Teacher and Friend

Good morning, church. Turn with me in your Bibles. And there are now Bibles in the pews if you'd like to use them, although we'll keep the words on the screen, I think. Or maybe not. Either way, John 14, starting at verse 25.

And before we read the scripture, let me just give you a few updates, as Jeff mentioned, about the format of our worship services going forward. We'll continue, as we did today, having open seating on the floor of the sanctuary, so you don't need to RSVP anymore, and just show up as you did today.

Sit anywhere you like. Also, starting next Sunday, we will follow the new CDC and Connecticut mask guidelines. So that means if you are fully vaccinated, masks will be optional, indoors and outdoors. You can still wear a mask if you want to, but you don't have to.

If you're not fully vaccinated, please continue to wear a mask indoors, but you can take it off when we go outdoors. If you're feeling a bit more cautious, but you would like to come to in-person services, we will have some socially distanced seating zones in the balcony and in the overflow seating area.

And in those areas, everybody will continue to wear masks, and the seats will be separated apart.

So if you would like to sit in one of those areas, RSVP to the office during the week.

If that would help you to be able to come in person, but to feel comfortable at this point, you can RSVP during the week or talk to an usher when you arrive.

As we adjust to these changes, let's continue to love and honor one another to, as the scripture says, make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace,

as well as Hebrews encourages us not to give up meeting together, right?

As much as possible, meeting together in person is how God designed the church to work, and we've tried to make the best of a difficult season.

And again, we know that that season is sort of ending in different ways for different people or continuing in different ways for different people.

But we have, as the elders, just tried to do our best to offer a variety of ways through the live stream, through the indoor and outdoor services for people to stay connected.

And so we just want to encourage you, continue to find ways to stay connected even as we adjust to the new guidelines.

If you have questions or concerns, please talk to any of the elders.

So if you're sort of struggling maybe with some of the, just either the new guidelines or just questions about what does it look like for you or for your family to participate well in the life of the church,

we'd love to talk with you about it so we can know your concerns and understand where people are better in our congregation as well as so we can pray for you and encourage you.

So having said that, let's read the scripture.

These are Jesus' words to his disciples in John 14, beginning at verse 25.

Hear God's word today.

These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you.

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

Peace I leave with you.

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.

You heard me say to you, I am going away and I will come to you.

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

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

Rise, let us go from here.

So I want you to imagine yourself as one of the 11 remaining disciples sitting in the upper room.

The supper has ended.

Night has fallen.

Judas has left.

You don't quite understand why he left, but it all felt somewhat ominous.

And you're all sitting around the room, looking at each other and listening to Jesus.

And you hear Jesus say things like, these things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you, but I'm going away.

I'm going to the Father.

I won't talk much more with you because the ruler of this world is coming.

What thoughts would be running through your mind as you heard Jesus say these things?

What emotions would you be feeling as you hear Jesus tell you that he would soon be gone?

For the last three years, if you were one of Jesus' 12 disciples, he had been your teacher.

And he has been a teacher unlike any other teacher that you have ever heard or known about.

You know, throughout the Gospels, it says over and over that Jesus taught with authority.

In other words, he didn't just sort of summarize all the interpretations of other religious scholars that had come before him.

He wasn't tentative or wavering or hazy in his words.

He interpreted the Scriptures with confidence and clarity as if he had written those words himself.

But Jesus wasn't only authoritative in his teaching.

He was also amazingly accessible.

In the New Testament Gospels, there are 61 occasions when Jesus answered somebody's question.

Either a disciple's question or a curious onlurker's question or even a hostile opponent's question.

There's 61 occasions recorded for us where Jesus answered people's questions.

And as one of his students, you had the freedom to walk up to him and ask him any question that was on your mind.

Anytime you had forgotten something, anytime you were perplexed or confused or wanted to know more, he had been there as your teacher.

But Jesus hadn't only been your teacher, he had also been your friend.

Jesus has been an ever-present companion.

A steady shepherd faithfully leading his sheep.

Now, as a disciple of Jesus, you have experienced a range of reactions from the outside world.

Sometimes people have been hostile.

At other times, they've been indifferent.

At other times, they've been curious.

At other times, they've been surprisingly receptive.

But the one constant amidst all the changing reactions of the world around you is that Jesus has always been there with you.

