Would you please stand with me now for the reading of God's word, and we'll turn together first in Psalm 119. Psalm 119, and we'll read together verses 73 through 80. Psalm 119, verses 73 through 80. beginning in verse 73. The Word of the Lord says, Let, I pray, your merciful kindness be for my comfort according to your word to your servant. Let your tender mercies come to me that I may live, for your law is my delight. Let the proud be ashamed, for they treated me wrongfully with falsehood. But I will meditate on your precepts. Let those who fear you turn to me. Those who know your testimonies, let my heart be blameless regarding your statutes that I may not be ashamed." And may God add a blessing to the reading of his word. And now would you turn in the New Testament to the Gospel of Matthew chapter 6. Matthew chapter 6, verses 25 to 34. Matthew chapter 6 verses 25 to 34. Jesus, beginning in verse 25, says, Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet our Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field and how they grow. They neither toil nor spin, and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For after all these things, the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." All flesh is like grass, and all of its glory is like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And all of God's children said, Amen. Please be seated. Would you join me in a word of prayer once more? Gracious Heavenly Father and Lord, we thank you yet again for your word. We thank you that it is a lamp unto our feet, and we pray, Heavenly Father, that as we look upon your word, Lord, that you would give us all that we need to follow after you and to understand what you have called us to do, that we might glorify you. We pray that by your grace and mercy, Lord, you would help us to be the kind of disciples that Jesus Christ calls us to be. We pray, Heavenly Father, that we would be teachable this morning, that you would help us to understand, Lord, what you have called us to. We pray, Heavenly Father, that all of this would be for your glory. We ask these things in your precious Son, Jesus Christ's name we pray. Amen. I'd like to invite you to turn with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 14. John chapter 14 and we'll look together at verses 1 through 6. John chapter 14 verses 1 through 6. We have entitled this sermon, Comfort for Troubled Hearts. Comfort for Troubled Hearts. Well, we all know Life in this fallen and sin-cursed world is packed with trouble and trials of various kinds. Instead of pretending that these trials and troubles do not exist, Scripture faces them, these hardships, directly. Job 14.1, for instance, says, man who is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. The prophet Jeremiah chapter 20 verse 18, why do I come forth from the womb to see labor and sorrow that my days should be consumed with shame? Paul and Barnabas remind the believers in Asia Minor In Acts 14, verse 22, he writes, The blessed promise of Scripture is that God, the Father of grace and mercies, God of all comfort, will comfort His children. He tells us so. The Apostle Paul, 2 Corinthians 1, verses 3-5, Paul, under the guiding hand of the Holy Spirit, writes, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds with Christ." Ball's point is very easy to see that the Lord our God comforts us and we in turn have the ministry along with God the Holy Spirit to comfort as best we can our brothers and sisters. We see in Scripture that God comforts His people by granting us first and foremost the forgiveness of our sins, of salvation, the Holy Spirit whose ministry it is to comfort the Lord's elect. Jesus says in Matthew 5, verse 4, Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. The comfort here is very simply that when the believer repents of their sins, the result of that forgiveness is comfort. We are comforted at His forgiveness. Then in 2 Thessalonians 2, verses 16-17, Paul writes, God through Paul promises both a comfort for us in the future in our going home into the celestial kingdom of God, but also through the difficulties of this present age. David wrote confidently in Psalm 23 verse 4, While in the night before Christ's mock trial, the subsequent crucifixion, Christ here in John chapter 14 addresses the 11 in the upper room where Jesus' focus was not on his own ordeal, that is, his trial and his death and his crucifixion, but was instead, his concern was for the disciples and what they are about to head into as he is crucified and died, is raised In other words, Jesus sought to comfort them as well as us in the face of his departure, his death, his resurrection, and his ascension. And what we need to understand as Jesus Christ ministers to the disciples and us is that biblical hope and having biblical comfort is not our wishing that the promises of God are yes and amen. It is that our hope and our comfort is in our knowing that God's promises are sure because of the one who is making them. In other words, Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the covenant of grace, that the one through whom we find salvation as God's elect people, that we can know for sure that because He is the one promising us, He is the one ministering to us, that what it says in the word