Peace In A Troubled World

Trouble is not a surprise, and peace is not a pretend feeling. We open John 16:28–33 and listen to Jesus speak plainly about where he comes from, where he is going, and what his followers are about to face. The disciples finally say they believe, and Jesus answers with a hard truth: they will scatter, he will be left alone, and yet the Father is with him. Then comes the line that anchors the whole message: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world.”

From there, we zoom out to Lent and the lead-up to Easter. We get practical about spiritual disciplines and ask the uncomfortable question: are we choosing sacrifices that actually change us, or just temporary swaps we reverse after forty days? The point is not guilt or religious performance. The point is closeness to God, real discipleship, and preparation for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and Resurrection Sunday with eyes open to the cost and the promise.

To make it real, we share stories that expose the heart: a pastor’s honest admission that he has come a long way but still has a long way to go, an apple seed that carries more future than we can measure, and a personal account of trying to avoid pain when you think you see it coming. That sets up Gethsemane, where Jesus knows exactly what awaits him, asks if there is another way, and still surrenders: “not my will, but your will be done.” If you’re searching for peace in Christ, wrestling with suffering, or wanting a grounded Easter reflection, this is for you.

Subscribe, share this with a mate, and leave a review so more people can find the podcast, then tell us: what sacrifice could help you draw closer to our Heavenly Father this Easter?

Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.

