4 Steps To Peace Of Mind, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ. He shatters their night. This is the worst combination of events they could have. Understand who they are. They are men who gave up everything in their life for Jesus.

Everything. They gave up their jobs, they dropped their nets, they gave up everything. They followed Him wherever He went. They were known around the country as the Twelve Disciples of Christ. The ones who were closest to Him.

They cashed in all the way. And now He says something to them, just what He said to His enemies, the Pharisees. He said, oh, by the way, I'm leaving. And where I go, you can't come. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt.

Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Let me give you some bad news that shouldn't surprise any of us. I read this past week that the mental health in America is at an all time record low. In 2010, anxiety disorders were affecting more than 40 million American adults. 2010, between 2015 and 2020, that number grew 15 percent in five years. In the first month of the pandemic, a year ago March, it increased by another 21 percent. Now, overall, there's been a 34 percent increase since the pandemic began. The numbers are staggering. Teen suicides in the United States have grown 50 percent in the last 10 years.

Shocking what's happening to us. We spend well over 200 billion dollars a year medicating our depression and anxiety. 200 billion every year. Oh, by the way, alcohol consumption is at an all time record high. And as the article I read, it says that we're continuing to lose ground in the mental health of our nation. One government psychiatrist in the article said this.

What we really need is we need new and better drugs and a lot more people on them. Staggering. It's staggering. What bothers me the most is I realize people have always had trouble coping with problems. They've always had that. But the part that I don't understand, according to George Barna and other Christian pollsters, is that the Church of Jesus Christ is suffering in a very parallel way to the culture at large. We're struggling with this just about as much as they are.

And I can't quite understand that at all. I think what's most relevant to us is that this is not new and Jesus Christ not only has spoken on this issue, but he's actually given us four steps to maintaining your peace of mind or calmness during any trouble or anxiety you ever face in your life. So would you open your Bibles to John 14? And if you know your Bible, you'll know this. John 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 all occur on the Thursday night before the crucifixion. All of those chapters occur in one night.

It's called the Upper Room Discourse. It has the Lord's Supper in it, the Lord's tables in it, and it's a lot of things that Jesus wants to say in it. But I want you to understand that for Jesus Christ, and you'll see in a moment even for his disciples, this is the worst night of their existence.

This is as bad as it gets. I want you to think about what Jesus went through that night. It says in Scripture that he sweat droplets of blood.

Now, unbelievable amount of pressure for you to sweat droplets of blood. He knows that what's going to happen is when he prays that night and says, Father, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will be done, but yours. He understood in a way we can't what it was going to be like to be arrested and brutalized by the Romans, but he also understood, which we can't, that he was going to have to pay for the sins of the world. He was going to experience God's holy wrath against sin for everybody. It's unimaginable. But the disciples were having the same kind of night.

It was as bad a night as they could ever have. Now, notice over in verse 21 in chapter 13, you see here the context that says, And when Jesus had said this, he became troubled in spirit, and he testified, and he said, Truly, truly, I say to you that one of you will betray me. Now, we know the story, so we know who that is.

But I want you to see something here. It says here that he became troubled in a spirit. And it actually, in a sense, you know, when you think of that word troubled, it's the word terrazzo.

It's an interesting word in Greek. It can mean trouble to an extent, but more than likely, it has to mean it means deeply disturbing. It also means a sense of terror that comes that is stirred up by circumstances.

It's when you have about as much anxiety about the situation as you can. And it says Jesus is deeply troubled by this. So the disciples began looking at one another at the loss. He said at a loss to know which one of them he was speaking. They have no idea.

Let me ask you this question. How many good things do you know about Judas? Tell them all to us, all these good things. I mean, we knew he was the treasure, so we knew one good thing. They trusted him. But the disciples were like, Who could that possibly be? I imagine most of them thought, Maybe it's me. You know, but they didn't even think about Judas.

I mean, you and I would say, Well, everyone knows it's him. So it said they began looking at one another at a loss of the one in which he was speaking. There was reclining on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples whom Jesus loved. That's John, the writer of this gospel. John is on his elbow, as Jesus is.

They're in a circle, and his head is right about in Jesus' chest. So Simon Peter gestured to him and said, Tell us who it is who he's speaking. Peter said, I can get insider information here. John's right there. John, could you give us the information?

Who's he talking about? Leaning back thus in Jesus' bosom, John says to Jesus, Lord, who is it? So John thinks, Jesus will tell me.

And he does. Jesus then answered and said, That is the one for whom I shall dip the morsel and give it to him. That's what he told. So when he dipped the morsel, he took it and he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. After the morsel, Satan then entered into him. And therefore, Jesus said to him, He said, What you do, do quickly. And so Judas gets up and leaves. That's interesting. Now, he says, no one who was reclining at the table knew for what purpose he had said this to him.

So they still don't know. We get over to verse 31. And it says, Therefore, when he had gone out, Jesus said, Now is the son of man glorified, and God glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and he will glorify him immediately. Jesus is thinking past Thursday night, past Friday to Sunday morning. And Jesus saying, This is the time of my glory. This is the time I glorify God, he glorifies me.