of the Lord is so. That we can bank upon it. We can put our trust in it. The issue for you and I as modern day believers, however, is are we going to look at comfort and hope the biblical way? Are we going to look at what Christ promises the disciples as well as us with an eye on the detail of believing what he says, that when we go out into the world and face these various trials, Scripture tells us God will sovereignly allow in our lives that it is for our good and for His glory, that we are essentially being drawn ever closer to Him, and that in the refinement of the struggle, our eyes are getting more and more fixed upon Him, and our hope becomes all the stronger as we look forward to the day of our going home. That isn't to say that as His people we don't enjoy life on this side of eternity. Amen? I enjoy driving my car. I enjoy being a father and a husband. I enjoy coming here every single Sunday. I enjoy going to Walmart. Amen? It's an interesting place to people watch as people do the things that they do and sometimes wear the things that they wear. Amen? I enjoy life. But for the believer, we must know and be confidently aware that although God does allow things, and the scripture says that His ways are different than ours. His thoughts are higher than ours. He knows our beginning and He knows our end. And therefore, what He allows may not fit into my paradigm, we must grow to understand that my paradigm is not the one that decides the trajectory of my life. Because, unfortunately, as we look out into this world, this true and lasting hope, this comfort that we hope for in Christ, doesn't exist outside of Jesus Christ. It's interesting because as he describes hope and comfort to us, what he isn't saying is, use some of me and use some of what this world offers to bring you comfort. It is that we need to fix our eyes upon Him, that we would submit to His Word and the truth within it, that we might be comforted by Him. Christ defines for us here that comfort comes from trusting Christ's presence, verse 1. That comfort comes from Christ's preparation, verses 2 to 3. And comfort comes from Christ's proclamation, verses 4 through 6. Will you look with me here at verse 1? Comfort comes from trusting Christ's presence, verse 1. He says to the eleven, It's interesting, we talked earlier in the introduction about trials and temptations and various difficulties that God sovereignly allows within our life. Well, as we think about this passage, the disciples, these 11 men that God has called out from amongst the brethren to lead the church through the proclamation of Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior to all those who will believe upon Him, if you did not know, had several things, several difficulties that needed to be comforted themselves. First of all, within the context, we see that in chapter 12, verses 12 through 13, that as Jesus Christ enters into Jerusalem in what is called theologically the triumphant entry, that there is a fervent messianic hope that has reached its apex between both the Jews and the disciples themselves as they look to Jesus Christ to be the one to come within Israel to free them from the Roman captivity. So as they worship Christ, as he enters into Jerusalem, they are literally worshiping him for the wrong thing, and that includes, as it was, the disciples. Well, secondly, their emotional high is dashed in the triumphant entry because Jesus publicly announces his impending death. He must die as a servant so that his own will live. He makes this announcement in John chapter 12 verse 24 and John chapter 13 verse 33. Ironically, the disciples' hopes are dashed because, like their fellow Jews, they saw the Messiah as a conquering king. He is seen as the one who will free Israel from the bondage of Rome to restore Israel's sovereignty and glory in the world. To say then that there was no room in their estimation that Jesus Christ would come and die, that His own would be saved, in other words, the way in which He goes about saving them would be utterly different than what they had entailed, would be an understatement. They're discouraged when they hear that Jesus Christ must die. They're discouraged. In John 13, verses 3-5, the disciples come upon the emotional difficulty as Jesus washes their feet. We see this last week in Sunday school. that again, this king that we are hoping will save us from Rome cannot be the one who bows down before us, grabs our filthy, smelly feet and washes them, showing us what he must do as the perfect servant on the cross of Calvary. Then in John chapter 13 verses 21 through 22, Jesus predicts that one of his disciples, that is Judas, will betray him. John chapter 13 verse 38, again, the disciples are appalled at the news that their leader, the apostle Peter, seemingly the strongest and boldest amongst them, will deny Christ three times. So in the last hours of Jesus Christ's life, before his trial and his beating at the hands of Pontius Pilate, his subsequent crucifixion and his death, the disciples are met with an array of things that intellectually there would have been no way for them to have predicted. You say, well, you could study the Old Testament and they should have known, and I agree with you, they should have known, but in their