“Peace When the Pressure is On”SERIES: TIME TO GROW Part 4

2 Corinthians 1; Galatians 5; John 14, 16

INTRODUCTION:

A. In 2 Corinthians chapter 1 Paul speaks of a point in his life where he was under

such great pressure that he wasn’t able to personally endure it. It was just too much. I

think most of us can imagine what that is like—to be under so much pressure that we

know we’re not strong enough to stand up underneath it. As I’ve talked to different

people about the pressure that they face in this life, I’ve discovered that there are two

different kinds of pressure. 1. There is pressure that comes all at once. It’s a heavy

weight—it’s what I call “the forty-five pounders”—and immediately you feel the

pressure. You’re lose your job, you’re forced into bankruptcy, or maybe you lose a

child, or a family member is abused. You feel overwhelmed by loneliness. Your spouse

walks out on you. With these forty-five pound weights, you know when that pressure is

added. You can barely stand up underneath it. 2. But much of the pressure we

experience doesn’t come from the big things; it comes from the small things, the small

weights of life, the five and ten pound weights of life. It’s this daily pressure that we

face, and it has an accumulative effect. We see a five pound weight and we think,

“Well, I can handle that. It’s not too heavy.” But you add enough five and ten pound

weights and it soon feels overwhelming. Psychologists call this “stress contamination.”

So there is not one major anxiety or pressure but together these little things become

overwhelming. So maybe you are surrounded by a ringing telephone or a fussy child,

or maybe it’s the overdue bills. It’s a car that breaks down or there are plumbing issues

with the house, or it’s the up-and-down of the stock market. It’s easy to let those little

things add up and rob us of the peace God wants us to have, and soon we find

ourselves straining under the pressure and the weight of life. As Paul says, there can

be times when it seems to be more than we can endure. I know when that happens at

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the gym—when someone has too much weight on the bar and the pressure is coming

down on them—they’ll call for a spotter. They’ll yell for a spotter, and usually the

closest, big guy in the gym will run over and pull the bar off the chest of the person

who’s straining underneath it. And that’s the picture that Paul gives us here. He is

experiencing this great pressure and stress of life, and he cries out to God. In 2

Corinthians 1:8 and 9, Paul says that that when he faced this pressure, that instead of

trusting his own strength to get him out of it he was forced to trust God completely.

Then he says, “We felt like we’d been sent to death row, that it was all over for us. As it

turned out, it was the best thing that could have happened. Instead of trusting in our

own strength or wits to get out of it, we were forced to trust God totally-not a bad idea

since he’s the God who raises the dead.” (2 Cor. 1:9 The Message)

B. So in your mind would you just identify some of the weights that are on the bar right

now? What are some of the things that are causing great pressure or stress or anxiety

in your life? Now I know that these aren’t the things we want to talk about. In fact, for

most of us, stress management tends to be avoidance and denial. We just do our best

not to think of these things. And I’m asking you to bring them to your mind for a few

minutes. I know for some of you these are more than even forty-five pound weights.

You can barely get it off the ground and onto the bar. It feels so heavy that there

seems to be no point in even trying to think about it or bring it up, because it’s…it’s just

too overwhelming. But this is a sanctuary. It’s a church building, a “safe place”, and it’s

the type of place where we can come and we can bring those weights and we can talk

through them. Look at those Core Values of FCC again… So would you do this? Would

you just kind of think through what that weight is, what that anxiety is, what that

pressure is in your life? For some of you it’s just the five and ten pound weights of life.

At first they didn’t seem too overwhelming, but as the days have come and gone the

pressure has increased and you’re not sure how much longer you can keep that bar

up. So what are the weights? Can you think of this? Can you identify a problem in your

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life where, in your mind, if it would just be taken care of then you would experience the

peace of God? Do you have this? Have you identified this stress? By looking at you I

can tell that some of you have. How many of you are sitting next to someone who looks

like they have identified this stress in their life? How many of you are sitting next to the

stress in your life? That may…that may be the big problem here. So do you have this

weight identified…this pressure? And it feels overwhelming. It feels like more than you

can bear, more than you can stand up under. You want more than anything to

experience peace in life, but it’s been a long time since you’ve known peace. It’s not a

word that would really describe the life that you live.

