Sermon - John 14

Well, today we are in John chapter 14, and the scene in John chapter 14 is that Jesus is meeting with some of his closest followers, his friends, and they are Troubled.

John 14 · chapter mention John 14 · chapter mention

Now I don't know about you, but the older I get, the more I realize that there is a difference between just being merely worried and being troubled.

You know, I I worry.

You know I worry about things like Duke basketball.

I worry with John Shire Phil, you didn't have to laugh, man.

Okay, would John Shire be able to like coach half as well as coach K will?

And please, I, the bare minimum, can we just beat Carolina this year?

I worry about that.

I worry about my car.

I'm hoping it'll continue to make it.

You know, the older I get, I found like.

I know I sound like a grumpy old man here, but I worry about things like inflation.

I really do the cost of everything from like groceries to gas, to vehicles, to like kids college.

I just worry about things like that and, by the way, they're truly worries.

They're not nothing and I do really worry about them.

But I've also realized that there's a difference between being worried about something and being troubled.

You know, if you'll allow me To be a little as your pastor, be a little vulnerable with you.

You know I get troubled.

I get troubled about sometimes I get troubled about my health.

I'm I used to go to the doctor and I would like fly through appointments.

You know I was like I don't even know why this is necessary.

Everybody knows I'm healthy, like you know.

He just sends me out the door.

Now it feels like I come out with a bunch of medication and homework and like a bunch of things that I used to do that I can no longer do.

I'm grateful there's some people in their 30s and 40s and 50s who are like it, laughing and acknowledging with me.

Everybody else here in their 20s is like what is that?

Like I don't get that, I don't understand that it's coming Okay and it troubles me.

I'm just.

I know I'm making light of it a little bit, but it troubles me.

I can't do the things I used to do.

You know I'm troubled about the faith of my kids and I have a son of special needs and I'm troubled really about how well I can be his dad from again just being vulnerable with you.

You know I'm troubled because April and I, as we get older, our parents get older and as our lives speed up, we get busier and busier and we aren't always able to spend the time that we wish that we could spend with our parents, and we're watching them get older as well, and that doesn't just worry me, that that troubles me.

And so what do you do when the things that trouble you aren't because you are disobeying God, but because you are obeying him?

What do you do when it's not your rebellion that causes you trouble, but the fact that you are following Jesus?

What happens when it's not goodness and mercy following you all the days of your life?

But it's worse than that.

It's not the days of your life, but it's worry, and it's trouble.

That's the place some of you are in this morning today, and that's the place that the 11 disciples find themselves at the beginning here of John, chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

So before we jump in, let me pray.

That's the Holy Spirit to help me preach this sermon.

God, there are so many things that I can kind of do on my own strength, kind of, but I can't do this.

I need you to come and preach it through me, to speak with my voice, to think with my thoughts.

Anything, lord, that's not from you, asked, that just not even come out of my mouth, but anything that is from you got me.

I proclaim boldly, faithfully, courageously.

Pray this in your name, amen.

John, chapter 14, beginning in verse 1 Let not your hearts be troubled.

John 14 · chapter mention

Now Jesus begins the whole discourse with these disciples because the whole group of them is troubled.

As a matter of fact, it's not just that the disciples are troubled.

As we'll remember from last week, in John 13, jesus himself John 1321, jesus is troubled.

So Jesus is troubled.

Now the disciples are troubled, and they are troubled Not because they're running away in rebellion, but because they are actually following Jesus.

Jesus has just told them that one of them, one of their number, judas Iscariot, will betray Jesus.

He's told them that.

Jesus has told them that he's going to leave them and where he's going.

They can't come right now.

He's told them that they're going to be separated from Jesus for a time and then, to cap it all off, in John 13, jesus tells them that Peter, their leader, will deny Jesus that very night.

Now remember, in just a few chapters ago, these disciples had just seen Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead.

They had just heard the crowds in Jerusalem welcome Jesus into their city as king.

Surely this was going to be the great hour of triumph, of victory.

This is not the time for trouble.

