Navigating Life's Challenges with the Peace of the Holy Spirit

You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun in practical ways, fun and practical. That's us

today. That's what they say. That's what they say. That's what they

say, meaning Connor on the video or has it? Yep. Hey,

So today we're opening up with a segment called Mailbags. Oh, Mailbags.

So mail Bags comes from today Marissa C. And Marissa is writing in And

by the way, as a side note, if you want to write in,

we would love to hear from you. Email us at info at the

Bible Guys dot com and we would absolutely love to answer your questions or consider

answering it on a podcast. Yeah, which, by the way, just

as a side note, the Bible Guys dot com has We're trying to build

that website out more and more and more. There's gonna be a lot more

features pretty soon. But a transcript of our shows, of the whole show,

word for word is on about that's scary, isn't that neat? Yeah?

Because I always say or yeah, yeah, maybe we edit those out.

I don't know, but a I can do lots of really cool things

lately. Yeah, Oh, that's very neat. So here's what Marissa's c

says. First, I want to tell you that you two have an incredible

way of bringing the word to life. Thank you, Thank you, Marissa.

And she said I would like to know if either of you have any

secret talents that you could share it with us. Secret talents talents. Okay,

okay, all right, well can you go first? Let me see

I can wiggle my years? Oh can you? Yeah? Oh that's cool.

I could. I think I could do it? Hang on litit?

Yeah, yeah, there you go, good job. Yeah. So our

listeners that was riveting. Yeah yeah. About hundreds and hundreds of listeners listening

right now, and they're like, okay, I'm just imagined, just imagine,

so something that I never I never ever ever talk about and rightfully so

and you'll find out why. But I could speak another language fluently? Can

you really pig Latin? Pig Latin? Oh? I bet you can't really?

Yeah? Yeah, ok or stay after I don't know, I said,

you want to go to the store after this? Oh no? Okay?

So yeah, And so my buddy and I Dave Davis from home in

Youngstown, we used to irritate and and so the reason why I think we

kept on doing it is because it made Norman Jeff so mad, because pig

Latin is just that way anyway, right, it's just sort of irritating and

and so. But we would just talking pig Latin all the time. And

because we could talk in front of them, you know, like you when

you go in, like somebody of another culture talks about you right in front

of you. It happens to me all the time. So that's what we

did all the time. That's funny. That's the star. I can juggle.

Oh can you how many at one time? Back? Five? I

can go far? Yeah's good? Yeah yeah, yeah yeah yeah. So

it's two on the outside, one in the middle is what you got yea.

Yeah, Well I could do two really well. I can juggle two

really fast, yeah yeah, and really long, you know, a long

time. Three. Three is the one that I can just grab any time

and do. Yeah, if I practice anything, I can do three for

like three rounds and then I lose it. I could walk around the house

juggling. Wow. Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. Ye Maybe I'll

go another one so I can kind of draw a little bit, you can,

that's right? No, no, not a little bit like you're an

artist. Well, I at some things. Yes, I think that.

Growing up, my older brother he was a he's a commercial artist. And

then all my brothers had talent and they would draw. And then then my

brother Jimmy got into the field as well with video and artistry. And Jimmy

and Chuck are both just unbelievable uncanny. For our Heritage listeners, they remember

two Christmases ago when we did the Upset on Christmas, we had those water

dot com go and watch Upside Down Christmas. All of the art in that

your brother did. Yeah, my brother did. Yep. It was all

hand done right, Yeah, hand done yep. So so's he's very he's

very talented. And I think that just over the years I sort of just

picked it up and uh, and so all my kids consequently draw. But

Tory, my youngest daughter, she really has a talent. Wow. So's

she's as good as me. Wow, that's amazing. Yeah. For the

people who are not Heritage attendees or have listened to the podcast much, if

you're new to it. Music is my background, mostly instrumental stuff. So

I actually went to college on a music scholarship and I have a music degree,

which is kind of weird that I'm a lead pastor teaching pastor. Yeah,

and your instrument was all the brass instruments. I can play all the

brass instruments, but my main was trumpet, So I played love trumpet.

Yeah, And so consequently I've been trying to Every once in a while I

ask Jeff to play the trumpet on the stage. But the thing with the

trumpet is, though when you got to build up, it's all muscle.

It's all muscle. So if you guys wanted me to do it, I'd

need like an eight week or ten week run of pretty serious rehearsal to get

back to where I could go. We're doing some brass for Easter, yes,

And I was just talking with Trey about that, and I just I

travel five times, four times between now and Easter. I just couldn't get

in shape for it. Yeah, I'd love to because I could play all

that music. Well, you could be in your hotel room somewhere and like,

you know, just just ripping it exactly exactly. It'd be fun.