Now, there are only a couple of times in the Gospels when Jesus left his disciples alone.

One of the few times when he did so is recorded in John chapter 6, beginning at verse 16.

John 6 · chapter mention

And this story comes right after Jesus had taught and fed the 5,000 on the hillside.

And it says that evening, Jesus went up on a mountain to pray.

And his disciples got into a boat to row across the lake to the other side.

And it says that before the disciples made it to their destination, they were rowing across the Sea of Galilee, the Lake of Galilee, which was a large body of water.

The sun went down, the wind picked up, and the sea got rough.

And by this time, they had been rowing three or four miles.

Now, normally, if you've rowed three or four miles, that's a good workout, right?

An hour, hour and a half on calm waters.

And it's a good workout.

But after dark, on choppy waters, facing a headwind, and you're still not at your destination.

And, by the way, what the disciples had done all day is they had distributed the food and cleaned up afterwards when Jesus fed these thousands of people.

So imagine you've, you know, if you've ever worked waiting tables at a restaurant, imagine you just did a 12-hour shift.

Serving people, cleaning up after them, and then you got in a boat and rowed three or four miles against the wind.

And how are you feeling now?

And it's the middle of the night, by the way.

Well, what did Jesus do to his disciples when they found themselves in that situation?

Alone, afraid, overwhelmed, exhausted, he took the initiative to come to them.

Walking on the water.

Of course, when they first saw him walking on the water, that freaked them out even more.

But then he said to them, it is I.

Don't be afraid.

You see, that's who Jesus had been for them all along.

He had been their friend who spoke to them, who spoke peace to them, who said to them, I'm here with you.

Don't be afraid.

And yet now, he's saying to his disciples, I'm going to leave.

And they're thinking, are we going to be left out on the boat in the middle of the lake again and he won't come?

And we'll just be left to fend for ourselves.

Figuratively, at least.

Jesus had been their teacher and he had been their friend, but soon he would be gone.

Now, maybe you can identify in one way or another with what Jesus' first disciples might have been thinking or feeling.

Maybe you're feeling anxiety and facing an uncertain future.

Or some fear of being left alone to fend for yourself.

Confusion or weariness in the face of opposition.

Last week, Pastor Matt spoke about the gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised.

And Jesus described the Holy Spirit, he named the Holy Spirit as the helper, or that word could be translated, the advocate.

The one who comes alongside to strengthen and encourage.

In the Holy Spirit, we have one who is like Jesus himself, just as personal and just as powerful and just as authoritative and just as accessible as Jesus was to his disciples when he was on earth with them.

Now, today Jesus expands on that promise of the Holy Spirit by focusing on these two themes.

First, the Holy Spirit will be your teacher.

And second, the Holy Spirit will be your friend.

Jesus had been their teacher and their friend.

Now Jesus is saying, I will be gone, but the Holy Spirit will be your teacher and the Holy Spirit will be your friend.

So I want to sit with these two promises about the work of the Holy Spirit.

And I want us to consider what they would have meant for Jesus' disciples back then, as well as what they mean for us today.

So first promise, the Holy Spirit will be your teacher.

We see this in verses 25 and 26.

He will teach you all things, Jesus says, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

So Jesus was promising the Holy Spirit would continue the ministry of teaching that Jesus had engaged in with his disciples throughout his earthly ministry.

So Jesus' disciples wouldn't be left without any instruction or without any correction or without the word and wisdom of God.

No.

Jesus says, the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name, that is, as my representative, in my place.

You might even say the Holy Spirit is Jesus' successor on earth in carrying out the mission of God the Father.

Now Jesus had taught his disciples many things during his earthly ministry.

You can read them in any of the four gospels.

But before Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and ascension to glory and sending of the Spirit, his disciples failed to understand much of what he taught.

And you can see this in all four of the gospels.

It's perhaps a theme that's most prominent in Mark's gospel, the obtuseness of the disciples.

But I'll just give you a few examples just from John's gospel, just from the gospel we're reading here.

Chapter 2, Jesus cleared out the money changers from the temple.

And he said, destroy this temple and I'll raise it again in three days.

And nobody quite understood what he was saying.

And John says, only after Jesus' resurrection did his disciples remember that word and believe what he had said.

Going on, chapter 4, Jesus was talking with the Samaritan woman at the well.

