John Chapter 14:22-31

Do not give your peace away. See, when you're in a situation with maybe your kids, you can give your peace away. When you're in a situation with your spouse, you can give your peace away and lose it. When you're in a line at Walmart maybe, you can give your peace away and lose it. When you get behind a slow-moving vehicle, you can give your peace away and lose it.

When you start thinking about Well, tax season. You can give away your peace and lose it. Those situations where you begin to lose your peace, realize something, you've given it away.

It's not that you didn't have it or you weren't given it, you've given it away. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we're blessed to have one of David McGee's associate pastors here with us, D.A. Welcome, Pastor D.A.

Bob, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited about what God is doing with this ministry, sharing the gospel all over the world. You know, Jesus offers to give us a peace that passes all understanding, unfortunately. Sometimes we can give that peace away. Today, Pastor David explains how we can keep that peace as he continues in the Gospel of John, Chapter 14.

Sounds good. So here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Promises. So we're in John, Chapter 14. We're continuing our march through the Gospel of John. We're going to pick it up at verse 22.

Judas not Iscariot said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him. Again, Jesus in the final closing moments with these disciples is, he is on a theme of saying, you know what, if you love me, do the things I've said to do. If you love me, keep my commandments. If you love me, keep my word. It's real easy to say, I love the Lord.

I mean, it's not that hard to say, is it? I love the Lord. But how do your actions, how do your words line up with your actions? Do your actions suggest that you love the Lord? Go through mentally, are you in God's word? Are you serving?

Are you giving? These things that we know are in his word and Jesus suggests that our obedience and our love are tied together even to the point that you can see what level somebody is on with their obedience, the level that their love for the Lord is. See, to just say, I love the Lord, again, is easy to do. But to obey the Lord, it's a little more difficult, isn't it? Now, I understand this is a tough message. It's tough to deliver.

It's tough to hear. But this is the truth of God's word. And as we dig into it, I'm not going to skip around or namby-pamby it, and I understand.

This is not necessarily what you would term a seeker-sensitive message. But this is biblically sensitive, amen? This is the stuff that Jesus is saying, if you love me, this stuff is supposed to be going on. In verse 24, he who does not love me does not keep my words. And the word which you hear is not mine, but the Father who sent me. Jesus is being real plain-spoken here. He's saying, you know what? If you love me, you'll keep my commandments and do what I've asked you to do.

And if you don't love me, then you won't keep my words. This sheds a lot of light on conversations that I've had in the past when talking to somebody and you say, you know, do you know Jesus? Oh, yeah, I know Jesus.

Oh, really? Where do you fellowship? Well, I don't fellowship. I don't go to church anymore. What do you mean you don't go to church anymore? You know, I watch TV.

I watch a little TV every now and again. Bible says forsake not to fellowship. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I've heard that verse before. Well, what are you doing? Ah, you know, I'm just hanging out. Are you in the body? No.

You have brothers and sisters that you're close to? No, no. Are you a servant?

No, no, no, no. According to the word of God. That looks like somebody that doesn't love the Lord and if somebody doesn't love the Lord, guys, in all honesty, I have to wonder if they know the Lord because to know the Lord is to love the Lord. The more you find out about Jesus, the more in love you fall with Jesus. The more as we dig in the word, you go, oh, that's my Jesus.

Look what he's doing here and look what he's doing there. Oh, that's my Jesus. I love my Jesus.

So it makes me wonder. See, and as followers of Jesus, this is the next life lesson. As followers of Jesus, our words should line up with our actions. Our words should line up with our actions. I'm not talking about you being perfect. I'm not talking about me being perfect. We can freely admit in here this morning, none of us are perfect, but we need to have in our heart a desire to be obedient to the Lord.

That those times we fail, those times we fall are exceptions to the rule and not the rule because we want to show the Lord that we love him. And again, Jesus times love and obedience so closely, it's like Nestle Quick. You know, when you take the powder and you mix it into the milk, it goes together. If somebody came to you after you mixed that all up and said, hey, get the powder back out, you'd be like, can't do it. Why?