But yeah, I had an opportunity all through college and then even for a

while played in semi pro stuff. Got a chance to do some work with.

We played with the Detroit Symphony, I don't know, eight or nine,

ten, twelve times something like that for the fireworks at Greenfield Village and

played in most of the auditoriums and theaters and between here and Little Rock,

Arkansas. So when I was in elementary school, I took an instrument for

two years before I quit. Do you know what that instrument was? Was

it trumpet? It was trump was it? Really? It was? So

we're probably about the same, right right. The only difference to be tens

of thousands of hours. Yeah, no, you're read tens of thousands of

hours. Yeah, I actually took trumpet. So the only note I remember

is the high seat. Through high school, I would practice an hour,

hour and a half a day. In college I was playing two and a

half hours a day, rehearsing two and a half hours a day, and

then playing with the band or the orchestra or whatever. And then as an

adult, especially when I was playing with the Motor City Brass I was a

couple of hours a day to play. But because it's all muscle, that's

just like it'd be like doing football rehearsal for football practice for two hours you

know, you're pretty blown out after that, so you have to be careful

with it. But yeah, I love it, loved it, miss it.

I just don't have time for it. And I have two and a

half hours to put into it anymore. Right, So anyways, there you

go. There's your answer, Marissa, thank you answers. Yeah, and

so I'm super excited to have Chris start drawing all this stuff. Yeah.

Sure. And then what was your obscure one? What was the goofy one?

Pig latin? Yes, please please don't see exactly. Okay, maybe

the episode of the Office where Andy wanted to ask Pam out and so Jim

Jim told him to approach her with all the things that she hates. Oh

right, right, and it was it was pig latin was one of them.

It was so good. So so we are continuing. This is one

of these passages. Jesus had so many profound things to say, and in

the in the past, it seemed like Matthew, Mark and Luke were always

saying the same stuff. Well, here, this is a John thing.

It's only in the book of John fourteen fifteen, and so here he goes

and he says in John fourteen verse fifteen. If you'd love me, obey

my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you

another advocate who will never leave you. He's the Holy Spirit who leads into

all truth. The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him,

doesn't recognize him, but you know him because he lives with you now and

later will be in you. No, I will not abandon you as orphans.

I will come to you soon. The world will no longer see me,

but you will see me since since you also will live. When I

am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father,

and you are in me, and I am in you. Those who

accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me. And because

they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them

and will reveal myself to the each of them. Judas not Judas is Scariot,

but the other disciple with that name said to him, Lord, why

are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at

large? And Jesus replied, all who love me will do what I say.

My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home

with each of them. Anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me.

And remember my words are not my own. What I'm telling you is from

the Father who sent me. I'm telling you these things now while I am

still with you. But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative,

that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and remind you of

everything I've told you. I'm leaving you with a gift peace of mind and

heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give.

So don't be troubled or afraid. Remember that I told you I am going

away, but I will come back to you again. If you really loved

me, you would be happy that I'm going to the Father who's greater than

I am. I have told you these things before they happen, so that

when they do happen, you'll believe. I don't have much more time to

talk to you because the rule of this world approaches. He has no power

over me, but I will do what the Father requires of me so that

the world will know that I love the Father. Come, let's get going.

There you go, Come, let's get going. Let's be going.

I guess is what it says. But yeah, let's be going. You

know. So I said in yesterday's podcast that I was going to comment on

the phrase do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid,

right, which you just get done reading. And there's by the way,

there's a lot to talk about here because he says so much, but let

me just tackle it, right because it's on my mind. So at the

beginning of John fourteen, he says the same thing, do not let your

hearts be troubled, do not be afraid, you know, believe in me.

If it were not so, you know, I would not have told

you. I go to prepare a place for you in my father's house.