minds, at that moment, they were not expecting Jesus the Christ to say the things that they were saying. They're looking at their best friend, their King, their Lord, who's sitting in front of them and He's saying things that would have shaken them to their core. And the question that they ask themselves as he does so is, what will we now do? They aren't thinking about him in terms of his announcement to be raised three days after his death. They're simply looking at the one who they thought was going to free Israel from Rome, and disappointment is settling in upon their hearts. Look what he says at verse one. Let not your heart be troubled. Let not your heart be troubled. Jesus compassionately comforts his disciples as they struggle with the hard things that he is saying to them. Interestingly enough, this word troubled in the Greek, thraso, means literally to shake or to stir up. It's a word used in John 5 verse 7, where the water of Bethesda was stirred up. It's a, what it is, it's a word that draws up a mental picture because as you know, people believed that as the water was stirred, imbalance would get into the water and they would be cured of whatever ailments they had. Literally, as the disciples are hearing what Jesus is saying about his coming death and resurrection, their mind is stirred up with anxiousness and worry and they cannot come to resting their own minds. So in compassion, he says, verse 1, let not your heart be troubled. We cannot miss the fact here that what he gives them is a command. But it is a command based on compassion and love. Because as he indicates to them, he's not simply departing from them in his death. saving them. Notice what he says to actually comfort them. He says, you believe in God, believe also in me. This word believe, pisteo, It's a word that very interestingly gets at the heart of what Jesus Christ has come to do. You see, the disciples have looked at the Old Testament scriptures. They've seen the stories of men and women who have come before them. And as God regenerates His people, and He calls them out of darkness, and he makes promises to them that you will be my people and I will be your God. And then he doesn't just make promises to them. No, no, he lives up to their and goes beyond their expectations as he delivers them from various troubles and trials that come upon their way and in their life. In other words, they not only read about the faithfulness of God, they see it as it is played out before them. So when Jesus Christ says to them, let not your heart be troubled because you believed in God, believe also in me, what he is saying as the fulfillment of the covenant of grace is that I will do the very delivering God promised to you back in Genesis chapter three, verse 15. In other words, You have been looking for the Messiah to come who is going to crush the head of the serpent, right? We've been studying that in Genesis. Well, I'm here. Let not your hearts be troubled. The one who was promised to you has come. It's going to go on in John 17, as we prayed earlier, that His work is so definitive, so perfect, so righteous, so binding, that there's no one who can come and somehow take you from Him. So, let not your heart be troubled. The point here is not to look at this passage and say to ourselves, well, my troubles and my difficulties are different than theirs. Their trial was that they just spent the last three years or so with Jesus Christ, and now He is promising the very thing the Old Testament said would happen, and now they're just anxious and worried Therefore, maybe Jesus isn't telling me the same type of thing, except that His Word here, His encouragement, His command is for all ages. That because He has done this thing 2,000 years ago, it is as comforting as it was that day for you and I. He does something that you and I cannot do for ourselves. And therefore we are comforted because this God, the Father who makes these covenantal promises to us, those promises are yes and amen because the one who was promised to us to fulfill such covenant promises, obligations from God has come. And he surely as the day is long has in fact purchased our salvation." His point is that although you feel troubled, my death and resurrection and ascension overshadow any fear that we could have because I, the Lord, the great I Am, the Good Shepherd of the sheep, have purchased your salvation. Amen? You go back to Genesis chapter 15 verse 6, Abraham, God speaking to Abraham, he makes Abraham promises a part of the covenant of grace, that I am going to make your brethren, or those whom I am calling from amongst your brethren, my people. I'm going to give you a land. I'm going to outnumber those people more than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand in the beaches all over this world." And what did Abraham do? He believed God. It says, verse 6, and he believed in the Lord and he accounted it to him for righteousness. You go to Psalm 25, verses 1 and 2. It says, "'To You, O Lord, I lift up my soul. O my God, I trust in You. Let me not be ashamed. Let not my enemies triumph over me.'" 2 Kings 18, verse 5, says something rather remarkable. It says, "'He trusted in the Lord, the God of Israel, so that after Him was none like Him among all the kings of Judah, nor who