C. So how do we find this peace? Well, for many of us we take an approach towards

peace. It is the same approach that we would take towards joy or patience or self-

control. 1. We try “self-help.” We try to get it ourselves. We try and see this as a to-do

list where we look at peace, joy, love and patience… We see it as this to-do list and we

face this to-do list with a spirit of self-empowerment and self-determination and, “I’m

going to get that checked off my list.” We see it as “the fruit of self” instead of the fruit

of the Spirit, and it’s caused all kinds of problems. So it is especially important as we

talk about peace that we understand: This is not a fruit of you! This is not a fruit of self;

it is the fruit of the Spirit. Because what has happened for many people is they have

gotten this confused and it’s caused even more anxiety, more pressure and more

stress because they are trying to do the Holy Spirit’s job, and that can be pretty

stressful. They are trying to be God in their life, and that can cause a lot of anxiety. We

tend to see peace as something that we can attain on our own.

In fact, I was looking at Amazon.com. There are well over 100,000 books on peace. A

good number of them kind of take the self-help approach towards peace. My favorite

one was a book called Inner Peace for Busy People, and the subtitle was 52

Techniques to Find Peace in Your Life. So if your life is so busy and crazy that you are

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completely stressed out and have no peace, here are fifty-two things you should be

doing…fifty-two MORE things. And that tends to be the approach that we take.

But Paul says it is not a fruit of self; it is the fruit of the Spirit. So as we keep in step

with the Spirit, as we allow ourselves daily to be filled with the Spirit, this fruit begins to

grow; it begins to show up in our lives. Peace is not a “fruit of self”; it’s one of the fruits

of the Spirit.

2. Another attempt that we make to find peace sometimes is by making peace a fruit

of…a fruit of supplements…or a fruit of psychosomatic drugs. We try “self-medication.”

I was reading a quote from Joseph Califano in his book High Society. He is the

chairman of the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia

University, and here is what he says. He says:

“Chemistry is chasing Christianity as the nation’s largest religion. Indeed,

millions of Americans who in times of personal crisis and emotional and

mental anguish once turned to priests, ministers and rabbis for keys to the

heavenly kingdom now go to the physicians and psychiatrists, who hold the

keys to the kingdom of pharmaceutical relief, or to drug dealers and liquor

stores…”

And he continues. “Now to be clear, I am not saying that there isn’t a place for

medicine in treating stress and anxiety. I think, oftentimes, that can be a gift from God.

But here is my concern. Increasingly, when the pressure of life begins to build we find

ourselves not turning to our Creator but turning to chemicals for peace. We are trying

to find peace in a pill.”

For some of you, you know the pressure of life all too well and you desperately need

peace, so this is what you have done. You have turned to some things. Maybe it is not

a medication. Maybe it is alcohol, or maybe it is pornography, or maybe it is food. And

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you’re just trying to find a way to deal with the pressure you feel. You desperately need

peace…and Jesus wants us to live with His peace.

D. Listen, if you are here this morning or even reading this online and you are just

barely holding that bar up, if the weight and the pressure of this life feels like it is

crushing you, Jesus has a message for you: He wants to give you His peace. If you

have your Bibles, turn to John chapter 14...John chapter 14, which is on page 803 in

the Pew Bible. I want to give you the context for this, and it’s important to understand.

In John chapter 14 through John chapter 16 we have, throughout these three chapters,

a conversation that takes place between Jesus and His closest followers, the group of

disciples known as the apostles, one of the last conversations that they will have

before Jesus dies, is resurrected and ascends into heaven. Jesus is going to be doing

everything He can within these three chapters, within this conversation, to prepare the

followers for the pressure, for the stress, for the trouble in life that is going to be coming

their way. He doesn’t want them to be caught off-guard by it. He doesn’t want them to

be surprised by the pain and the trouble of this life, so He warns them. In John chapter

14 through John chapter 16, He warns the disciples about being hated, being

persecuted, being killed for their faith. Yet it’s in the context of this conversation where

He is going to talk to them about the pressure of life that Jesus promises His peace

and He promises the Holy Spirit.