This was the time for them to overcome, was it not?

And yet here he is, at this intimate meal where he's being incredibly vulnerable with them himself, and what he's promising is not victory.

He's not promising them triumph, he's promising them trouble.

Later, on this same night, jesus is going to promise his disciples in John 16, 33, beginning of the passage he's going to say in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.

So make no mistake.

Jesus is promising to his disciples there is trouble ahead, and that trouble again is not because you are disobeying me, but because you are following me.

Trouble cannot be the Christians barometer for whether they are following Jesus or not.

Sometimes, when you follow Jesus, jesus himself will lead you into trouble.

You know Jesus is saying as you follow me, there's trouble around us, but I'm not just going to lead you into trouble.

Here's the comfort I will lead you through it.

Again that passage John 16, 33, take heart, for I have overcome the world.

So John 14,.

Jesus is going to open by acknowledging trouble, but he's going to, in the passage, point out four different reasons, four different promises that they have as comfort in the midst of their trouble.

Again, these promises are not going to take them out of their trouble, but they are meant to comfort them in their trouble.

Let's continue.

Verse one Jesus tells them believe in God, believe also in me.

You know Paul's.

Again, at the beginning of this series in the Gospel of John earlier this year, we talked about the critique that many critical scholars make of Jesus, where they say that Jesus never actually claimed to be God, and over and over again, throughout this passage, or sorry, throughout this book, I've tried to show you that that's just completely false.

Here is yet another example of that.

Jesus is saying you believe in God.

In the same way, believe in me.

Verse two in my father's house are many rooms.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself.

That, where I am, you may be also.

This leads us to our first point in the sermon, number one don't be troubled, jesus is coming again.

Don't be troubled, jesus is coming again.

By the way, there's a reason why I can't go fast through the book of John.

I'm going as fast as I can, alright, but it's passages like this where I just don't see just one single promise Of Jesus giving comfort to his followers.

I actually see six.

We're going to go through them quickly.

Here we go.

Number one, verse two he's going to say that one.

Here's the reason why you shouldn't be troubled.

There's room in my father's house for you.

There's room, all right.

There's room in heaven for you, all right.

Is that good news?

Is that good news?

Harbor City Church there's room for you.

There's room in my father's house for you.

That's number one.

Number two he says there's not just room for you, but I'm going to prepare a place for you in my father's house.

Jesus himself, second person of the Trinity, promised his followers I I personally, I'm not delegating it I am going to prepare a place for you in my father's house.

Is that good news?

Somebody?

Isn't that amazing that Jesus himself was going to make ready place for us to live with the Father forever?

You know, I've heard this preach a certain way and I gotta kinda debunk the way I've heard it.

Maybe you've heard it the same way.

Okay, it goes like this it's like Jesus the son of a carpenter.

He's pretty probably good at construction.

I know we have a number of people in our church who are in the construction industry.

It's like Jesus the carpenter is really good at construction.

And so Jesus was going to heaven, and he was, you know, has a lot of mansions, but he's gonna go prepare a place for us.

Like Jesus, the son of the carpenter is up there doing a divine construction project, expanding the mansions in heaven to make room for all of those who will trust him.

And I've heard people say, man, you know, god spoke the word into existence in Genesis, chapter one, but Jesus has taken thousands of years, no matter what type of life is gonna be present, as if heaven was Jesus's divine construction homework.

Okay, that's not what this passage means.

Jesus is not up in heaven building mansions for those who trust in him, all right.

The work of Jesus was not construction but substitution, all right.

So what Jesus meant when he said this is not that he's gonna go work on heaven, it's not that he's gonna go prepare heaven for the disciples, it's that he is going to the cross so that the disciples can be prepared for heaven.

Number three, I mean again, I just wanna like, I'm gonna like lean into that.

I gotta keep going, all right.

Third thing Jesus is saying he's like not just that there's room in my father's house for you, it's not just that I'm going to prepare a place for you, but he's saying in a rhetorical way I will certainly do this.

I am not a liar, do you see?

In verse two B he takes that question.