were before him." What do those things have in common? How do they relate to John 14 verse 1? Again, these people, these men who we're discussing aren't such great men in and of themselves. In other words, they didn't wake up that day that they suddenly believed in the Lord our God and said to themselves, I'm so good and so talented and so smart that I see the need to believe upon God. No, no. It's that he worked in them. He regenerated them, to use a New Testament term. And then he introduces himself by giving them a covenant by which he makes a promise that they would be his people and to them he would be their God. He worked in them to believe and not only did they believe because of that work, they saw his faithfulness to them. This redemptive history goes from Genesis to Revelation to the end of the age. His people witness. His faithfulness. The idea that Jesus Christ is bringing to his disciples today is that because our forefathers saw God's faithfulness, and I am God, second person of the Trinity, the one who has come to purchase your salvation, to bring the covenant of grace to its conclusion, trust also in me. Isn't that beautiful? The idea here is that even though Jesus Christ is not going to be amongst them physically for long, because of his faithful love, he's going to send the Spirit who is the comforter to his own that we might be comforted. Even though Jesus Christ is not literally standing right here, he is by the Spirit amongst us working in us, sanctifying us, and we continue to this very day seeing how faithful the Lord our God through Jesus Christ is. So, do not let your heart be troubled. Secondly, verses two to three, comfort comes from trusting Christ's preparation. follow along with me as I read the word. Beginning in verse 2, The point here, very simply building on the previous point, is the comfort of the disciples and us is that although Christ may be apart from us physically, our separation from him is not a permanent one. It isn't an eternal one. He says, verse 2, 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. Verse 3, again, He says, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. It's interesting, as we look throughout the New Testament, we come across six passages of Scripture that describe for us heaven, because that's what Jesus is talking about. See, our comfort and hope is that although He leaves us for a season, He is coming back. He's taking us to this celestial kingdom where there are mansions that are waiting for us. Hebrews 11, verse 16, just the size of this place is described as a country. Then in Hebrews 12, verse 22, it's described as a city. 2 Timothy 4, verse 18, heaven is referred to as a kingdom. It's called a paradise in Luke 23, verse 43. And again in Hebrews 4, it is called a place of rest. In Revelation chapter 21 verse 16, the word of the Lord tells us that according to modern measurements, the base of the city alone is over two million square miles. To be precise, that is half the size of the United States. What is the point that Jesus is making? That in our Father's kingdom there will be plenty of room for the elect of God to come home to. He isn't somehow suggesting, although false teachers would say this, that every person born of a woman will go to heaven. That isn't what he's saying. And he isn't saying that if you do some wrong, you'll first go to purgatory, and then you'll work off your debt, and then you can finally join the saints in heaven. He says, again, verse 3, by way of promise, And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also. Jesus is coming once and for all, at which point he will take his own home to be with him for all of eternity. Why would that be encouraging or give us hope? The promise of salvation may be summed up in this one phrase, which we see throughout the Old Testament in particular, where God says, I will be their God and they will be my people. You see this promise in Genesis 17, in Exodus 6, in Ezekiel 34 and 36, in Jeremiah chapters 7, 30 and 31, In other words, we will one day see heaven physically. We're given these passages of scripture that stir up hope, but one day it'll turn from hope into being a reality. Therefore, we are comforted by the promise of Jesus Christ. The point being that although there are troubles of various kinds that our hearts will be troubled by, that we're not left to wallow in these troubles, because one day we will go to be with Him for all of eternity. The covenant of grace, God making a people that was no people, that He is creating a people who will be His people, and to us He will be our God. I give you a silly analogy of sorts, but when you go to check into a hotel room, the room is somewhat clean, amen? You don't go into a hotel room and it's all disheveled. You don't go into a hotel room with some guy in the bed keeping it warm for you. It's clean. Well, that is precisely what the Lord has done for us. We think about this life of faith, the difficulties that He allows We must understand and believe that there is comfort because of the promise that he is preparing a place for you. And as Paul puts it, the weight of that glory will far go beyond any weight or difficulty that we had experienced on this side of eternity. Thirdly, finally, verses four through six, comfort comes from Christ's proclamation. You, again, follow along with me as I read, beginning in verse 4. And where I go you know, and the way you know. Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. Comfort beginning in verse 1 through Christ. We're comforted through Christ, verse 1, because we know that he is faithful to his own. We're comforted, verses 2 to 3, because Christ is preparing a place for us in the kingdom of God. The third and final point is, but we're comforted also because we know the way. The disciples, as shocked as they are, understand to some degree now that Jesus Christ is going to die. And he tells them, verse 4, once again, he says, Well, the point is, verse 5, Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you are going and how we can know the way. See, the issue here is that Thomas is looking at him literally. He still does not understand that Jesus Christ is going to a place that even if he's dead, but you believe upon him as the way, as the truth and the life, he is taking us home with him. And that's the point. I love the New King James Version because it gets at what is actually being conveyed here in the Greek. He says, verse 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. The reason that matters is because in the Greek this word the is this word that pinpoints the exactness of who Christ is. He isn't a way. He isn't a truth. He isn't a life. He is the exclusive or the only way. Jesus is making a definitive statement that because you believe upon me and I am the way and the truth and the life, that as you continue to believe upon me, I will lead you home. That's the point. He is the way, the truth, and the life Even after he goes in the ascension to be home with the Father, and the Bible says that he is now sitting at the right hand of the Father, the place of honor, interceding for us day and night. We will one day go to be with Him for all of eternity. You think, how in the world should this comfort us? And this should comfort us the way it does the disciples. The comfort that we receive is not the result of you and I looking to be the best version of ourselves. You ever hear that phrase, be the best version of yourself? That's not where comfort is located. And it's not telling people, you've got this. That isn't where comfort is found. It isn't reminding people that although they make mistakes, they are inherently good people, and it isn't through lifting the most weight or being a part of the best social groups. The Heidelberg Catechism tells us again where our hope is found in Heidelberg Catechism question and answer verse 1, which happens to be my favorite. It says, as we all know, what is your only comfort in life and death? The answer that I, with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ, who with His precious blood has fully satisfied for all my sins and redeemed me from all the power of the devil, and so preserves me that without the will of my Father in heaven, not a hair can fall from my head. Indeed, that all things must work together for my salvation. Wherefore, by the Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live unto Him." Our comfort is solely, only found in Jesus Christ. and therefore you and I should not let our hearts be troubled." You notice as you go through this passage that Jesus Christ is not telling them that everything's going to be alright. You notice that? He isn't saying that everything that you have ever hoped and dreamed in your life, and there's nothing wrong with having dreams and hopes, amen? But what He isn't saying is that comfort from Me boils down to Me giving you everything that you have ever hoped for. He isn't telling Pastor Kevin that when he goes down to the Hummer dealership down whatever avenue, and I say, I want that one, that within days that thing's going to somehow magically roll up into my driveway. He isn't saying that if I stand before the mirror at home and I say I'm good enough and I'm smart enough and people, gosh darn it, like me, that somehow I'm going to be ushered into a euphoric feeling. And why? Because he isn't describing a feeling. What is he describing? He's describing something that is more powerful than a feeling. And that is a promise, based on the covenantal faithfulness of our good God, that that man suffered and died, that we might live. that somehow through the trials that He allows in our life and the difficulties that go on between people in relationships is somehow sanctifying me and it's causing me to look to Him rather than to my new brand new TV which I am just hoping will make me feel better. I like the Chiefs. I like when the Chiefs win. I hate it when the Chiefs get down to the last three seconds of the game and then Patrick Mahomes throws a pass that nobody should throw and somehow they win it. I don't like that. I want them to be up by 50 points with 20 minutes to go and these people are so shut down that they just sit in the sideline and cry. But that's not where hope is found. Hope is found at the very core of hope is that I might go into the worst storm of my life. I might be surrounded by people who hate me and cuss at me and talk badly about me and my wife and my mother and my kids, and yet still will I rest because they're not the ones who define the outcome. Jesus