Well, his disciples came back with some lunch.

And Jesus says, I have food to eat that you don't know anything about.

And his disciples sort of looked at each other strangely and said, did somebody else bring him lunch?

Ahead of us?

And he said, no, no, that's not it.

Talking about spiritual food.

Right?

They didn't get what he meant there either.

Then in chapter 10, Jesus used the metaphor of sheep who can distinguish a shepherd's voice from a stranger's voice.

And it says, chapter 10, verse 6, this figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.

Chapter 11, Jesus told his disciples, let's go to Judea because our friend Lazarus has died.

And his disciples couldn't understand why he'd want to go back to Judea because people wanted to kill him there.

Then chapter 12, he wrote into Jerusalem.

On a donkey.

And John says, his disciples didn't understand these things at first.

And chapter 13, he washed their feet at supper.

And he said, you don't understand why I'm doing this now, but later on you will.

Right?

Over and over in the Gospels, you see this pattern.

Jesus is teaching them, but they only understand a limited part of what he's saying.

There's a lot more that just isn't clear to them in the moment.

They might have remembered the words, but they didn't get the meaning.

And why didn't they get it?

Because they didn't yet see the big picture of who Jesus was and why he had come into the world and how his coming was the long-awaited fulfillment of what God had promised to Israel for hundreds and thousands of years.

You see, only after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection and ascension into glory, only after those things happened, would the big picture come into clearer view in hindsight.

Hindsight.

Right?

We experience that sometimes in our own lives.

And we can, right?

Sometimes we look back and we say, hindsight's 20-20.

Well, I'd say not quite.

Right?

Sometimes we look back on things in hindsight.

Our memories can become distorted.

So it's not always 20-20.

But still, sometimes there are things that become clearer to us in hindsight rather than in the moment.

And that was true with Jesus' disciples.

In the moment when he was there, they didn't understand the whole picture.

Only Jesus saw that.

But afterwards, with the help of the Holy Spirit, they would.

And really, this is what the entire New Testament is about.

Right?

The New Testament is a collection of 27 books written by about 10 different followers of Jesus over the course of a few decades during the first century.

Some of the authors were eyewitnesses of Jesus himself, like Peter, John, and James.

Others, like Mark and Luke, were closely connected to that original group of Jesus' disciples.

But each of these books, in its own way, sort of looks back on the facts and the meaning of Jesus.

His life, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension.

So in some ways, the whole New Testament is doing what Jesus promised the Holy Spirit would help his disciples to do.

That is, to remember what he said and understand its meaning and apply it in a whole bunch of new situations that they would face as they proclaim the message of Jesus throughout the world.

So just a little bit about how the New Testament does this.

The four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, focus on the historical events.

They tell the story of how Jesus' life and ministry unfolded, where it happened, what Jesus actually said to his disciples and to the crowds in some detail.

They name the places.

They tell us who was there on the scene.

A lot of the people who are named in the Gospels are named because they were known individuals who could have been consulted during the time that the books were written because they were witnesses to the truth of the events.

So the people who are named in the Gospels are not just named randomly.

They're named because they were people that if you were living in that time and place, you could go and talk to.

You could go and talk to Mary.

You could go and talk to Peter.

You could talk to John.

And they would say, yes, it happened like that.

Now, the epistles or letters, which are sort of most of the bulk of the rest of the New Testament, written by Paul and Peter, James and John and Jude, and an unknown author who wrote Hebrews,

is these books don't give us as much historical detail about the facts, but they focus on the meaning and the application.

Why did Jesus come?

Why did he die?

Why did he rise again?

What does it mean for Christians to follow Jesus after he's gone with the power of the Holy Spirit?

So here's the point.

Now, one way that, in fact, perhaps the primary way that Jesus promised in verse 26 has been fulfilled is in the writing and the compilation and the preservation of the New Testament.

Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

And that's part of a large part of what the New Testament contains, especially the Gospels, Jesus' own words.

And Jesus says, the Holy Spirit will teach you all things.

In other words, all that you need to know.

He'll help you figure it out.

So one writer put it this way, the Holy Spirit's teaching is neither wholly innovative, it's not sort of radically new, coming out of nowhere, nor is it simply repetitive of Jesus' teaching.

Right?