It's optimistic. He said, Little children. And then he says these words, Little children, I'm with you a little while longer.

You will seek me. And as I said to the Jews, Now I also say to you where I am going, you cannot come. The worst words a disciple ever heard. This shatters their night.

This is a this is the worst combination of events they could have. Understand who they are. They are men who gave up everything in their life for Jesus.

Everything. They gave up their jobs, they dropped their nets. They gave up everything. They followed him wherever he went. They were known around the country as the the 12 disciples of Christ, the ones who were closest to him.

They they cashed in all the way. And now he says something to them, just what he said to his enemies, the Pharisees. He said, Oh, by the way. I'm leaving. And where I go, you can't come. Now, you just imagine what they're thinking.

Wait, wait, wait. What are you going? You're going to leave us. What are we going to do? You see, you're the rabbi. You're our teacher. You're the master. You're our Lord. You're our friend. Our whole identity is in you.

And now you'd say you're leaving. What's going to happen to us? Look, I know how much the Jews hate you. Once you're out of the way, how much do you think they hate us? What's going to happen to us? And by the way, except for John, every one of them was murdered. They have every reason to have as bad a night now as you could ever have.

The accumulative effect of what we've had over the last year isn't even in comparison. Everything about what identifies their life as their life is now gone. Everything. You see, you can imagine the angst, the anxiety that they're feeling over this. Then Jesus says this. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another, and by this all men will know you're my disciples if you have love for one another.

Do you think that comforted them? I'm leaving, but I've got a plan for you guys. You need to love each other. That's the answer. You're leaving, and we need to love each other. How's that the answer? Peter's probably saying, I don't even like Thomas.

I mean, the whole idea of this is we can't do anything without you. And now you're telling us you've given us a new commandment. Now watch what Peter then, I love this, Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?

Someone better just ask you straight up. He said, where I go, you cannot follow me now, but you'll follow me later. That's not a satisfying answer. You'll follow me later. Peter's trying to figure it out. He says to them, Lord, why can I not follow you right now? I will lay down my life for you. Sounds good, huh? Jesus says this, will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you deny me three times. By the way, you're going to fail.

Oh, that's good to hear on top of everything else. He's leaving. We're only in this together, and now I'm going to fail you spiritually. You're in just a matter of how Peter's feeling right now. It's at that stage where Jesus then decides, I will give you the solution to your problem. I will give you the steps that will take away your anxiety and your depression. I'll give them to you right now.

It's amazing. He not only gave them to them, but he gives them to us. Four steps, Jesus said, I'll give you these four steps, and peace. You'll be filled with peace. Remember, Jesus said, I give you peace. Remember, not as the world does, but I give you peace. My peace will be with you.

Jesus said, I'm going to give you peace right now. I'm going to give you four steps that take away the anxiety, the worry, and the depression from your life. Four steps.

First one, verse one. Do not let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. First step, you must believe in me. That's what Jesus is saying.

You must believe in me. Now, the first thing he does, notice what he starts with. He says, let not your heart be troubled. It's an imperative mood.

What's that mean? I'm commanding you. This is a commandment from Jesus, not just to them, but to you and me. Let not your heart be troubled. I command you. Now, you and I, we never think that the trouble in our heart could be solved by someone commanding us, right? If I command you, you say, Pastor, I'm worrying about almost everything. I'm worrying, and I've got these circumstances. I mean, you've got to understand the condition of my marriage. You've got to see what my kids are doing.

And now the job situation is terrible, and the doctor said I could have a bad prognosis. And I say, okay, I can solve this. I command you, stop worrying. You don't even want to buy that, do you?

But Jesus did command it. You see, there's a word when we have anxiety and fear and worry that we love to use, victim. I'm a victim. I'm victimized by this. It's not my fault.

The circumstances got so bad, I'm just victimized with so much anxiety. Jesus didn't have none of that, none of it. But I command you. You see, there's another thing. Let not your heart be troubled is a command.

What's that mean? It's up to you. You see, it's up to you. Let not, here's my commandment, don't let your heart be troubled. Jesus wouldn't give me a command I can't possibly obey. He gives me a command that I can't obey. He said, I'm telling you, let not your heart be troubled. Then he says, look, you believe in God. That's an indicative mood. You believe in God.

They do. They're good Jewish men, have always believed in God. He says, no, I'm telling you, believe in me. That's a commandment again, imperative mood. I command you, you need to believe in me.

For what? For the trouble that you're facing, for the anxiety that you feel. You need to believe in me. That's what he's saying to him. You need to believe in me. Amazing. This is kind of new to them.

They've struggled with this. How many times does Jesus say to his disciples, and I think we say it to you and me, oh, you of little faith. You see, he said, you need to believe in God, you do. You need to believe in me.

Why? I'm God incarnate. You see, I'm God incarnate. You need to believe in me.

Give you an example. Mark 4. Jesus, who is the son of God, God incarnate, says this. Let's go to the other side of the lake.