So in John chapter 14 Jesus is telling them that He is going to be leaving and they’re

not going to be with Him anymore. And I think He could probably see the anxiety and

the stress on His disciples’ faces as they hear this news, because they’re thinking,

“What are we going to do? I mean, who’s going to calm the storm, right? Who’s going

to give us food from the boy’s lunch? Who’s going to take care of us?” And they are

anxious; they are stressed as Jesus explains that He is going to be leaving them.

Jesus seeks to reassure them, so look at verse 18. Jesus says to His followers, “I will

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not leave you as orphans.” “I will not leave you as orphans.” Then in verse 26 He

explains a little bit more of what He means. He says, “But the Counselor…” Maybe

your Bible says “Comforter.” “…the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,

will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I

leave with you,” Jesus says. “My peace I give you. I do not give you peace as the world

gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says, “and do not be afraid.” So in the

middle of this conversation—Jesus warning His disciples about all the trouble that they

are going to experience—Jesus says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. You are going

to have a lot of trouble, but don’t be troubled.” And that is kind of the message you see

throughout this. There are about three times Jesus promises trouble and about three

times Jesus promises peace. He says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.”

E. Well, how does that work? Jesus seems to make it very clear that while He

promises us peace He does not promise us peacefulness. He promises us peace but

that doesn’t mean there won’t be pressure. I think that’s a distinction that is difficult for

some of us to make, and as a result it can lead to a lot of disillusionment and

disappointment with God. Jesus promises us peace but not necessarily peacefulness.

We hear Jesus say, “I give you my peace,” and what do we hear? We hear Jesus

saying, “I give you a good doctor’s report. I give you the marriage you’re really wanting.

I give you a longer vacation this year. I give you the bonus that you’ve been working

hard for.” When we hear Jesus say, “I give you peace,” we are hearing Jesus say, “I

will fix your problems. I will take the pressure off. There is no more trouble in this life,

because now that you’re a Christian…now that you’re a follower I’m going to work out

all the details.” We hear Jesus promising peace and we think in terms of circumstances

(that He is going to make things peaceful), but that’s not what Jesus does. He

promises us trouble, and then He says, “Don’t let your hearts be troubled.” He

promises us pressure and persecution, and then He says, “I give you my peace.” So in

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the midst of life’s pressure, in the midst of this overbearing weight, Jesus promises us

peace.

Well, how does that work? How does it work? How are we to find peace when the

pressure is on? Instead of giving you a half a dozen things that you need to do to find

peace in your life, what I want to do is give you a few ways from this passage that the

Bible teaches us the Holy Spirit will give you peace. And as you walk with the Spirit, as

you keep in step with the Spirit… I’m not talking about coming to church once a week

on Sunday. I mean, when you daily wake up and you surrender your life to Jesus and

you ask God to fill you with His Spirit. As you walk, you keep in step with the Spirit, this

is how the Holy Spirit will produce the fruit of peace in your life.

1. First, what we see here is that WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON, THE HOLY SPIRIT IS RIGHT ALONG SIDE OF YOU. When the pressure is on, you are not alone. When

life is the hardest—and some of you know this—He is the closest. Jesus puts it this

way. He says, “I won’t leave you as orphans.”

STORY: When we were younger and the three kids we have were all still at home, my

wife and I would sometimes go away for, you know, a few nights, just the two of us,

and whenever we would do that they typically would want to know a few things. “Are

you going to bring us anything, like a souvenir?” was towards the top of the list. But

second on the list was usually, “Who is going to take care of us while you’re gone?”

That’s what they would want to know. “I understand you’re leaving, but who’s going to

take care of us while you’re gone?”