So it's not like Jesus led his disciples down one path, and then the Holy Spirit took over and leads the disciples down a different path.

No.

The Holy Spirit and Jesus and God the Father are all on the same page.

They're completely united in their purpose and mission.

And so the Holy Spirit will never lead us in a different direction than Jesus does.

He will never lead us in a different direction than the words that he inspired in the New Testament.

At the same time, the Holy Spirit's teaching, what Jesus promises to his disciples, is more than mere repetition.

Right?

The Holy Spirit is more than, I would say, a tape recorder, but that dates me way back.

Right?

Or it's more than, right, an MP3 player that records what Jesus said and just replays, replays, replays.

Right?

No, the Holy Spirit is a person.

Right?

Just as personal as Jesus.

And so the Holy Spirit equips us as Jesus' disciples to face new challenges, new opportunities, and new situations.

Right?

When Jesus was on earth, his disciples were living in one place at one time.

In the Middle East, in the first few decades of the first century.

But the Holy Spirit has taught and led the church for the last 2,000 years to the ends of the earth.

Right?

And there are all kinds of new challenges and new opportunities and new situations that God's people find ourselves in.

And yet the Holy Spirit takes what he inspired in the first century in the words of Scripture

and helps us through that and through his presence with us to figure out the next steps in the place wherever God's put us.

Right?

He never leaves us on a limb without anything else.

You know, even this year, right, the church throughout the world has had to grapple with a worldwide pandemic.

And guess what?

Almost none of us were prepared for it.

In all my seminary classes, we never discussed how to lead a church through a pandemic.

So we've tried to build the flame as we were flying.

We've done the best we could.

I'm sure we could learn lots of things.

But, you know, what has been so encouraging is that I cannot count the number of conversations I have had with many of you

asking, what has God been teaching you over this past year?

And so many people are like, this Scripture passage has come alive in a new and fresh way.

Right?

This, God has shown a spotlight on an area of my life that I hadn't really examined for a while.

God has helped me to treasure the gift of gathering together in person with people when it's been so challenging in the last year.

Right?

There's all kinds of ways that the truths of Scripture have come alive to us in fresh ways.

And that's a way that the Holy Spirit continues to teach us.

The Holy Spirit will give us what we need.

So if you're facing a really challenging situation, then the Holy Spirit can come through in really powerful and amazing and even miraculous ways.

Right?

There's nothing that's too big.

For God to handle.

And so just as he equipped the disciples in the first century, he can equip us for whatever we're dealing with today.

The Holy Spirit is our teacher.

So that's the first point.

But second, Jesus also says that the Holy Spirit is our friend.

Verse 27, he says,

Peace, peace I leave with you.

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.

In chapter 15, Jesus is going to say, I'm going to give you my joy and I'm going to give you my love.

Abide in my love.

Abide in my joy.

Love, joy and peace.

And when the Apostle Paul talks about the fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians, guess what heads the list?

Love, joy and peace.

Jesus says, I'm going to give you my love, my joy, my peace.

And so we experience these things through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is our friend who brings us peace.

Just as Jesus brought peace to his disciples.

Right?

Jesus, for Jesus' disciples back in the upper room, Jesus had been the one who comforted them in their sorrows,

who calmed their fears, who mediated their conflicts, who redirected their frustrations and ambitions.

And Jesus would no longer be there to say, it is I.

Don't be afraid.

But he says, guess what?

The Holy Spirit will.

He'll be there to keep on doing those things that you've seen me doing.

The Holy Spirit is just as real and personal as Jesus.

He's just as real as the flesh and blood guy who prayed for his disciples on the hillside for half the night

and then walked out to them on the water in the middle of the night when they were overwhelmed and exhausted and afraid.

And throughout the rest of the New Testament, we see that when Jesus' disciples are exhausted and overwhelmed

or fearful and anxious, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us and says, take courage.

It is I.

Don't be afraid.

Just a few examples of where we see this happening in the New Testament.

In Acts chapter 18, the apostle Paul goes to Corinth.

Acts 18 · chapter mention

And it says certain people in Corinth opposed and reviled him.

That is, they talked badly about him and slandered him.

And in chapter 18, verse 9, it says,

The Lord said to Paul one night in a vision,

Do not be afraid.

But go on speaking.

And do not be silent.

For I am with you.

