Our relationship is directly with the father the father loves us he says because we love
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Jesus and we believe that he came from God and Then Jesus here at the end of the last lesson to the disciples the last few minutes.
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He is with them Preparing them for what's ahead summarizes his mission in verse 28
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You look at that in verse 28. You want to know what Jesus would describe his mission like how we would describe it
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There it is verse 28. I came from the father Notice, he's the active one
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He's not just passively sent. He was sent but he's not just that he actually he came
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I came of my own will He actively came and have come into the world
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He willingly came into this realm where the prince of this world Satan rules and he overcame
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Him and now I am leaving the world through the cross
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To pay for our sins the resurrection to triumph over death the ascension to send the
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Holy Spirit to us now Do you believe that if so, the father loves you and invites you to speak directly to him?
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relate directly to him Are you ready?
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Are you ready for tribulation? That's one more thing. You need to know We will have tribulation
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The disciples finally see That Jesus is speaking plainly to them Prove it is really come from God.
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They believe finally To all these years. He's been with them and these four solid chapters of instruction on these last few hours.
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They believe they say But then in verse 32 the time is coming Presently, in fact, it has already come the wheels are already in motion when you will be scattered
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Jesus says they will flee Because they aren't ready for what is coming They've been thinking
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They signed up for triumph. They signed up for success for glory They're gonna be high officials in Jesus's palace.
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They're gonna be his mighty man. They're gonna be generals at his side Cabinet ministers in his cabinet.
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He's he's been trying to prepare them for what is really coming showing them that what they need by washing their feet
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They need the Holy Spirit inside them they seem to finally believe that he's come from God and that he's going back to the father, but it's too late now the hour has come and They are not prepared
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So soon they will be running Leaving him the one they said that they now believe came from God leaving him alone
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They aren't prepared for tribulation Are you
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Jesus says he won't be alone in verse 32. He won't be alone They're gonna they're gonna leave him alone, but he's still not going to be alone
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He is prepared for the tribulation coming for him. He knows that the father will be with him That is that it's necessary that he go through the torture and the cross the tomb
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So that he can make people prepared for the life ahead. He's told them before That one of them will betray him
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That Peter will deny him now all of them are nearly all Will run away
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He's told them all of this and he says at the end of verse 33. He's told them all this so that This is the reason that he told him that told them even that they're gonna leave him alone.
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Although he won't be alone He's told him that so that in me You may have peace
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Now we might think well, of course we have peace we have the we have the joy
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The world can't take away the resurrection begins this end of death. We live in a loving relationship with the father
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We can ask him what what we need in Jesus his name Why would we not have peace with all that going for us?
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Well, he says why he says What is the challenge to our peace says in the world? You will have
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Tribulation and the word for tribulation means pressure you're being squeezed Some of you may be pressured to put money -making ahead of worship in the church in the world
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You have pressure it resists you following Jesus. It makes it hard for you to seek first the kingdom of God Maybe making you feel guilty
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That you go to church rather than help out at work on Sunday mornings making money for the family
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You know, it's pressuring you to put the money of head That's the world squeezing the world will give us distress
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It will make it harder for you to believe in Jesus and have peace at the same time the world tempts you
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Maybe over television or the Internet it pressures you to serve dollars instead of the Lord It undermines your faith with snide comments from friends or professors
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It tells you to compromise just a little bit To be accepted if you really believe in Jesus that in this world
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You will have tribulation Now some Christians approach to this and is to retreat from the world
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Just build monasteries or little Christian communities where they can live insulated from the world
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They don't ever have to encounter it They can live their whole lives between a Christian family and a church and never be exposed to the world
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They think doesn't really ever really work, but that's what they think some are hoping that God will do that for them
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God will take them out of the world so they can escape Tribulation, but Jesus prays in the next chapter in chapter 17 verse 15.
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I do not ask you father To take them out of the world But that you keep them from the evil one
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While they stay in the world even though in the world
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We will have tribulation We're supposed to be ready for tribulation in the world Not escape from it
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So, how can we have peace then in the middle of a tribulation?
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How can we have joy and be enjoying a relationship with the father when our enemies are surrounding us?
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They're plotting against us They're luring us to our destruction. They think like in Psalm 52.
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I'm 52 describes the world for us Boasting of evil there. It's pride their tongue plotting our
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Destruction like a sharp razor their words cut tried to cut down our faith. They love evil more than good.
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They're lying They're deceitful. How can we have joy and peace? Surrounded by such people.
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Oh Because Take hearts be encouraged
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Cheer up Despite the fact that that's the world They're they're rejoicing when we're sorrowful.
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They're trying to cut us with their words like a sharp razor Jesus says Be encouraged.
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Don't worry about it. I Have overcome the world You know the world plotted against him with a viciousness that exceeds how it plots against us it plotted his destruction
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It gave him more tribulation than we'll ever see but he wasn't destroyed by it and Because he wasn't but rose victoriously
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He's put us in a right relationship with God's given us righteousness the father whom now we could ask from him ask from the father anything that we need in Jesus's name and we can have the
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Holy Spirit inside us now sure we will have tribulation pressure resistance Be prepared for that But don't let it take away your peace your joy after all he has already overcome whatever trouble
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The world throws at you Jesus has been preparing us for life in this world all this
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To get you ready For what's coming? Are you ready? Don't try to escape to some fantasy land insulated from reality.
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There's some hard truths. We need to face We can face them because there are greater truths that overshadow
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The depressing realities of this world. Yes, there's death There's also resurrection and that gives us a joy that no one can take away
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There's tribulations resistance for us in this world But there's peace
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That prevails because Jesus has overcome the world. He overcame it
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So we'd be ready for whatever the world puts us through are you ready?