Because it's mixed together. Exactly. You can't separate this concept of love and obedience. Oh, we try, don't we?

We do try. But Jesus makes no separation. Let me take the next step in this thought process here because Jesus shares another theme towards the close of his life about reaching the lost and reaching out. The connection would be if we're acting in obedience to what he told us to do to reach the lost, then we love him.

If we don't, we don't love him. I know that's convicting. I understand that's convicting. But you know what? Jesus is called upon us to walk in the great commission, not the great omission, not the great suggestion, the great commission. I love the little story, you know, of an angel seeing Jesus when he comes back up and goes, okay, you know, you died for their sins. What's the plan? And he said, well, I left, you know, I left 11 guys down there and they're going to go spread the word. And the angel goes, those 11 guys? And Jesus goes, yeah. The angel said, what's plan B?

Jesus says, there is no plan B. I hope that you understand that evangelism I think is something that every pastor should have a heart for, everybody should have a heart for. But I, like you, can get calloused, can get jaded, can get distracted. Do you cry out for the lost? Is it a burden when you go through a Walmart or a shopping mall and look at all the people and look at their faces and know so many of them don't know what you know? And are you okay with that?

If you're okay with that, something is wrong. Ask the Lord for more of a burden for the lost. Because see, he has told us to reach out to them and in obedience we should be reaching out to them. We should be talking to them about the Lord, about the good news. Verse 25, these things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Now this is interesting because it goes back to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

We talked about that last week. But it says here that the Holy Spirit will be our teacher. What a wonderful ministry he has. See this morning as I'm talking through these things and you're listening to these things, if you're really getting them in your heart, you know what's going on? The Holy Spirit is teaching you. The Holy Spirit is here this morning teaching you and opening things up perhaps like you've never seen them before. Because that's what the Holy Spirit does. Now isn't it interesting, and I've been in church, I've fellowshiped in churches where you gauged what the Holy Spirit was doing by how crazy the service got. I mean if people ran around the room, man, the Holy Spirit was powerful there.

You know, or if they hollered or if they did this, they did that. But according to this scripture, one of his main ministries is to teach, to teach. Now God gives me something to share from his word to speak to the people. So God speaks to me, speaks through me to the people.

You understand what that gift is? It's called the gift of prophecy. Now not prophecy in foretelling, but forthtelling, illuminating what God has said. Now some of you, if you come from a more charismatic background, you go, that's not really prophecy. Prophecy when you stand up and say, thus saith the Lord, da, da, da, da, da. Can be. But that is the gift that is exercised, and it's not exercised with any sort of weirdness.

It's not any sort of bells and whistles. You won't be in here at any point and see me go, oh, wait a minute now. I'm getting something, hang on. If I did that, see some of you didn't think I could do that, did you? If I did that in that moment, what's going on in your mind? Well, some of you are going, Pastor Dave is freaking out. But I mean, but some of you would be like, oh, he's getting something. Oh, God is using him.

Oh, look at him. Uh-oh, uh-oh, there's a problem. It draws eyes to me. Now let me assure you, sometimes when I'm up here teaching and the Lord says, communicate this, man, it's powerful.

There's something that goes on inside of me that's extremely supernatural, but I'm not going to do all this weird shaking thing because you might miss it. And you would be drawn to me and my flesh, and I don't want that. I want you to be drawn to the Lord. Now, for some of you, this may be totally new territory, but this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit in teaching. I've heard people say, well, is it really Spirit-filled meeting?

As a matter of fact, they didn't even open the Bible. How sad, because it says that he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Second Peter chapter one verse 19 says that we also have a more sure word of prophecy talking about the word of God, talking about the word of God. Now, again, when you hear something, when it's communicated to you, it lets you know that the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. We believe in the present-day ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Last week's teaching should have left no doubt about that. Understand scripturally, this is one of the very important gifts. You ever been talking to somebody, and all of a sudden you remember a scripture right out of the blue? That's the Holy Spirit.

You ever been talking to somebody, and you say something, and you go, wow, I didn't even know I knew that. That's the Holy Spirit. That's the supernatural work. Now, when I say supernatural, some people probably go, oh, uh-oh. Supernatural is a good thing.

