Join us now for the chapel hour, coming to you from the campus of Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. Our speaker is Mr. Darrell Dalton, assistant principal of Bob Jones Academy. The title of his message is, God's Call to His Children to Trust in His Plan. The text is from John chapter 14, verses 1 through 6. I do appreciate the opportunity to speak this morning. I do have something from God's Word that I'd like to share with you this morning, so I'd encourage you at this time to Take your Bible and turn to John chapter 14. I do commend you for your continued study through the end of the semester for most of you and into summer school. And you are to be commended for that to keep up the good good work into the summer months and trust that you have the endurance to make it to the end. John chapter 14. In 1993, Mark and Tanya Rich went to the remote jungles of Panama as missionaries. Their heart's desire was to translate the Bible into the language of the Akuna Indians. One night, as they were getting their children ready for bed, they heard some loud voices outside their home. And a few minutes after that, three armed men burst into their house, took Mark and two other men away at gunpoint. They disappeared into the night. The missionary women and their children left alone were required, or at that point, their only option was to paddle downstream in a boat to get to safety somehow, to get help. While situations like this are seemingly uncommon in our culture, it is easy to see how sudden and unexpected change can cause anxiety, even though all the changes of life are not that dramatic. All people will face change at some point. During these times, it's easy for us to for our mind to sway back and forth and we think of questions come to our mind. What am I supposed to do now? Where do I turn now? How can I make it? How can God do this to me? These are all God's call to his children to trust in his plan. John chapter 14 provides us an example of such a situation. Some of the background running into this is as follows. In chapter 13, we have the Last Supper. And at the end of the Last Supper there, Jesus, as the leader of his disciples there, takes a position of humility and he washes his disciples feet. And that caused some consternation to the disciples as they thought, you know, that Peter said, you know, that not You shouldn't be doing this to me, Lord. And the Lord had to straighten him out on that. And then he reveals Judas as the betrayer. And the disciples are feeling as if one of us, one of the very close ones is a betrayer to you. This caused confusion again. And then he says, well, I'm leaving you. I'm going away. And Peter, by the way, at some point in your life, you also are going to betray me. And all these things stacked up on one on top of each other. come to the point where they are anxious, they're concerned, they're worried. What's going on? Where does all this change all in the middle of nowhere? Kaboom. Here's all this difficulty. And now on top of all this, their leader was going to go away. This was way too much for them to handle. At this difficult point in their lives, Christ wanted his disciples to do one thing to keep their trust in him. And the lesson is the same for us today, because Christ is the author of change. His command to us is to trust his plan. I want to point out three things from these few verses that can encourage our hearts today as we maybe not today, But maybe at some point in our lives, we face something that kind of catches us by surprise and we are tempted to manipulate in turn and to handle it our own way. And yet Christ is the author of those changes. And he's pointing he wants our minds to go back to some very important truths about him. The first one I want you to realize this morning and is good for me as well, is we can trust Christ's plan because of his position. Verse one says, Let not your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe also in me. And I think this is very important as a theme that comes up time and time again in the book of in the Gospel of John is this assertion that Jesus is the son of God or Jesus is God. And this truth comes out time and time again throughout here. And here it is still as the disciples are struggling, that Christ has to remind them that they are not just dealing with a good teacher. This is not just an extra special human being. This is God. Another way maybe we could look at those few few words at the beginning is we could look at that command and say Christ is telling them to set their heart at ease in this context, it looks as if he is commanding them using an imperative here to say, set your heart at ease, do not be troubled. I am God. Later in the chapter, Christ tells him peace. I leave with you my peace. I give unto you not as the world giveth give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. And these are the things that that he is calling to them. And his first thing I want to point out here is that the position that Christ as God can bring comfort to our lives. We're not just dealing with a good historical figure. We're dealing with the God of the universe. Who is the author of these unexpected changes or these changes in our lives that kind of hurt or surprise us or just confuse us? But God is the author of that and his position as God can reassure us and bring comfort to our minds. So let not our hearts be troubled. Believe in God. He also says, I am God. Believe in me. This position also calls for our obedience. This is a command. It's important to remember again that we are dealing with God. John is presenting the theme that Jesus Christ is God. You know, sometimes it is very hard for us to trust our leadership. We've seen them. They're human and they blow it. I know the Academy kids in here are all can be smiling right now. They've seen me. They've seen me blow it. And sometimes it's hard for us to trust those that God has placed in our lives. But I think it's important for us to take a step back from that and remember that God has never told us to trust our leadership. It's nice if we can, but he is always calling his children to trust God and to obey our leadership. And that can provide a lot of rest and comfort in our hearts. Because our trust is in God who sets up our leadership. And our job as children of God is to obey