the Christ is the way and the truth and the life and therefore I will not let my heart be troubled. The idea here is that you fight your flesh so that when you enter into that dark time And people are talking about you, they're talking about your wife or your husband, they're talking about your kids, they're talking about your job, they're talking about your sweater, they don't like your hairdo, they don't like whatever. And you feel like you're about to cry, or you've got job issues, or you've got pain issues, or you have lonely feelings and you just feel and wonder if perhaps God has somehow forgotten about you. The resolve isn't to stand before a mirror and say, I'm smart enough and I'm good enough and gosh darn it, people like me. It's that because of His promises, He will take me home. That's so much better than standing before the mirror and saying, I'm smart enough and I'm good enough and gosh darn it, people like me. Want to hear an embarrassing story about me? Everybody perked up there. When I was in the 8th grade, or in the summer leading up to the 8th grade, I played with a team of players, most of whom were in high school, all the way up to the senior year. Okay? And that summer, we had this thing called off-ice training, and we got together several nights and we ran. Our coach lived downtown Kalamazoo, which isn't necessarily an altogether dangerous place, but I was in the eighth grade. I was intimidated. I wasn't particularly good, like I'm not now, with directions. I don't, you say north, great, north. Right or left, man? Which way am I turning? And I was, frankly, I was scared to death. I didn't want to get beat up and I didn't want to get made fun of and I didn't want to get lost. This is the first time we're getting together. It's 7 p.m. The sun's going down. It's cooling off. It's a perfect evening for running. I go. I'm optimistic. I stood before the mirror and said I'm good enough and smart enough and these people are going to like me. I get there, we stretch together, and the coach, who had been a college athlete, he was a college goaltender, if you know anything about hockey, he's a goaltender. He stood before the net and blocked the shots. He's the one that looks like a pillow. He looks at me. He says, we're going to go north here. We're going to go down south this way. We're going to go east this way. We're going to go west this way. And two sentences in, I didn't know what he was saying, and I was lost like a goose in the rain. He says, okay, bye. Come to find out later that when I turned around and I started my run, it was a six-mile run, that those people laughed. It was a hazing thing. You know what hazing is? They're making fun of you so that you can become more part of the team. How does that work? We're going to make fun of you so that you're more part of this team. Eighth grade, go running off into the dark. Do you know that I was running until 10 and I was lost? I had to call my own mother. I had a ride. One of the older players, 17 years old, gave me a ride to the thing. 10 o'clock at night, I make my way to a gas station on a street that I recognized. I had to call my mother. Ten o'clock at night, four hours later. The point is that, as I said, the exercise was to embarrass me. Everybody laughed. They all thought it was the most glorious time they've ever had. Oh, look at Kevin. He's running off into the darkness. Hopefully he comes back. Well, I had to call my mother before I could go back. I go back the next night. We only did it twice a week. I go back. The first question is, did you make it home? Now I'm a part of the team. God isn't tricking you. He isn't leading you astray. He's not telling you to go on some wild goose chase that you cannot find. And why? Because He's the way. He's the way. And that, beloved, is comfort. That's lasting comfort. Because He loves you. And He's faithful to His name. Why are we talking about this? Because as we partake of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, you and I have to remember that not only did He do this that we might live, we have to think about that he came on this side of eternity, that you and I would live, and then he promised, because of a work that he does in you and I, that when we follow after him, even after he goes home and sits at the right hand of the Father, that because of who he is, we will go to be with him for all of eternity. Let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, we are so thankful for this salvation. Perhaps this morning some of us have even taken it for granted. I don't look or talk like anything I used to. Perhaps the reason you love me is because I deserve it. I pay my taxes, I drive appropriately, I dress nice, I'm polite, I open the door for other people, perhaps even walked a grandmother across the street. None of that has anything to do with anything. We are saved because of your grace and your mercy. And I pray, Lord, that we would never lose sight of that. And I pray that like the disciples, we would learn what it means to go through trials and to calm our hearts, because this is but a season, the struggle. Help us to look to you, the author and the perfecter of our faith. We pray these things in your precious and mighty name. For it is in that name that we pray, amen.