A. And I think this is what’s happening with the disciples. They hear that Jesus is going

to be leaving them. “Okay, well who’s going to take care of us while you’re gone?” And

Jesus says, “I’m going to send a Counselor, a Comforter—the Holy Spirit.” And from

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the disciples’ perspective, I’m telling you, this didn’t seem like a good deal, right? This

didn’t seem like a good trade. “Okay, so we’re going to trade Jesus, God in the flesh,

for the Holy Spirit?” Doesn’t seem like a good trade from their perspective, but from

Jesus’ perspective what we discover is that it was better for them. It was better for the

disciples if He left, because when He left the Holy Spirit would come. If you look in

chapter 16…again this is the same conversation…in verse 7 Jesus tells the disciples,

“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good…” It is better for you “…that I am going away.

(Because) Unless I go away, the Counselor (the Holy Spirit) will not come to you; but if

I go, I will send him to you.” So the Son of God is saying to the disciples, “It is better for

you if I go, because when I go He will come.”

B. Now why is it better? Why is it better to have the Holy Spirit than to have Jesus in

the flesh? Well, it’s pretty simple. Because Jesus could be WITH them when He was

here on earth, in the flesh, but the Holy Spirit would live IN them. And that makes a big

difference. Having God with you is good; having God in you is better. So Jesus says to

the disciples, “It is better for you if I go, because when I go I will send the Holy Spirit.”

Now you think about the perspective we tend to have when it comes to Jesus and the

Holy Spirit. I mean, we tend to think of Jesus as kind of varsity and the Holy Spirit as

kind of Junior Varsity. I mean, we understand He is part of the team and He wears the

uniform but… But Jesus says to His disciples, “No, it’s better for you when the Holy

Spirit comes. He will live…He will live in you.”

A few years ago…it was probably four or five years ago…I was doing this topical Bible

Study and I was trying to understand the whole idea of God being with man, what that

meant, and I was just tracing that concept throughout Scripture. And I went through the

Old Testament and I found a number of places where it speaks of God being with man.

We read of God being with Abraham and “God was with Joseph” and “God was with

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man.” We read that pretty consistently. In the first four books of the New Testament,

called the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—we read about Jesus (being

called) Immanuel, meaning “God with us,” and there it is again in the Gospels: “God

with us.” But once you get to Acts and you go through Revelation you just don’t see it.

“God with man” and “God with us” seem to be pretty consistent from Genesis through

the Gospels, but you don’t see it much in the New Testament and I’m wondering, “Why

is this? I mean, why do we read so much about God being with us in the Old

Testament and we don’t read it in the New Testament?” Then it struck me. There is this

preposition change that takes place between the Old Testament and the New

Testament. It’s very subtle but it makes all the difference. Because from Genesis

through the entire Old Testament and through the four Gospels it is “God with us;” in

the New Testament from Acts through Revelation it is “God in us.” Instead of “with” it is

“in.” And that might not seem like a big deal, but it’s a big deal. “God in us.”

C. I don’t know…I don’t know of any worse feeling in the world than being alone. I find

this ironic, that in this time of social media and instant communication, I know people

who have Face Book “friends” by the hundreds and yet people are hurting and lonely.

Our culture right now, there are just a lot of people who are hurting and suffering—all

kinds of different pain—but loneliness…to me loneliness is a category to itself. There is

this ache. It is a suffocating feeling. It’s not just emotional; it’s physical. We have the

answer! We have in Christ, the cure! (FCC Vision…Mission-our community needs what

we have! That ought to excite you!) And Jesus says, “Listen, you need to understand

something. You are not an orphan. You have not been left alone.” Am I talking to

someone this morning who needs to be reminded of this? Because though you are a

Christian who has received the gift of the Spirit you live as though He does not live in

you. You’re not being filled with the Spirit and you’re trying to go through these things

alone, and He…He is in you.

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In fact, the Greek word for “Holy Spirit” here is the word… literally translated it would be

“the one who draws up alongside.” And I just want you to have that in your mind. You

know, when you are standing in the cemetery at a gravesite…“the one who draws up

alongside”…He is there with you. You are not an orphan. And people who follow Jesus

need to be reminded…when you walk out of the doctor’s office and they couldn’t find a

heartbeat on the ultrasound, He’s drawn up alongside. As you look down at divorce

papers and you wanted…you wanted the marriage to work, He’s drawn up alongside.