No one will attack you to harm you.

For I have many in this city who are my people.

Or later on in Acts, Acts 27,

Paul was a passenger on a ship that got caught in a bad storm.

It was a larger ship.

There were 200-something passengers aboard.

It was traveling across the Mediterranean.

It was during the wrong season of the year

that you really shouldn't be sailing across the Mediterranean.

And the ship was caught in a storm for many days.

It says they, for several days,

they saw neither sun nor stars,

and they gave up all hope of being rescued.

But Paul stood up and said,

This very night there stood before me

an angel of the God to whom I belong

and whom I worship.

And he said, Do not be afraid, Paul.

You must stand before Caesar.

And behold, God has granted you

all those who sail with you.

So he said, Take heart, men.

Don't be afraid.

Or Revelation 2, 10,

the Holy Spirit's message to the church

in the city of Smyrna.

It begins,

Do not fear what you are about to suffer.

Behold, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison

that you may be tested,

and for ten days you will have tribulation.

Be faithful unto death,

and I will give you the crown of life.

Now, what's the common thread

in these instances where the Holy Spirit

gives peace and assurance to God's people?

The common thread is

they're facing trials,

storms,

and persecution.

And that's one of the main differences

between the peace Jesus gives

and the peace that the world gives.

Jesus says,

Not as the world gives do I give to you.

All right, what does the world say?

The world says peace is found

in escaping

from

conflict,

trial,

or difficulty.

Peace is found in

getting away on vacation

to a secluded place,

or moving to a quieter neighborhood,

or maybe distancing ourselves

from people who are difficult to deal with,

or putting on our

noise-canceling headphones

and losing ourselves

in a TV show.

Right?

In one way or another,

the world says,

You can find peace by putting

the Do Not Disturb sign

on your front door.

That's the kind of peace

the world offers.

Leave me alone,

let me do whatever I want to do

without side interference,

and that's how

you'll find

peace.

Now,

now many of these things

that the world offers

are not inherently bad.

Vacations,

quiet neighborhoods,

appropriate boundaries

and relationships,

none of those things

are not inherently bad.

But there are two problems

with the world's promise

of peace.

First of all,

it's completely self-centered.

The world's version of peace

has nothing to do with God

at all.

It's only about

finding peace

within ourselves

or at best

within a limited circle

of other human beings.

The second problem

with the world's promise

of peace

is that it's not sustainable

or realistic

in a fallen world.

Right?

The world is full

of turmoil

and conflict.

All our attempts

at finding peace

on the world's terms

will eventually,

inevitably,

be rudely interrupted

unless we continue

to distance ourselves

more and more

and more and more

and go into the middle

of nowhere

and even then

we'll have to deal

with the unrest

in our own heart,

which sometimes

is enough

to leave any of us

in turmoil

just dealing

with ourselves.

D.A. Carson writes,

the world is powerless

to give lasting peace.

There is sufficient hatred,

selfishness,

bitterness,

malice,

anxiety,

and fear

that every attempt

at peace

is rapidly swamped.

But Jesus displays

transcendent peace.

His own peace

throughout his perilous hour

of suffering

and death.

death.

And by that death

he absorbs in himself

the malice of others,

the sin of the world,

and introduces

the promised peace

from God

in a way

no one had envisaged.

You see,

if you read the rest

of the Gospel of John

and you notice

the character of Jesus

leading up to

his own crucifixion,

which was brutal

and shameful,

Jesus is at peace.

He knows that God

is carrying out

his plan.

Now,

Jesus also felt anguish.

At some point,

it says Jesus was troubled.

Right?

Or in Matthew and Mark,

record Jesus saying

from the cross,

my God,

my God,

why have you forsaken me?

Which is a quote

from a larger psalm

and should be interpreted

in the context

of the whole psalm.

But Jesus felt anguish

in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He sweated drops of blood.

But Jesus was also at peace

the whole way along.

And if you read

John's account

of the crucifixion,

John sort of emphasizes that.

At the end of the day,

Jesus says,

it is finished.

It's done.

It's accomplished.

Jesus is at peace

because he knows

that God is carrying out

his plan

and his Father

will not ultimately

abandon him.

Earlier in the service,

we read from Isaiah 54,

which is God's promise

of peace

to an afflicted

and storm-tossed people.