It is above the natural. Now, the concept, the picture we get sometimes is supernatural, uh-oh, things going to get weird. No, supernatural is usually without a lot of bells and whistles, without a lot of bells and whistles. Let's look at five supernatural things that we've seen in this chapter, talking about the Holy Spirit and about our ministry and about Jesus. Number one, Jesus promises a supernatural helper. He promises a supernatural life. He promises a supernatural union with Him. He promises a supernatural teacher, and He promises us supernatural peace, supernatural peace. All these things are supernatural.

All these things are what the Lord offers us, as a matter of fact, the Bible paints that this is the normal experience for people who are following the Lord. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. I want to pray for seven cities in our listening audience, Port Allen, Louisiana, Fruitland and St. Mary City, Maryland, Scituate, Massachusetts, Baldwin, Benton Harbor, and Vassar, Michigan. Lord, thank you for these cities.

Thank you that we get to broadcast in these cities, and Lord, thank you for everyone listening. I pray that you would encourage them right now. Help them in these last days to keep their mind and their eyes, their heart focused on you. Help them to be in your word every day, Lord, for encouragement. God, I pray that you would remind them that you have a good plan. You're going to take care of them, and they don't have to fear. And Lord, for anyone listening who doesn't yet know you, I pray today that they would put their trust in you, Jesus.

Simply receive the gift that you paid a high price for them to have, just by trusting in you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 27, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Jesus in this verse is not giving his peace to the world.

This is a closed meeting of his followers. And to his followers, he's saying, I give you peace. If you're a follower of Jesus this morning, then you have a peace which passes all understanding.

Now perhaps sometimes in your life, maybe even the last couple days, you haven't had that peace. The reason is, Jesus here says, don't let your heart be troubled. You know what that tells me?

You know what that means? That means my heart can be troubled. Because Jesus said, don't let it be troubled, which lets me know it's a possibility. My heart can get troubled.

How do I get my heart troubled? I give his peace away. I give his peace away. That's the life lesson, do not give your peace away. See when you're in a situation with maybe your kids, you can give your peace away. When you're in a situation with your spouse, you can give your peace away and lose it. When you're in a line at Walmart, maybe, you can give your peace away and lose it.

When you get behind a slow moving vehicle, you can give your peace away and lose it. When you start thinking about tax season, you can give away your peace and lose it. Those situations where you begin to lose your peace, realize something, you've given it away. It's not that you didn't have it or you weren't giving it, you've given it away.

Don't do that. Colossians 3.15 says, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts to which also you were called in one body and be thankful. Thankful. Be thankful. There's so many awesome things in this verse. There's promises throughout this chapter that Jesus is making to the people that follow him that are just incredible. Well, look at these. I found six of them.

There's probably more, but six main ones. Number one, having a place for us. He said, I'm going to prepare a place for you. Second thing is a promise to return. Jesus is coming back. He's coming back. You realize that?

You know, some churches don't teach that, they avoid it. Jesus is coming back. You know how I know that? Because he told me, I'm coming back. When he said, you know what, they're going to kill me and I'm not going to stay dead, and then he did it, that's somebody you can believe. And so when he says, I'm coming back, guess what I know? He is coming back. And it's not like he's going to tell us, hey, I'm coming back tomorrow, about like 11.59. He's not said that to anybody, hasn't said that to me. We won't know in the blinking of an eye.

Roughly one three thousandths of a second. If you're waiting till Jesus comes to change your life, you're not going to have time at that point. See, your day will start out just like any other day. You'll drink your cup of coffee, you'll sit down, you'll do whatever.

Get the newspaper out, whatever your routine is. Your day will start normal, and everything will change in the blinking of an eye. Are you living right now in the expectation of the return of Jesus?

Is it affecting your life? If Jesus came right now, how would you stand with him? Are you sitting there going, oh, I'd have to explain this.