He's like, if I were not, if we're not so, would I have told you this, like I'm telling you that I'm gonna do this.

If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you.

That's kind of an aromaiic way of saying am I a liar?

No, I'm not a liar.

And later he's gonna reveal himself as the way, the truth and the life.

I am the truth.

You've never heard a lie come out of my mouth.

And if I told you this, then it is certain.

It is sure it is something that can bring you comfort, even in the midst of the greatest trouble that you're about to experience.

Fourth way as certain as I will go to prepare a place, I will come again.

This is man.

This is so good.

As certain as I will go to prepare a place for you, I will come again to take you to myself.

In other words, jesus is saying, the way that he's preparing a place for us, remember, is not construction but substitution, that he is going to the cross to be substituted, to die in the place of sinners, so that sinners can rightly relate to God having their sin paid for believing in Jesus, being united to his family forever.

Okay, and if that has happened, if I do that, jesus is saying if I go to the cross, am I gonna do all the work to go and suffer on your behalf and go to the cross and then never come back to get you?

No, if, when I come again I'm sorry, as certain as I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again.

Number five when I come again, I will take you to myself.

Isn't that a great comfort?

It's like when I come again, it's not like see, I did what I said I was gonna do.

Now, everyone who believed me, you line up on one side and you didn't believe me, you're gonna line up on the other.

That's not what he says.

When I come again, he's promised to his followers and I'm coming, and I'm not just coming back, I'm coming back for you.

The next thing I see here, number six, is the promise here is that you and I will be together.

By the way, let me go back to verse three.

You see, that language I will take you to myself.

Everybody, look at their Bible.

You see that that's the language of marriage.

All right, that's a Jewish idiom for marriage.

This language let me give you a different way of seeing this passage this language that Jesus has in these first four verses in chapter 14 is all the language of almost, not almost of a Jewish engagement.

What Jesus is saying here is that.

Let me give you a little bit of background.

Ancient Near East especially.

Think about Israel in particular.

Land was not often bought, land was inherited.

It's all.

The land of Israel was inherited.

It was passed from father and son, father and son for generations.

So you couldn't just go out, and most of the time you couldn't just go out and buy new land and build a new house.

It's not like it is today.

There was land and you inherited that from your father, and so a young man, when he wanted to become engaged, he didn't go buy land and buy a house and set up a new life there.

Most of the time, what he did is go back to his father's land and he would what would he do?

Build onto his father's house, often, or onto his father's property, and then, once the home was built, the home was prepared, the groom to be would come back to his bride and he would bring his bride to the house.

Do you see the language that Jesus is giving right here?

Jesus is saying I'm going to go prepare a place for you.

I'm gonna go prepare a place for you by dying on the cross in your place and by ascending to the father.

And his promise is as certain as if I were to go subject myself to the cross.

If I were to go to heaven, I certainly will come back and bring you to myself.

It's the language of the marriage supper of the lamb, which we see later in the book of Revelation 21, verse nine.

That's what Jesus is talking about.

That's what his promise is.

And then, at the end of verse three, he says you and I will be together.

By the way, I get a lot of questions and I've heard a lot of questions from people about heaven.

They're great questions, you know.

The question is normally is like where is heaven?

What is it like?

How do I get there?

And I just got to say that's kind of a dumb question.

All right, forgive me a little bit.

All right, it's just kind of a dumb question, especially when it looks at this passage, because the play, the point of getting to heaven is not about getting to a location in a better neighborhood.

The better question is where is Jesus and how can I be with him?

You see, it's almost like all right, there's something.

I'm not going to pick on anybody.

I'm going to try to make this super general.

Whenever you have a couple that's dating, and particularly if they get engaged, they find that anything that they can do with each other is just the best thing ever.

All right, some of you have been engaged, you understand that, or whatever.

And it's like sometimes, if you're engaged, you go on dates and the dates are wonderful.

Other times you just do normal life and it doesn't matter what you're doing.

What really matters what is who you're with.

Isn't that the same thing?

That is true here for his followers.