those that he's placed in our lives and trust that God is even going to use their mistakes to work my best good. So we can trust Christ's plan because of his position as God. Today, you may sit there and you're agitated in your spirit. Things haven't worked out according to your plan. As a matter of fact, you've been working on a paper and you got the thing finally done and you went to save it and the file went into computer, never, never land, never to be seen again. That's what happened with these notes that I'm reading you today. I know what I'm talking about here. Here in the middle of all this, I click to save it and print it out and kablamo, I'm back at square one. Unexpected change. But you're agitated and oh man, I spent all this time on this, now what do I do? And after looking everywhere, there's no result, there's no paper, there's no notes. I have a question for you. Does thinking about God bring any relief to your heart? Does thinking about who He is, about His position, does it bring any relief or ease? Many Christians continue to walk through life revealing how little they understand about God and His ways by exhibiting constant trouble and showing their discontent and all the frustrations of life. And all they do is reveal that they are not aware of God's position as the author of change in their lives. It's understandable to be disappointed when you lose a paper. And it's even worse when then you have to go face a teacher and explain why you did and they've heard all the stories. And so I'm not saying it's wrong to be disappointed, but it is wrong to dwell on it and to question and to muse and then manipulate and try to figure out some other way and leaving God out of the picture. You know, God is sovereign and a sovereign God is an easy God to trust. That's what we're our focus needs to be today, his position and what he's telling these disciples, I am God. Don't let your hearts be troubled. There's another thing here today, I think that the Lord has for us. Secondly, trust Christ's plan because of his promises. He goes on in this passage and he says to the disciples, in my father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also. There's two promises or maybe even in even a few more, depending on how we look at it here. But one of the things we know that he is telling the disciples here is that, hey, I'm going to prepare a place for you to be. I'm going to prepare a place in heaven for you to come to be with me. And not only that, once I have that ready, I'm going to come back and I'm going to establish in a reunion with you someday. And I said it all right. And I'm going to be with you. We're going to be together forever. And here he gives the disciples this hope Yes, it looks bleak right now. Yes, it looks like everything that possibly could go wrong is going wrong right now. But he gives them a promise. He lets them know that, hey, there's a plan. There is a method here and there is something that I am doing that maybe you can't see right now, but it's part of my plan for your life. And what the thing is for us, I think today is these promises that God has for us that are so important. The important reason to keep reviewing promises is that it keeps our focus on him. It's not in necessarily just the anticipation of it being fulfilled. But this idea that as I continue to rehearse the promises of God in my mind, to continually go back to them. My heart is strengthened, my focus is on God, who doesn't fail. who has never failed and will meet the needs of my heart, just because we don't see the promise fulfilled immediately doesn't excuse us from believing in them. These disciples right here still live their entire life before these promises were fulfilled, and yet they clung in faith to them. That's what keeps them going through those hard times. Can you imagine the persecution that these men endured, the hard times, the isolation, What keeps him going? It's a realization of God's promises. It's clinging to them, knowing that he is God. As you sift through your thoughts today, maybe you realize that you've been filled with dismay. Mom and dad have maybe disappointed you, even hurt you. The treasured relationship has been ended. And on top of all that, you're struggling with your health. Take a moment today and reflect on the promises of God. Name one seven. The Lord is good, a stronghold in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them who trust in him. Psalm 5522 cast your burden upon the Lord and he shall sustain thee. He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Psalm 66, 10 and 12 through 12. I love this passage for thou, O Lord, has proved us thou has tried us as silver is tried. Thou has brought us into the net. Thou hast laid affliction on our loins. This is not talking about academic things, by the way. Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads. We went through fire and through water, but thou brought us out into a wealthy, a prosperous place. That's our God. That's a promise from God. He's the one that brings these the fire and the water into our lives. He's the one that lays affliction on our loins. He's the one that does all this. But in that all that promise, he also says, I will bring you into a wealthy place. And that's why we can trust his plan promises. That sometimes when we we understand in our mind, yes, I know that you are God. I know that your way that I have no problem with that. But but it's time to call in the reinforcement and reinforcements. And that's the time where we go and we rehearse these promises of God and we go and we line them up one after another. We pile them up and we meditate on them. We give ourselves to them. And we can then trust Christ as we realize and rest in his promises. Well, thirdly, I'd like to say that you can trust his plan because of his provision. Jump into verse five, Thomas said unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest and how can we know the way? Jesus said unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh unto the father, but by me. You can trust his plan because of his provision. Some jump on Thomas too harshly, and we condemn his doubt, and by no means are we trying to lift up anybody's shortcomings. But I think in reality, Thomas only voices what we quietly say in our own hearts. We doubt God. We ask God, how can we