Transcript

Setting Up The Scripture Reading

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Sermon today is about the time has come, but I'm actually going to go back a little bit and I'm going to start this roughly where I finished off the last message. And so I want you to grab your Bibles and turn to John 16, and we're going to read from 28 to 33, and then we're going to finish up with this explaining to the disciples what's going to happen, and then next week we on the road or the journey to the cross. Alright. Okay, we should all be there now. John 16, 28 to 33. I came from the Father and entered the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. Then Jesus' disciples said, Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you a question. This makes us believe that you came from God. You believe at last, Jesus answered, but a time is coming and has come when you will be scattered, each to his own home, you will leave me alone, yet I am not alone, for my father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Now Jesus says that the that his origins are with the Father. He has suggested or implied or stated clearly that he and the Father are one. Now he talks about returning home. Now you think that these would be confronting words from Jesus. We probably hear from them that way. Okay, but again, from the despots from the disciples' perspectives, still desperately trying to wrap their heads around all that Jesus is and all that he says and all that he has done, this would not have been particularly comforting. Instead, it would have added to the tension they were already feeling. Now we do get a sense of this past this last passage that disciples are coming to understand some things about Jesus. It's only taking them three years. That's sorry, should have said that. And finally will end off with Jesus stating, You believe at last, so they have made some progress, they've grown to that understanding, now they're ready, ready for some more news that would have confused the life out of them. I mean, it goes from one extreme to the other, and I think that um they really need to quit while they're ahead, so to speak. In the Lenten journey, this is for many a time of tension. Many of us understand at the start of Lent to take on new disciples or to give up something to remind us of the determination to focus our lives on Jesus. So how are we all doing in this? Now, I know not everybody celebrates Lent. Uh it's basically because I mean realistically, uh the Jews, the Catholics, uh there are certain um denominations that actually make Lent very, very important. Other non-denominational Chris Christian organizations like the church that I'm originally out of, it's a matter of just say, okay, we recognize that this is Lent, okay, the 40 days of Lent, and um what we need to do is we need to give up something. You know, whether it's social media, whether it's chocolate, whether it's watching sports, or there's so many different things that people can see uh as, oh, I can give up that and everything will be okay. But let me put this another way. We all know that Jesus is going to the cross and he's going to endure pain that no one can really even fathom, okay? And you just want to think, okay, well, I'm gonna do something for Lent. I'm gonna give up chocolate. Okay. No disrespect intended, but whoopy-doo. I mean, I can take chocolate or I can leave chocolate. You you want to give up something that either you know how do I put this? Let me put it this way. Okay, you want to give up something that's gonna hurt you, okay, as in it's going to it's going to disrupt your everyday normal life. And and I'm talking about things like like if I turn around and said, okay, footy season's just started, I am not going to watch any of the games, and if ever anybody wants to talk to me about football, I'm not interested. Okay. And so the thing is you think, oh wow, that's a big commitment. No, it's not. I just go back into KO after the 40 days and I watch all the all the footy shows and I catch up. Have I really sacrificed something? No, I haven't. I've just uh it's basically like a band-aid. Okay, I've got a little cut, I put the band-aid on there, I rip it off later, uh, job done, little bit of pain, no biggie. Okay. But are you gonna chop off your leg for Lent? Okay? Now I know that's a bit extreme, but I mean, are you really going to make a sacrifice leading up to Easter that is really going to affect you physically, emotionally, spiritually? Alright? That's the point that I'm trying to make. Okay, so when I say chop off a leg, I don't mean literally cut your leg off because it's not like you can get the leg back later. Alright. So, in saying that, let's move on. If you're into Lent or you're not into Lent, it doesn't really matter. But the main thing is that you want to prepare yourself for Easter. Some of us may say you've done really well and you've kept strictly to what you intended when you started. We feel good about that and we feel closer to God, and that's the key aspect. Is what you are doing in the lead up to Easter bringing you closer to our Heavenly Father? Some of us may say that we've been good at keeping their commitments during this period, but they still have got a long way to go. I had a pastor that I used to work with in a community outreach program, and I mean he was a very strong, solid Christian, and I could see that in what he did and how he behaved and everything else. Then one day we were at um you know, we went to pick up some supplies, so we went to food bank. Now I know that people will understand what food bank is, they're all over the world, different aspects, different configurations of that. But we went to food bank, and one of the things you do at food banks, you've got to pay like, I don't know, like five cents in the dollar for stuff and all this sort of gear. But the thing was, um, what what we had to be aware of is that uh the stuff was second grade, so we had to you know like clear the old stuff out and get the good stuff and put that in a trolley. And one day we were waiting for the checkout, and this pastor, I suppose I can mention his name because he's passed away and now he's with he's with the Lord, but uh he forgot something. So Pastor John races back to get something, and when he comes back, there's some stuff missing from his trolley, and you should have heard him. Uh, with the exception of vulgarities, he really let rip you know that someone had stolen from his trolley and that they're gonna get their come up and I was shocked, and I was going, Pastor John. I said, I didn't think you were like that. And he goes, This is what he said, and this is what I want you to try and pivot on and understand, right? He said, Hey, look, I am a good, solid Christian, and he gets there and he says, I've uh I've come a long way, but I've still got a long way to go. And I thought, wow, that is very profound. So he he clearly states that he's not perfect, but he's working towards that, and we all try to walk towards that. So that's what I'm saying. So in saying that, we're gonna leave Lent alone, we're gonna move on. Because whatever situation, even if you've chosen not to observe Lent, we are together in a time of anticipation. The time where Jesus' predictions come true is upon us. The crowd awaits Jesus on Palm Sunday. Now, I'm not going to get too much into this because I'm going to reveal what I'm talking about next week. The same crowd awaits Jesus' crucifixion on Good Friday. And for all of us and for Jesus, we await Resurrection Sunday when the power of God and the life of God is revealed in the triumph of Jesus over death. And perhaps that's the key. Okay, it's much more to do with Jesus. It's to do with his promises and his fulfillment of those promises. It's about us lining up with the reality that we shouldn't expect life to be easy. We shouldn't expect there to be no pain or suffering or dark seasons of our soul. Maybe, just maybe, it's about each of us growing deeper in our understanding of the