The point is not of Jesus describing what heaven is going to be like in all its detail.

The major point that he is communicating is.

This is the place Harbor City Church.

This is good news.

Lean into this.

This is the place where you and I, jesus speaking, will be there together.

This is the language of love.

By the way, there's a two-fold picture here.

You know, most of my knowledge, jews in this day did not engage in like giving a bride to be an engagement ring.

Okay, the sign in a Jewish marriage that the wedding was going to happen was that the groom would go to prepare a place.

That was the sign.

That was the sign of engagement, that if he would go to prepare a place and then he would come back and bring his bride to the new home.

And so you can think about this.

What Jesus is saying is almost like a promise of an engagement ring.

Again, think about what an engagement ring is.

I don't have an engagement ring.

I don't know why.

I looked at my hand.

I looked at my hand there.

If you have an engagement ring, what the purpose of that is for a bride to be?

To look at her ring and to have heard a promise from a man that says that he will marry her.

All right, that's what an engagement ring is.

And so whenever maybe the bride just doubts, like maybe the relationship's not going well, maybe wedding planning isn't working, and she just has the question in her mind like, is this wedding, is it gonna happen?

And then she looks at it and I was like man, there's three months of his salary on my finger Like he is committed to making this thing happen.

That's kind of what an engagement ring is supposed to be, is it not?

And so what Jesus is saying is he's giving us a promise.

It's a promise that if I go to the cross for you, then surely I'm gonna come back and take you to myself.

You wanna have certain the return of Jesus is.

It is a certain that he went and died in your place on the cross.

Let me keep going.

That is the first promise, by the way, that Jesus is coming again, that Jesus gives his troubled disciples here in John 14.

Let's keep going.

Let's look at verse four.

Here's the second promise.

And you know the way to where I am going, thomas.

I love Thomas, especially in John's gospel.

He, you know, like you've ever been in a class maybe it's like you know, seminary or university or college or whatever and the professor introduces like a you know a topic, and everyone there, like, is afraid to look like an idiot.

So they don't actually say we have no idea what you're talking about, professor.

So they're like oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know what you mean.

All right, but there's at least one person in the class who's like hey, by the way, I don't know what that means, that's Thomas, right here.

That's what Thomas is doing.

Jesus says hey, you know the way where I'm going.

Thomas is like kind of like, we do not know the way to which you're to, where you are going.

How can we know the way?

And Jesus, almost Jesus, the master teacher.

Do you see the brilliance of Jesus?

Jesus sets up this next sentence.

Listen to verse six.

Jesus said to him I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me.

If you had known me, you would have known my father also.

From now on, you do know him and I've seen him.

This is my second major point.

Don't be troubled, because if you know Jesus, you know the way.

Don't be troubled, because if you know Jesus, you know the way.

The question here is not do you know the way to heaven.

The question is do you know Jesus?

If you know Jesus, then you know the way.

Again, I've been in seminary classrooms.

I've been in groups of like pastors who discuss these types of things and everyone wants to know what heaven is and where it is and how do we get there.

And that is.

Maybe it's a useful discussion.

I don't know.

I don't want to like rain too hard on that parade At the same time.

That's not the question.

The question is do you know Jesus?

I'm reminded of the words of John Piper when he said you don't really have to know a lot of things in this world.

You know, do you ever feel the pressure just to be like a mini expert on everything in our culture?

John Piper would say you don't have to be an expert on a lot of things in this world, but you should be an expert.

You should devote yourself to studying one glorious, all-encompassing thing, jesus Christ.

And if you know him, you know the way.

If you know him, you know the truth.

If you know him, you know the life.

Verse.

Eight Phillips said to him Lord, show us the Father and it will be enough for us.

And it is enough for us.

Jesus said to him have I been with you so long and still you do not know Everybody.

Look at that word me, philip.

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

How can you say show us the Father?

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?

Here's a.

This is not a major point, but here's a bonus point of the sermon, really quickly.

It's one that you do not need to fear meeting the Father any more than meeting Jesus.