You head out of the office with a box, stuff from…stuff from work. You’ve been told

your services are no longer required. You are not alone. You are not an orphan. The

Holy Spirit draws up alongside and there is a peace that comes from knowing, “I am

not going through this by myself. I am not weathering this storm on my own. I am not

fighting this battle on my own.” The Holy Spirit is in you. And some of you just…you

need to hear this.

Here is what I see oftentimes as people are going through some difficult

circumstances. I mean, the pressure of life is full on. And God wants to give them

strength and God wants to give them peace, but they’re mad at God because of what

they’re going through and the pressure they’re experiencing. They blame Him for all

the weight on the bar, so, though they’re suffocating underneath the weight, they

refuse to call for help and they refuse to find strength. Instead of walking with the Spirit

and finding strength in the Spirit and discovering the peace of the Spirit, they…they

push God away. When they need Him the most, when He wants to be the closest, they

push Him away.

We find ourselves kind of caught up. We feel trapped. We know we’re in trouble. God

in His Word gives us ways towards freedom. He speaks to us, wants to help us, and

instead of allowing Him to help us we push Him away; we lash out. Instead of asking

God for help, we insist on doing it ourselves. (Note I Peter 5:7) The Bible says in 1

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Peter that we are to cast all our anxiety on God because He cares for us. And are you

doing that with the weights of your life? Are you giving those weights to God? Are you

consciously saying, “God, okay, I’m going to…I give you…I’m tired of carrying this. I’m

not going to carry it today. I give this to you. Holy Spirit, I’m going to allow you to carry

this weight. I can’t…I can’t carry it”?

I don’t know if you have kind of a time and place where you surrender some of these

things to God, but I would challenge you to find that. For some of you here is a

suggestion. A great place to do this is in the shower. I don’t know if you take a shower

in the morning or at night; either way it works. It is a time where you just kind of go

through the different weights, the different pressures of life and you surrender those

over to God.

I read this survey that was done a few years ago, but I’m guessing the results wouldn’t

have changed much. The Ketchum Global Research Network asked one thousand

adults what they think about while they’re in the shower and here were the top four

answers: their to-do lists (so everything they need to get done), problems and worries.

Number three was daydreams (so they’re not really thinking about anything.) Number

four is work. Those were kind of the top four answers. “Here is what I think about in the

shower.”

I would encourage you to find a time—maybe that is it or maybe there is a time in the

car—but you just consciously say, “Okay, this is the time where I am going to take

these weights and I’m going to give them to God. I’m going to consciously say, ‘Holy

Spirit, I surrender this to you, and I know that you will fill me with strength that I don’t

have and I ask you for your peace.’” And you just kind of go through that.

Another way that the Holy Spirit helps us…

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2. WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES US A PEACE THAT IS SUPERNATURAL.

A. Paul, in Phil. 4, (we looked at that passage last Sunday) calls it “a peace that

passes understanding.” Jesus talks about this in verse 17. He speaks of the fact that

the Holy Spirit…that the world just doesn’t understand what He is going to talk to them

about—about this Counselor, this Comforter that will come. He says in verse 17 as He

speaks of the Holy Spirit, “…the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot accept him, because

it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be

in you.”

So Jesus explains that there is this peace that comes from the Holy Spirit, but the

world won’t understand it. The world can’t see Him; the world does not know Him and

it’s just not…it’s not going to make sense. And it is impossible for me, in some ways, to

rationally explain being filled with the Holy Spirit and bearing the fruit of the Spirit

because it has to be experienced. It has to be experienced. Now some of you in this

room I…I mean, I could fill this stage of stories of people who could tell you their

experience. I see it all the time as a pastor. I see people go through incredible pain and

suffering. I see them under an enormous amount of weight—to the point where I see it

and I think, “If I were them, I couldn’t deal with that. If my child died, I don’t know what

I’d do. I don’t know what I would do. If my spouse left me or if my wife was diagnosed

with cancer or if I lost my job, I’d be in the depths of despair.” Yet I see people go

through these different things…Christians…and they would not tell you it’s easy by any

stretch, but they are surprised. They are consistently surprised because they have

found a peace and they can’t explain it. They don’t fully understand it. It’s a peace that

passes understanding, Paul says, and it’s supernatural. When you are under the

weight and when the pressure is the most intense, the Holy Spirit will give you a

strength and a peace that you never knew was possible.