love of God, the love of the Father, and the presence of Jesus. You see, I always say this. Um we don't um Jesus never leaves us nor forsakes us. It says that in the scripture. And if you've if seen the Son, you've seen the Father, and you've seen the Father, you've seen the Son, all right. And whenever we get there and we think, oh, you know, where is he? Where's the Lord? Okay, why why is he not listening to me? Okay, the thing is we walk away from Jesus, he doesn't walk away from us. We have to make sure that we stay in close proximity to him. Perhaps the point is that God is present when we fear he is not. When insecurity abounds and all we sense is God's absence. His presence is waiting to break through, to deliver and to heal, to transform and to make us new. It is God's spirit in us that awaits Easter Sunday and that calls us to participate in the journey that calls us to renew our faith in Him who walked through valleys and shadows and suffered death and yet he rose again. See, I want you to picture, you know, just imagine that you're standing in the Garden of Gethsemane. Forget about the three disciples that are having a snooze at the tree, but just imagine yourself standing there and watching Jesus praying to the Father. Now you know, because you know I'm sort of like hypothetically placing you in the Garden of Gethsemane right next to Jesus. You've read the scriptures, you know what happens. So you're standing there and you're watching Jesus and you see the pain, the anguish, the um the challenge that he's going through, and also you're looking at what it is that he needs to give up right at that very moment. See, uh I heard this thing just recently when I was in a um a church uh in Melbourne, and uh this guy used a very, very good analogy, and he was saying he had an apple and he cut it in half, and he was showing everybody the seeds inside of the apple, and he's saying you can count the seeds in the apple, which you can. You cut up an apple, take all the seeds out, you can count them up. Let's just say hypothetically there's 20 seeds there, but then pick up one seed and you want to plant that seed. How many apples can you see in that seed? You can't, it's unimaginable. It's like you've got one seed that you're gonna plant, and assuming that that plant grows into an apple tree, you have got no idea, and there's no way you can speculate mathematically work it out or anything else, you do not know how many apples are in that one seed. See, I don't want to be someone that's you uh stirring you emotionally to the point where you you couldn't fathom what I'm talking about, you know, without the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have nothing. And if you're standing there watching Jesus, if you've ever watched the Passion, a lot of people can't watch it because it's too close to uh reality, but you see the pain and the anguish, but at the same time, you also get to see the vulnerability of a man of flesh. Now I'm talking about Jesus here, right? You know, he gave up his deity to come to earth to live as a man and die on the cross, but he had to suffer immense suffering. He knew what was before him, you know. If you knew what was gonna happen to you next week, just say hypothetically, you heard that something was gonna happen and you're gonna be involved in a car accident, and you're gonna be trapped and pinned inside the car, and you're gonna be severely injured, and the pain and the anguish you're going through, if if you were able to know that that was going to happen to you next week, you wouldn't do anything. You try and avoid it. I'll give you an example. This actually happened, this is true. Okay, I know everything I'm saying is true, it's based on the word of God, but I just want to put this in perspective, right? For three consecutive years, and this was two years plus the year when I first met Maria, who was going to become my wife, I had a vehicle accident on my birthday. Exactly on my birthday, right? Which was the 12th of February. Forget about the year because it was a long, long, long time ago. Okay. Now, it happened once. Uh I had an accident, ended up in hospital, got out, went on with my life. The very next year, I had another accident and ended up in hospital. Okay. And the third year, I had my mother ring me up and she's going, Oh, Philip, are you coming over for your birthday? Said, no, no, no, mum. I'm not um I'm not coming over uh for my birthday this year. Uh because um the last two years on my birthday, I've had a car accident. I'm not tempting fate. Now, I wasn't a Christian at this time, alright? But I was still saying I don't want to tempt fate. Once bitten, twice shy, so they say. So I had this accident on two separate occasions, exactly on my birthday. And my mother, being a uh non-practicing Catholic, um, because like I said, this is before Maria came into our lives and changed everything. She said, I don't be ridiculous. Um, you know, the probability of that happening is, you know, b whatever she said. And I said, Okay, then no worries. So I hopped on my bike at a uh 185 Suzuki at this stage. I went over to my mum's place, happy birthday, cake, present, all this sort of stuff, yada yada yada. Everything was great, and she goes, see, see what I mean? You know, nothing happened. Now, on the way home, okay, I was driving down the road, uh, minding my own business, and then I was coming to a crossroad, you know, it was two dirt roads onto a bitumen road, so I automatically had right away. The other two had stop signs at them, you know, and I looked up and I could see this car coming towards me, and it was a long way away, right? So I didn't worry about it, and so as I'm approaching the intersection. I do not know why to this day, but I looked up, and as the Lord is my witness, I swear that all I could see was the grill of this Ford LTD, this big white Ford LTD. If anybody knows what that type of car is, it's big, it's strong, it's powerful. And so I went to drop the bike, and he hit me full on, snapped the bike in half, and I went a hundred meters or probably not that much, probably exaggerating a little bit, maybe 40 or 50 meters from the point of impact is where I landed, and I was smashed up big time. Alright? Now the moral of the story is I'm talking you now, so I survived. But the point being that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that that was going to happen. And I was going to avoid that day, but my mother talked me into doing it, and the same thing happened. Now, we know that that's you can't predict the future, and I was just being superstitious back there. But the point being, I had suffered two accidents on the exact same day, two years in a row, and I didn't want to go for a third one. But as it was, I was talked into it. The point that I'm trying to make here is Jesus is in the Gardens of Gethsemane. He knows what's about to happen. He is well aware of the pain and the anguish that he's going to suffer to the extent that the pressure that he was under, he sweated drops of blood. And yet, you know, he showed how human he was by saying, you know, hey dad, um, is there a plan B? I'm not really sure I like plan A. Um, but without any hesitation, after he voiced his human nature and his human desire to say, uh, can I get it get out of jail card? He said, but not my will, but your will be done. And you notice throughout his ministry, he kept saying that he'd come to do what the father told him to do. He did nothing except what the father told him to do, and right now he was in that exact same position where he was going to have to do what the father had told him to do. Now I can honestly say that I believe that there would have been no one on the face of this earth that would have said, Hey, look, I'll take your spot for you. No. And this is what it's all about. So as we approach Easter, just think of something, some sacrifice that you are prepared to make so you can show your love for our Heavenly Father. Amen. All right then. Talk to you next week. Bye for now.