Jesus has perfectly revealed the Father to us.

We have no more fear or approbation about meeting a shining figure on a throne ready to pour out fire and brimstone on us as sinners.

When you think of what God is like, you do not have to wonder, because if you know Jesus, then you know what the Father is like.

And I'm skipping a section here.

I will come back to it verses 12 through 14.

I'm gonna move to the third promise that Jesus gives to his troubled disciples.

That's here in verse 16.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper that word another is another, of the same kind and he will give you a helper, someone who is like me, to be with you forever.

Jesus doesn't let them figure that out, he tells them explicitly.

Verse 17, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

This is our third point.

Don't be troubled, disciples.

God has sent his Holy Spirit.

Don't be troubled.

God sent his Holy Spirit here's, by the way, I used that engagement ring metaphor before.

It's almost like Jesus gives a double sign to know that you will return.

Sign number one is that he goes to the cross.

That's half of the engagement ring.

The other half of the engagement ring, the other half of the promise of his return, is that he gives us the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is given to us as a seal and a promise that God will take us to himself.

That God, the thing about the greatest thing that God could give, is the greatest thing in all the world, which is God himself.

And so God gives God to his followers in the person of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit being the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit that was present in Genesis 1, verse two, hovering over the waters as God begins to create all that is.

This Holy Spirit is called a comforter, he's called a helper.

Now can you just think about that.

Of all the names for God, the name that God chooses for his Holy Spirit is that he is a comforter, that he is a helper, that he is one who not only fills us but comes alongside us to enable us to do and obey everything that God has called us to obey.

You know, I think about this.

Jesus is saying right here.

He tells his disciples, at the end of verse 17, that you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you and so, following Jesus' logic here, if you know Jesus, you know the Father.

And if you know Jesus, you know the Spirit, because he is revealing himself as God in three persons.

That the Spirit in dwells believers.

In other words, he makes his home with believers.

The Spirit convicts of sin.

We can grieve the Spirit of God with how we sin.

The Spirit of God points to righteousness.

It's not a righteousness by the way, that is found in you.

You know, been a follower of Jesus for a while.

What I believe by the Spirit for a while.

I've never had the Spirit say, jonathan, that righteousness in you, that's where it's at.

You know, when the Holy Spirit points to righteousness, it's not a righteousness in you, it's a righteousness that is in Jesus, which is why that we say that the gospel, the message of what God in Christ has done for us, is not that the diving board where we get into the pool of Christianity, but rather it is the entire pool itself that the Holy Spirit himself leads us deeper into the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He points to a righteousness that is not our own but is ours through Christ.

The Spirit directs our paths, the Spirit comforts us in affliction.

By the way the Spirit speaks to other members of the body.

You wanna ask one of the questions why should I be a part of a church?

Because the Spirit, you know, just like you are a human being, a body that is animated by a spirit, that the Spirit of God, as it animates the body of Christ, moves the body to serve the needs of other people in the body.

I can tell you three stories this week where I was in a moment of need and I needed somebody to pray or encourage me, and three actually I can think more of that four times Three.

I'll give you three examples right here.

Three times this week someone reached out to me exactly when I needed them to reach out.

There's a person here at Harbor City.

It's like whenever they call me and I don't know if they know this, but whenever they call me, they call me in the moment where I absolutely need somebody to pray and encourage me, and that person prays for it and encourages me every single time.

Last week, by the way, I was in the like Saturday night.

I completely changed the sermon and I got a text on Sunday morning from Sheena English and what she said in her text she thought that like, listening to the same spirit that I listened to absolutely affirmed the change in the text.

And then, after the sermon and the speech, I heard from so many of you about how that ministered to you.

Another person this week who, just I, was at a moment where I was like praying, crying out to God for wisdom and insight, a particular area and that person I hadn't talked to within a while caused me.

The spirit begins to like, begins to talk to members of the body.

It has members of the body serve other members of the body when we walk by the spirit.

By the way, pastor Tyler English told me that next week when he preaches on John 15, he will preach the definitive passage on the Holy Spirit.