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B. Now if you are not in Christ, you’re not a Christian, this…I know this doesn’t really

make sense, and as I talk about the Holy Spirit it kind of reminds you of the imaginary

friend you had in grade school. It sounds nice but it just doesn’t seem real. I’m saying

it’s real. It is real. Jesus says the world is not going to understand this. You are going to

try and explain it and they’re going to look at you like you’re crazy, but you know…

Jesus says, you know. The Holy Spirit gives us this peace that passes understanding.

Then thirdly, 3. WHEN THE PRESSURE IS ON, THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES YOU WHAT GOD WANTS YOU TO DO.

A. I think one of the things that causes the most anxiety in our lives is just this, the

indecision. We’re just not sure how to handle certain situations, how to make certain

decisions. Here is what Jesus says in verse 26, “The Holy Spirit…will teach you all

things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” And the Holy Spirit gives

us peace because He serves as a guide. He teaches us what God wants for our lives

and He reminds us what God has said in His Word already. When we listen to Him, it

leads to peace.

ILLUSTRATION: For some people, I think it’s like you’re out of town traveling, visiting

relatives or you’re on vacation out of town traveling and you’re driving in a city that’s

mostly unfamiliar to you, you’re on the interstate, you’re in traffic and you see an exit

up ahead. It just looks familiar enough to make you think that’s probably the exit you

need to take, right? And you have about a half mile to decide if that is the exit you

should take. So there is this moment of sheer panic, and you’re checking the map and

you’re looking on the GPS and you’re trying to decide, “Is this my exit? Is this the exit I

need to take?” It’s just this stressful moment. You feel like you don’t know what to do.

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The Bible describes the Holy Spirit as a guide who speaks to us, who teaches us all

things, reminds us of what God has said to us, because we know that there are these

big decisions. One of the chief roles of the Holy Spirit IN us is to guide us. I mean, we

see the exits ahead and we’re not sure what to do. Then oftentimes we miss it and

then we feel all kinds of stress because we were lost and we weren’t paying attention,

and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit will teach us. He will remind us.

B. The opposite of this is also true. That while the Holy Spirit will lead us to peace, that

when we operate—whether Christians or non-Christians—without being filled with the

Holy Spirit, we often will make decisions that will lead to all kinds of anxiety and stress

and pressure. And I can…I mean, I’m happy to testify about this. I mean, I can point to

you different seasons in my life where I was not walking and keeping in step with the

Spirit. I was not daily being filled with the Holy Spirit. And a lot of the pressure, stress

and anxiety that I experience today most likely relates back to decisions I made during

those seasons of life. God talks about this in Isaiah 48:17 and 18. He says, “This is

what the Lord says-your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the LORD your God,

who teaches you what is best for you…” (I want what’s best for you.) “…and leads you

along the paths you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to My commands! Then

you would have peace flowing like a river.” Isaiah 48:17-18 NLT If you just listen to me,

if you would just respond to me, if you would just obey what I have said to you, you

would be experiencing peace in your life. Peace would just be flowing like a river.

Verse 22 of the same passage in Isaiah, Isaiah talks about the fact that there is no

peace for the wicked. So when we hear the voice of God, when we listen to the Holy

Spirit as our guide, He leads us into paths of peace; but when we ignore or refuse to

listen or don’t take time to keep in step with the Spirit, it leads to pressure and stress,

anxiety and worry.