You know,

if you read the book

of Isaiah,

Isaiah 54

comes right after

Isaiah 53.

And you know what

Isaiah 53

talks about?

It's a prophecy

of the atoning death

of a suffering servant.

Isaiah 53 says,

he was pierced

for our transgressions.

He was crushed

for our iniquities.

Upon him

was the chastisement

that brought

us peace.

By his wounds,

we are healed.

And chapter 54

comes after

the work

of that

suffering servant

who died

in the place

of others,

who died

so that others

who were not

at peace

with God

might have

peace with God

and the forgiveness

of their sins.

So you see,

Jesus is promising

his peace

and he's promising

that the Holy Spirit

will be their teacher.

In fact,

chapter 54,

Isaiah 54,

13 brings

these themes together.

It says,

all your children

will be taught

by the Lord

and great shall be

the peace

of your children.

So the promise

of the Holy Spirit

being our teacher

and the promise

of the Holy Spirit

bringing us peace,

all is rooted

in the work

that Jesus would do

in dying for us

on the cross.

When Jesus promised

his disciples peace,

he wasn't promising

them

an easy life.

He wasn't promising

them vacations

or quiet neighborhoods

or a way

to avoid difficult people,

but he was promising

God's very own presence

to sustain us

through conflict

and storms

and opposition.

Is everything,

should we,

everything going okay

back there?

Should we stop

and pray

or should we keep going?

Okay.

Thank you,

those of you

who are caring

for our brother

or sister.

Jesus promises

his disciples peace.

And in his

systematic theology,

Wayne Grudem

defines peace

as the orderly

activity of God.

And that's

an interesting definition.

That's not the definition

that would have come

first to my mind.

But he connects

these peace

and order.

Right?

God is not a God

of confusion

or disorder,

but of peace.

Right?

God is steadily

working out,

intentionally working out

his plan

and purposes

in the world.

And so we can be

at peace

because God

has peace

within himself.

Right?

God is not

anxiously fretting

over the future

of the world.

And so

we can know

this peace

that Jesus gives

because God

is carrying

out his purposes

providentially.

And I think

sometimes we think

of peace

and we think

of the peace

that I can feel

on my own terms.

a subjective

feeling.

But when the

Bible talks

about the peace

of God,

it is talking

about something

we can experience,

but it's actually

talking about something

that's an objective

reality.

Right?

The peace

that comes

from God,

that God

has within himself

that he bestows

upon us,

that even in the

midst of all the

turmoil and all

the uprisings

in the world,

that God

is steadily

carrying out

his plan.

And so we can

have peace

in resting

in his sovereignty.

You know,

sometimes

the peace

of God

enables us

to lay

our head

down on the

pillow

and go right

to sleep

and wake up

rested and refreshed

the next morning.

And some psalms

talk about that.

Psalm 4 says,

In peace I will

lie down and sleep

for you alone,

O Lord,

make me to dwell

in safety.

But you know,

God is still

working out

his purposes

even if we're

awake in the

middle of the

night and wish

we could go

back to sleep.

But,

and there's

other psalms

that talk about

this.

Psalm 77

was written

by a man

who couldn't

sleep and

who was

troubled in

the middle

of the night,

wide awake.

And so he

wrote this

prayer,

he wrote

this psalm

to help

his heart

turn to

the Lord

and find

peace in

the Lord,

even in

the middle

of a troubled

night.

When

pastor put

it this way,

God's peace

is not like

anesthesia that

temporarily numbs

us.

God's peace is a

gift that helps

us to keep

going.

Peace I leave

with you,

my peace I give

to you.

I do not give

as the world

gives.

Do not let your

hearts be troubled,

neither let them

be afraid.

See,

the Holy Spirit

is our teacher

and the Holy Spirit

is our friend.

God,

let's close

in a word

of prayer.

Father God,

we pray,

we thank you

for this promise

of the Lord

Jesus,

that the Holy

Spirit would be

our teacher

and our friend.

We pray that

we would be

taught by you

through your

word and by

your Holy Spirit,

bringing that to

life within our

heart.

We pray that

we would know

your peace,

even in the

midst of turmoil

and storms.

We pray that

we would know

that you are

carrying out

your purposes

for good in

our lives

and in this

world.

Thank you for

that gift.

In Jesus'

name,

amen.