So everything that I'm leaving out right here in this passage.

Pastor Tyler will fill in the gaps next week.

I promise I'm joking, I'm putting him on the spot there.

You guys can laugh.

All right, okay, great, all right, thank you, all right.

Verse 18, let's keep going.

Man, listen to this.

Man.

Do you wanna hear precious promise for people and trouble?

Listen to this.

Listen, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you Now.

What makes someone an orphan is that they have no living parents or guardians, or perhaps no family.

I've talked a lot about what Jesus is saying to the disciples.

I just got to personalize this a little bit for you.

I'm going to talk to you.

You're not an orphan.

You have a father.

You're not an orphan.

You have an elder brother and Jesus.

You're not an orphan.

You have God's family, the church, and you're not an orphan.

God has sent his Holy Spirit.

That means, no matter how bad it is and I know, man, for some of you you have been in very difficult circumstances but no matter how difficult it is, you could never truly say about any circumstance God has abandoned me because he has given you His Holy Spirit.

Verse 19,.

He had a little while and the world will see me no more, and you will see me.

Listen to this.

Because I live, you also will live.

Your eternal life is as certain as the eternal life of the Son of God.

Because I live, you also will live.

Let me, I got to keep going.

I'm going to jump to verse 26,.

But the helper, the Holy Spirit and the Father, will sit in my name.

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

This is how Jesus begins to conclude, this time with His disciples.

Remember, he opened it by saying do not be troubled.

Now he says peace, I leave with you.

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

Again.

He says this let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

I told you I skipped a few verses verses 12 through 14 earlier, and so you might leave this and like man, these are these three promises that we've seen are great promises.

The promise that Jesus will come back, promise that he will give us the Holy Spirit.

These are great promises.

But what about like now?

What about like Christianity in the present tense?

Let's look back at verse 12.

Truly, truly, I say to you whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.

If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

My last point don't be troubled.

The church will do greater works than Jesus.

Don't be troubled.

The church will do greater works than Jesus.

This is a promise that Jesus makes to his church.

He doesn't make it to an individual Peter, you got a lot in you, man, you're gonna do greater works.

Even he doesn't do that.

This is a promise that's made to his church.

And first of all, we just have to ask the question what does Jesus mean when he says we will do greater works than Jesus?

You know, jesus walked on water, healed the dead.

He performed so many healing miracles.

He gave the blind side, he helped the lame walk, he unstopped the ears of the deaf.

Like Jesus did so many incredible, wonderful things.

What is Jesus talking about here?

Well, you know, as we think about the greatest type of work of God, it is the miracle that we believe of someone coming to know Jesus, moving from death to life.

It's the miracle of salvation.

And Jesus, after he has accomplished his finished work, he gives the message of what he's done, the message of the gospel, to his church and he tells them that, as they proclaim the gospel, that the gates of hell Matthew 16, will not prevail against it.

And so think about this Peter never walked on.

Well, peter did walk on water, but after this passage, peter doesn't walk on water.

There are a lot of miracles that Jesus does, peter does not do.

But what does Peter do when the Spirit comes in?

Extra chapter 2?

Well, he stands up and he preaches a sermon, and wasn't a great sermon.

But what happens?

3,000 people from all over the world get saved and are added to the church that day.

That's what Jesus means when he talks about the greater works that the church will do.

And if you think about it, the church of Jesus Christ, throughout the ages, has been doing greater works in quantity than Jesus did.

The 120 saints who are gathered in Acts chapter 2, multiplies the thousands and then begins to grow and then begins to become under severe persecution from emperors like Nero.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Some of you know this.

I mentioned this to some of you in the weekend, but Christians in like 80, around 8060, are lit on fire in Nero's garden.

They are clothed in animal skins and cast into the area Colosseums and wild beasts are let out on them to devour them and those Christians, their blood.

It would be written later that their blood becomes the seed of the church.

And they kept sharing their faith and they kept caring for orphans and widows and they kept preaching the gospel.

And as they did.

You know that little group of 120, and then 3,000 on Pentecost.