Now, who said that to them? God. Now, if God said, let's go to the other side of the lake, where are you going? Not maybe.

Let's hope. God said, we're going to the other side of the lake. You're going to the other side of the lake. In fact, storm came up. What did they do? They panicked. They woke them up. Then they said, don't you care that we're perishing? And what did Jesus say? Oh, you men of little faith.

It calms the storm. See, it was their test. Did they really believe Jesus? No. When circumstances are difficult in your life, do you really believe Jesus? If you're honest, no.

I don't. And if I don't believe him, what I'm saying is he's lying. He's mistaken. If he's lying or mistaken, he's not God. You see, that's the whole point of our faith. So Jesus says to them, you have to, you must believe in me. Whenever you're feeling anxiety and all that, one thing you have to have in your life is something to believe in.

You have to have something. Let me ask you, do you believe in politicians? I mean, they're the greatest truth tellers that ever lived, right? Do you believe the media? You see, do you believe in these people?

No. In fact, you look for someone or something to believe in. That's what happens to all of us. And Jesus is saying, look, you need to believe in me. And here's what I find that's interesting to me. If you call yourself a Christian, that means what? You've put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ and his finished work on the cross.

That's what you're saying. And you tell me you believe that stuff. I want you to think about that for a moment. Somebody you never met made claims 2,000 years ago, then went to a cross where the Romans crucified him, and then after they crucified him, they buried him and he was raised in the dead, which you don't really know because it's 2,000 years ago. And yet you say you're Christian because you put your trust and faith in Jesus Christ for eternity, for heaven, for all your sins forgiven. It's an incredible act of faith. You put your faith in him forever. But you don't put your faith in him for tomorrow. I can't do it for tomorrow. I can't do it for this week.

I can do it forever. But not something like, you see how bad it is out there, how much trouble there is? That's what we end up talking about.

That's the way we act. So the first step is you must believe in me. Secondly, he says this, you must believe that your future is assuredly great, all of us. You have the best possible future of anybody on the planet.

It's unbelievable. It's yours. It's assured. It's forever. I say these things all the time.

I read the end of the book. You win. You win. You inherit everything that's his, which is everything. The worst thing that could happen to you, it can't happen to you. It all turns out for good. Now, one of the reasons that's so important is, in the meantime, though, here I am. And look at the trouble around us. Well, let's think about who we are. We're totally depraved sinners. What do totally depraved sinners do? They sin.

Against themselves, against God, and against each other. Stuff happens here. There's a lot of bad stuff that happens here. And the more coverage we get through social media and media, you realize how much bad stuff is going on.

I often wonder this. Don't you think now by watching anything, you think it's worse than it's ever been? Is it worse than it's ever been or simply being reported?

Anything that happens anywhere is reported to you immediately. And you go, this is really terrible. How bad have people been?

They've been incredibly bad. Oh, by the way, we're not just all sinners. We live on a cursed planet. So the planet's cursed and we're all sinners.

What is that a prescription for? Trouble. You're going to have trouble.

You've got them in every way. Relationally, you're going to have trouble. Diseases, trouble. Economy, trouble. Marriages, trouble. Child-wearing, trouble. There's trouble everywhere.

Nothing's going to change that. But Jesus says, look, you've got to believe, though, your future is assuredly great. He says, in my Father's house are many dwelling places.

If it were not so, I would have told you. And I'd go and I'd prepare a place for you. What they want to know, where are you going, right? What did Jesus say? I'm going home. You see, I'm going home. Notice what he calls home, my Father's house. Wow. Yeah, he could have said heaven.

He didn't. I'm going to my Father's house. He said, in my Father's house are many dwelling places.

It's an interesting thing. If you grew up in the King James Version, you feel now like once they've started to accurately translate this, you got gypped. If you read the King James Version, it says, in my Father's house are many mansions. That speaks to us, right? We're all getting a mansion.

It's going to be great. There's nothing even in the Greek close to mansion. Nothing there.

Nothing there at all. In fact, the reason we even have a word in Greek, mansion, is the Latin Vulgate, which was a later translation of the Greek text, used the word mansionis, mansionis, a Latin word. So the King James translators translated that literally mansions.

Only off the Latin Vulgate, which was a bad translation of the Greek. The Greek word here is simply the word monae. That's the only word it means. And it means an abiding place. It means an abiding place.

And it comes, monae, comes from meno, which means a dwelling place. So it's an abiding dwelling place. That's why the numeric and standard newer translation is called a dwelling place. It's not a mansion. But it is home.

That's an amazing thing when you think about it. It is home. Jesus says it this way. Why? He said if this weren't true, how do you cope in a world full of trouble?

I cope with it because I know that there's something much better for me, much, much better. It's going to be great. It's not going to be great for a while. It's going to be great forever.

It's just an amazing thought when you think about it, an overwhelming thought. And it's my home. It's my home. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com.

That's oneplace.com. And you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online. At that website, you will find not only today's broadcast, but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word, 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. .