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C. So this week listen for the voice of the Spirit in your life. Maybe the Spirit will remind

you of a truth from Scripture. Perhaps it will be from Philippians 2, “Treat others better

than yourself,” and if you put that into practice you’re going to find so much peace in

your marriage and in your relationships. Or maybe the Holy Spirit will remind you that

you are to forgive your enemies, and if you put that into practice… And it may be a

daily thing, but daily you will say, “Okay, I’m not going to carry around the weights of

bitterness, hatred and anger today.” Or maybe the Holy Spirit reminds you to be

thankful in all circumstances, so you start looking around to find things that you are

thankful for, even though the situation is really tough, and you find yourself at peace

with where things are in life. As you listen to the Holy Spirit in your life—at work or in

your home, as a spouse, as a parent or grandparent—as you obey what the Holy Spirit

guides you towards, as you are sensitive to His voice He will lead you in paths of

peace.

D. Now here is a beautiful thing: No matter where you are at right now, it’s not too late

to get to peace from here. You can get there from here. There is so much despair

today…we read about the results every week, it’s on the news. I know that for many

people things can become such a mess and the pressure becomes so intense they just

feel very little hope. Things are such a mess at home. They’re not really sure how it

happened, but it’s too broken, right? Or things are such a mess financially because of

certain decisions that they’ve made it just…it feels pretty hopeless. And here is what

I’m saying: God can get you there from here.

Here's what I know. I know there are people who travel and they have a GPS with

them…or they will have Google at their fingertips or they’ll have the WAZE app on their

phone…all tools that could help guide them, but they don’t utilize them and they make

a wrong turn and they’re lost. I know people who that’s pretty much it’s the only time

they ever use their GPS. They’re never preemptive with the GPS. They wait to use it

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when things are bad. Then they’ll type in the location and the first thing my phone will

ask them is, “Directions from here?” In other words, “Do you want to start where you

are at to get there?” “Yep, I don’t know how to get back to where I was, so let’s start

where I am at.” And they’ll click it and it gives them directions. “Here is how you get

there from here.”

This is what God wants to do for you in your life. If you will say to Him, “God, look, I

want peace in my home. I want peace in my soul. I want to know where I am going to

spend eternity. I want peace about my past. I am tired of carrying the weights of regret

and guilt along with me every day. I want peace about it. I want peace about my future.

I’m tired of worrying about the uncertainties of what could happen. I want peace about

that.” And God says, “I can get you there from here. You don’t need to go back to

where you started; you don’t need to get closer to your destination. You surrender over

to the Holy Spirit the mess, the weights. He does His best work… He does His best

work when the pressure is on.

CONCLUSION: A. Now I just want to be clear as I finish up. In this life there are some

good things that are going to happen to you. Really, there are some dreams that are

going to come true. There are some people that are really going to love you and treat

you well. There are some hopes that you’re going to see fulfilled. But in this same life

you are going to have trouble. And there are some dreams that are going to become

shattered, and there are some hopes that you will never realize, and there are some

people who will hurt you more than you ever imagined. “In this world you will have

trouble.” You have a choice of anxiety, stress and pressure, or you have a choice of

the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which includes peace. He wants to give it to you. When you

accept Jesus as your Savior, you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. As you are filled

with the Holy Spirit and you keep in step with the Holy Spirit, He will produce the fruit of

peace in your life. Listen to Acts 2:39-239 as Peter says, “…Repent and be baptized,

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every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ FOR the forgiveness of your sins. AND

you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is for you and your children

AND FOR ALL who are far off-for all whom the Lord our God will call.” (Acts 2:38-39

NIV)

B. If you want to talk to someone about your relationship with Jesus or maybe you’re

ready to make this your church home, I’d love to meet you down front. We’re going to

spend the next few minutes worshiping God and we want this to be a place where you

can find God’s peace. Would you…? I know we’re busy and I know there are a lot of

things going on, but would you find some peace here? Maybe you could practice some

of the spiritual breathing that we talked about a few weeks ago where you just kind

of…as we worship you exhale the stress, the anxiety and the pressure of this life and

you inhale, submitting, surrendering to the Holy Spirit and you are filled with Jesus’

peace. If you have a decision to make, you can meet me down front as we stand

together and worship the Prince of Peace.

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