In about 300 years it would grow to over almost 30 million people, so that the emperor Constantine would look out on his, and he would.

He would make Christianity the state religion of the Roman Empire, not because he just had some vision, but because it was a politically beneficial move.

And that church outlasted the fall of one of the greatest empires in human history and it outlasted the Middle Ages.

And the church has grown and explode.

And it outlasted the discovery of new continents and it outlasted the European Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and the advent of World Wars and genocides that have reshaped the rise of atheism.

And yet Christianity, the church of Jesus as the gospel has been proclaimed, is continuing to be multiplied throughout the world.

At the beginning of the 19th century, which was the bloodiest century in all of human history, there were more people who were killed in the in the sorry in the 20th century than in all other 20 centuries combined.

Did you know that?

And yet that was the, the century where Christianity exploded on the scene.

At the end of the 20th century, there were 2.2 billion, with the B, christians on this planet.

Sociologists today tell us that the places that Christianity is growing the fastest in the world share this with some of you Iran, afghanistan and China.

Sociologists estimate that by the year 2060, china will be a majority Christian country.

I think 40% of Christians globally will be in sub-Saharan Africa in the next 20 or 30 years.

The church of Jesus is exploding as it preaches the gospel all over the world and greater works even than Jesus did are being done by the church.

And I just got to tell you, harbor City, harbor City.

Some of those works are right in front of our feet today.

We talked about Ephesians 2.10 in the weekend, or that guy that we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should welcome them.

Well, guess what?

God has created good works, not just for us as individuals, but for us corporately.

And some of the greater works that God has prepared for Harbor City Church are actually not five years in the future or ten years in the future, they are right in front of our feet.

That is the message of the gospel is preached the Holy Spirit awakens life and new believers, that he begins to make them new people and renew them.

And he renews individuals.

And as he renews individuals, you know it starts to happen Families are renewed, that's, families are renewed, neighborhoods are renewed, schools are renewed, businesses are renewed.

And then, as God begins this overflow, movement of disciples, or making disciples, we have community groups that are planning community groups, which is going to lead what?

To churches that are planning churches.

Why?

So that the Holy City, the Holy City, this city called Charleston, would be a holy and truth and not just a name?

These works are in front of us.

There are greater works, even than Jesus did, that are available to the church, that God himself has prepared before us, that we should walk in them.

And so why should we take comfort?

Even though we are troubled, we should take heart and take comfort Harbor City Church, because Jesus is coming again.

We have a certain future.

I'm gonna go ahead and ask for the band to come and join me on stage.

I'm gonna remind you of some things that I pointed out in this sermon.

And as I remind you of these things, I don't want you to know them, I want you to feel them, I want you to believe them.

Again, I don't know kind of what's going on in your life.

I've been a pastor long enough to know that, like you know, you guys all look great.

Yeah, I do.

I can see all of you.

You look great.

But I just kind of know, like, underneath the surface, Some of you probably had maybe the worst week you've had this year.

Maybe you had the worst month you've had in your life.

Others of you are troubled.

You're not worried, you're troubled.

I'm gonna remind you of the comfort that Jesus offers his followers to you, harbor City Church.

So take heart, jesus is coming again.

We have a certain future.

Take heart, harbor City Church.

You know the way to the Father.

We have a sure path.

Take heart, harbor City Church.

Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit.

We have God Himself with us.

Take heart, harbor City Church.

Jesus has promised that the church will do greater works even than he did.

I'm gonna close the way I open the words of Jesus Let not your hearts be troubled.

You believe in God, believe also in Jesus, father, pray that you, the Spirit.

You would send the Spirit to do whatever you want to do in our lives right now.

She would comfort us, she would encourage us, she would raise up the weary, she would encourage the downtrodden, she would heal the sick, she would bandage the broken and use us to do it.

Lord, holy Spirit, even right now, put on, put on our hearts somebody who needs to be encouraged, somebody who needs to be lifted up.

And, lord, prepare us for the works that you have set at our feet.

We pray this in Jesus name, amen.