There's many rooms all that stuff, right, Yeah, okay, So I

oftentimes quote this at funerals. So when somebody is at a funeral, they

are very saddened because, you know, the heaviness of somebody who was alive

is now no longer alive, and obviously they're just said to have them go,

and it's hard to picture heaven. It's hard to picture them, you

know, in a place where it's real. And I and so what I

do is I actually quote Jesus, because Jesus in John fourteen was getting ready

to leave the earth, and he was getting ready to die. And so

I use this at funerals because Jesus is trying to paint a picture about the

reality of heaven, and oftentimes when he talks about it, he couples it

with this phrase that says, don't be afraid, do not let your hearts

be troubled, do not be afraid. So at the very beginning of the

chapter, he talks about mansions in heaven and he says, don't be afraid,

you know. And when he's talking about death and preparing to die,

he says, I'm going away. Don't be afraid, right, because the

reality of heaven is real, right, Okay. So, and the thing

that I usually do is I tell people. The thing I capitalize on is

that he tells them in verse twenty seven, I'm leaving a gift with you,

peace of mind and heart. And the gift I give to you the

world cannot give. So once again, don't let your hearts be troubled,

and do not be afraid. And so this idea that God says, Hey,

if you want to talk about death, you want to talk about heaven,

you know, which he does this whole chapter. I'm giving you something

the world cannot give, right, I'm giving you peace of heart and peace

of mind. And this is a world This is a gift that the world

cannot give. And I liken that to the fact that the world doesn't have

an answer to death. If you don't believe in God, you're an atheist,

and you believe it all ends. There is no hope, there is

no peace, there's nothing. Right, Jesus says, I'm giving you something

that the world cannot offer, which is gift of heart and mind, and

it's peace. And I think that only in God can we find this peace

when it comes to death, when it comes to thinking about our loved ones

in heaven that Jesus is describing right here, that's where the peace comes from.

That's where the joy of knowing that this is not a final goodbye,

but rather until we meet again. Right. So, you can try to

find peace elsewhere, but you're not going to find peace the way that God

gives it. So it's interesting he talks about you know, it'll be you'll

have greater power, you'll do greater things than me. That's always we know

He's already attached that to the power of the Holy Spirit in us. He's

going to talk about that in Acts chapter one when he says, you know,

the Holy Spirit will come on you and you have power. Right.

But here he also says that that peace comes because of the Holy Spirit,

right, Yeah, the advocate, and he'll teach you everything and remind you

everything I've told you. And so it's always sad to me. I just

was in a conversation the other day with a godly woman and her and her

husband. They're up in age till like sixty late eighties. The gentleman is

lady. They are coming to a point where their borderline obsessed with prophetic things.

Yep. And I kept trying to probe. I knew, I knew

what the answer was. I kept probing, and finally she said, so

you don't think the rapture is going to come before I? Oh, I

don't want to die. I just I don't want to die. And I

thought, oh, so should we be students of the work, Yes,

should we know what prophecy says about the end? Yes, But the motive

for them was we don't want to die. We're afraid of dying. That

it was their terror of death that drove them into this place, and I

just felt like and so I said, hey, listen, Jesus said,

you don't have to be afraid of backwards, isn't it. Jesus said,

I am giving you the Holy Spirit to comfort you, to give you peace.

And when you're truly in the spirit, that doesn't mean that there's nothing

bad happening. Man. When I read prophetic things, boy, it's going

to get rough. But I can have the peace of God in the middle

of those difficult things. And so it was really great as we were reading

this. The note for verse twenty seven in the Life Application Bible says the

end result of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives is deep and lasting peace.

Unlike worldly peace, which is usually defined as the absence of conflict,

this is confident assurance in any circumstance. With Christ's peace, we have no

need to fear the present or the future. Sin fear, uncertainty, doubt,

and numerous other forces are at war within us. The peace of God

moves into our hearts and lives to restrain these hostile forces and offer comfort in

place of conflict. Jesus says he will give us that peace if we're willing

to accept it from him. If your life is full of stress, allow

the Holy Spirit to fill you with Christ's peace. Right. And so that

is one of those things I think that we can go to the Father often

and pray, God, send your Holy Spirit to give me peace today,

Peace that passes all understanding. The Bible says right. And so in these

most difficult times, in the scariest moments, catch your breath, pause for

a minute. Don't just go running crazy like a chicken with your head cut

off. Instead, ho back and ask for the Holy Spirit to give you

God's peace in a way that you can't even understand or fathom. And it's

not an absence of conflict, not an absence of the problem. It's supernatural

peace from God that He's going to carry you through it. And you know

we've talked about that. How can you be threatened with heaven if the worst

possible thing could happen, How can you be threatened with heaven? Right?

And so all the other things are incidental. So if you're afraid of dying,

does that mean you don't believe you have a good father. He was

willing to do everything else he could think of doing for you, everything else

necessary to pay the price for your sin, but he's going to let you

live in a tortuous moment without giving you any ability to navigate through. That

is that that doesn't make any sense, right, So sometimes I think the

devil, even to our last minute, often will try to get us to

doubt how good God is and we forget the power of the Holy Spirit in

us to help us have peace even in the biggest storms. It's literally Jesus

getting in the boat, is Jesus walking on the water. Peace be still

kind of thing. Jesus is sleeping in the back of the boat because he's

not afraid of the storm. Why because he has sure confidence that when God

said go to the other side of the of the lake, He's going to

the other side of the lake. Period. That's it, right, And

if we can just understand that, that's the offer God gives is I'm in

control. I will take care of you no matter what you face. I

will give you the power and the ability and the grace to make it through.

And the other side is just that great. Yeah. Right, that's

so funny that you're saying that, because that's literally the message this Sunday.