know the way if you're not here? And we are so short-sighted and so focused that we're missing all that God has for us. At least Thomas was honest. The future seemed very bleak. But in the midst of this uncertainty, Christ reminds them of his provision for them. And one of the things Christ is saying to them in this passage here is, my provision for you is personal. Can you imagine going through life with just a list of things to do? That is exactly what the religions of the world provide. They give us a list of things that if you do these things, you get to the highest level or heaven or whatever they want to call it. And they give you a list and there's no relationship in that. There's no reason really in that except for a self-driven motive to make life easier for myself. And Christ in all this is saying, my provision for you is not just a list. My provision for you is me. It's Christ. I can remember having a job a few summers ago attempting to tile floors. And it was a difficult task for me to begin cold turkey in. And my boss would explain to me, okay, Darrell, what you need to do is you need to take this piece of one by one tile and notch it here and cut it here and work it into the corner here underneath the baseboard and that kind of thing. And so I'd say, oh yeah, yeah, that's good. Okay, I'll go do that. And 30 minutes later, he'd see me in the corner of the room trying to jam in that last piece of tile. And he'd just go, Daryl, Daryl, Daryl, what in the world are you doing? And he'd say, come here. And he'd take it, and he'd heat it up a little bit with a heat gun, and pop that place in, work it in perfectly. Everything was OK. Just kind of smile. Boy, wasn't it nice to have the teacher around for that? It's so much better when your boss helps you out. And I'm not reflecting poorly on him, but see, how hard it was for me by myself, how hard it was for me when I just had a list of rules of things I was supposed to follow. When my boss comes in and says, here, let me help you out with that, and he placed that tile in, the job was done. Christ's provision for us is personal. He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. Can you imagine what it would be like to have to follow a religion that just gave you a list of things you had to do? Can you imagine? And you can even just think. And they were on the gamut from rigid, rigid, restrictive lifestyles where things that are required of are totally bizarre to, of course, we're all the sons of God and we'll get to heaven whoever wants to get there. And all these fabrications of ways, all are man's way of coming up with a system to reach heaven, to reach God. And God all along says, my provision for you is personal. I am the way. The second thing I'd like to point out here is just that his provision is exclusive, and I kind of thought that word exclusive is a little bit clumsy, but let me try to tell you what I'm trying to say is Christ provides for us one way. There's only one way. And like I said, the world comes up with millions of brilliant, it seems like variations, and yet there's only one way critics will challenge Christ by saying that his provision or provision for heaven can be found in many ways. But as Christians, we come to the scripture and we place ourselves in subjection to it. He is the way he provides a way to God. He is the truth. His truth sets us free from sin. He is the life. In him, there is everlasting life, communion, fellowship with him. Perhaps recently you found out that a job you were promised fell through or it's not going to work out. Thoughts like this always happens to me. I thought God cared about me. Keep going through your mind. As people, our initial reaction is to lean onto our own understanding, as Proverbs 3, 5 tells us. We start to manipulate our circumstances to get what we want. Can I ask today, though, is your plan working? If you're agitated or troubled in your heart or you're having a hard time and your heart's discouraged, how has your way of handling it worked? Are you any better for it? Is it working? It's hard to change what God has already allowed in our lives. It's hard to come up with an alternate plan to that. Why not rest in the provision that he has provided in himself? Trust. The Lord trust God. Because God is the author of change, trust his plan. He is the author of all this. And he reminds us of his position. He reminds the disciples of I'm God. He gives the disciples promises and we have the same ones. He gives us provision, he's provided all the things that we need to live a godly life. Tonya Rich is back in the United States, raising her daughters. Eight years have passed and she still doesn't know whether her husband is alive. In an interview recently that I saw, she said, I'm human and I miss my husband. I want to live a normal life. But there are things that are worth living for and dying for. And the gospel is one of them. Can I suggest to you this morning that there is a lady that I don't know. Who has a real understanding? Of God's position. or Christ's position as God. She has had to claim some promises to come to that type of statement in her life. No doubt she's resting in the provision that God will provide for her needs. Christ is the author of unexpected change, sudden, traumatic. You may not be facing any of that today, but no doubt at some point in our lives, we all will come across those things. My prayer for you and for me is that we will remember. The God who is the author of the unexpected changes of our life. Let's close in prayer. Father you see everything. And you know the hearts that are hurting here today. You know the ones who have burdens that they cannot share. And Lord, I pray that through the reflection on the word of God today, you would encourage each heart. They would be reminded of your position. That you are a sovereign God. That you've given us precious promises. And provided for us everything we need. And Lord, I pray that you would encourage our hearts in the Lord today. And that we would go full of faith, trusting in your plan. In Jesus name, Amen. If you'd like a cassette copy of today's message, send a check for $7 to Campus Store, Bob Jones University, Greenville, South Carolina 29614. Be sure to mention the name of the speaker and today's date. The chapel hour has been sponsored by Bob Jones University.