I have to explain that. The change needs to happen this morning, because when that moment comes, there won't be time. But you've been given a gift this morning, and that you have time this morning to make those changes. The promise of greater works, the promise of answered prayer, the coming of the Holy Spirit, and the promise of peace. Oh, awesome, awesome promises. Let's read on, verse 28. You have heard me say to you, I am going away and coming back to you. If you loved me, you would rejoice, because I said, I am going to the Father, for my Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe. Verse 28, when he says my Father is greater than I, what he's really saying is, I am in submission to my Father. He's not saying he is a subservient level of godhood. And he says, and now I told you before it comes that when it does come to pass, you may believe.

Oh, this is cool. He told the guys he was going to die and not stay dead, and guess what he did? He did exactly what he said. He's told us he's coming back.

Guess what? He's coming back. He's gonna do exactly what he said. Are you ready? Not, not, I got plans to get ready.

Are you ready now? Last life lesson is Jesus is coming back. What do you want to be doing when he comes back? Think just for a minute. What would I like to be doing when Jesus comes back?

Are you doing that now? Maybe you thought, well, I'd like to be leading somebody to the Lord. That'd be really cool, especially if I was the person leading the last person to get saved before the rapture. That would be really cool, because you know, you'd probably be a popular god in heaven, wouldn't you?

Hey, you're the god who led the last god. Good job, praise God. Oh yeah, praise the Lord, you know. I guess some people might go, what took you so long, my goodness. Probably not, because it's heaven, but I'm not running that rabbit trail.

Then be doing those things now. Verse 30, I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in me. I like that. Jesus was sinless, Jesus was pure. Jesus didn't have any sin that the enemy could hang on him. Now I understand, I've done wrong, I've committed sins, and for that reason, the enemy can remind me of those sins I've committed. And that's not God reminding me of those sins, that's the enemy reminding me of those sins. But I love this saying, when the enemy reminds you of your past, remind him of his future. Amen. When the enemy reminds you of your past, remind him of his future.

It's not so bright, is it? But that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father gave me commandment, so I do, lest form a committee. Oh, wait a minute, I'm sorry, that's not what that says, is it? Arise and let us go from here.

Oh, those are beloved friends, loved ones. Those are good words. Arise and let us go from here. This is what we're supposed to be doing. Go, sin, teach, reach, disciple.

And you're going, well, wait a minute, that means I have to command, I have to do all these commandments in order to show the Lord I love him. But I don't know how to do that, and I've messed up in my life. Well, welcome to the fallen human race. We've all made mistakes.

But the beauty and the good news is that you don't have to live trapped by those mistakes to those mistakes. And that's a wonderful thing. And if you're in here this morning and you're not sure, I wanna give you the opportunity to respond to the Lord this morning, to ask him to forgive you of your sins, because he is coming back. There's more historical proof that Jesus lived and died and was resurrected than Julius Caesar ever lived. And he said, I'm coming back, and I believe him. And I would encourage you to believe him and to be ready. Let me speak to the other people, people who know Jesus, ask him to forgive them of their sins, and are following Jesus. We need to be about the king's business.

We need to be about the king's business. And until the last hurting sheep on the last lonely mountain side is brought into the fold, may we never rest and never be comfortable, because he who we serve was never comfortable with that one lost sheep. May the heart that was in Jesus and is in Jesus be in our heart. May we grow out of being so concerned about ourselves and be concerned with the others, demonstrating not only our love for those that don't yet know, but our love for the Savior who told us to go and tell.

Maybe you're thinking, well, I'll try to measure up. I'll try to measure up so that I can join this exclusive club called Christianity. I don't know who told you that's what Christianity is.

But Christianity, biblical Christianity, followers of Jesus, the first thing that happens is you realize, you know what? You're not good enough to join. You're not good enough to pray the prayer. God doesn't owe you anything because you've acted so well for so long. No, it starts with a recognition that you're not good enough.

And no amount of works, no amount of good things that you will do will cross that barrier. And you recognize that. And when you recognize that, then you realize you need forgiveness. And when you realize you need forgiveness, the Lord's right there offering it for you, offering it to you, even this very morning. Are you ready? Are you ready? Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I wanna lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again.

Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him, and He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. Amen, God bless you.

Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much He would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day, you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God, with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.