Yeah, did you know that? No? Yeah, so we're talking about

that going to the other side of the lake and God being on the other

side. Yeah, so that's it really great. Well, hey, can

we jump with what we don't want to miss is the beginning, because Jesus

says a whole bunch about obeying him, yes, and obedience. Now,

doing what God says to do is not so you can go to heaven.

But doing what God says to do is the only way that Jesus tells us

we can tell him we love him. There is no other way. If

you love me, obey my commandments. And he says it over and over

again through here. Right, yeah, love me, And he says the

people who don't obey me don't love me. So I know a lot of

Christians who know what the right thing is to do, but then choose not

to do it, and then on the other side of their mouth say,

boy, I love Jesus though, right, And Jesus is like, boy,

doesn't feel like you love me. You knew what was right and you

choose not to do it. And so we have grace. Grace means I

don't go to hell for doing the wrong things, right, Jesus grace,

God's grace is extended to me. He forgives me because I placed my faith

and trust in me, pays the price. And so a lot of times

people abuse grace. Paul says, what should we sin so that grace will

abound even more? The more we sin, the more grace there is.

Wow, this is great. Let's just keep sinning, And a lot of

people just go, well, God knows my intent, God knows my circumstances.

God knows my situation. I just had opportunity with a friend of mine

recently who was living in a situation that wasn't the right situation. And my

friend is a Christian and was saying, man, I have my reason.

And as you sit and listen to that friend, talk about the reasons there

legit, this is a really difficult situation this person found themselves in. So

they wind up choosing a living situation that wasn't entirely honoring God. So when

we got the talking about it, I was saying, what would it take

for you to honor the Lord? And do you believe that God will bless

you? Yes, Okay, let's do that. And this person had the

guts to step out and say, okay, I'm going to follow God in

this and things are working out pretty great. It's going fine now. But

it was fear that often leads us into if I don't do this, I

might lose that boyfriend. If I don't do this, I might lose this

job. If I don't do this thing I know is wrong, I might

lose this friend or this opportunity. And so we do things, and we

justified doing the wrong thing because and then we still say, well, I

love God, but I've got to do this. I'm going to lose this

person. And jesusaid, listen, I should be the most important relationship.

And then, you know, so many other times he says, seek first

my kingdom and my righteousness, and I'll add all these other things to you,

you know, Matthew, Chapter six. So we just have to trust

that when we obey him. It's the only way Jesus told us is the

way that we can tell him we love him is when we choose to do

what he told us to do. And so, man, I just want

to celebrate when people decide to do the right thing, even though it feels

hard. Just know Jesus feels so loved by you in that moment. Yeah,

yeah, Well, obedience is the very definition of faith. Right,

So, you know, faith when we don't understand it, Faith when we're

afraid to do things. Yeah, faith when we you know, doubt that

God can come through you know. Obedience meaning it's not just sometimes black and

white, it's obedience when when we don't even understand it. Yeah, you

know. So obedience is a funny thing because sometimes when we hear from God,

it's really plain, thou shot and thou shot not. It's like it's

like that is that is pretty plain. But then there's sometimes where we're like,

huh, there's not a black and white thing that points to this exact

scenario. But then we have to go off of God and God's nature,

God's character, sometimes God's principles, right, and we're in what he's placed

in your conscience. He's placed in your conscience. Roman's fourteen says, don't

send against your conscience thirteen, right, and so and so God's never gonna

put in his will something that's contrary to other parts of his work, right,

And and then and then there's sometimes where where we'll hear something very specific

that God wants us to do, like quit your job, you know,

or or do this or you know, or maybe it's something simple, like

simple like give this money to this person or help this person whatever it is,

and or you know, or start tithing you know, and and and

uh and whatever it is. And when we hear this whisper and then we

don't necessarily understand, you're like, but but God. And that's the scenario

you're talking about, which is like, but God, if I do that,

this is going to happen, right, and and so we either don't

understand, or maybe perhaps we do understand, but we're fearful, or maybe

we just do understand. We're fearful, but that we also think there's no

possible way this is going to work to my benefit. God's not going to

come through because the odds I've calculated the odds, and there's only a small

probability of this taking place. Yeah, and so and so obedience sometimes is

all of those things, right, and it's and it's so Yeah, it's

hard to walk by this, say this is all in the same group of

sentences talking about peace too, Right, So I tell Jesus I love him

by choosing to obey him. But I recognize circumstances can wind up getting really

difficult because I choose to obey him, and God says, I'll give you

your my holy spirit and you'll have my peace right, so we can have

we can have confidence and peace when we choose to do what God says to

do, even in the most difficult situations. That's great. Well, that

is our time and we will see you next time on the Bible. Guys,