John 14:15-31

Sermon Transcript

Jesus is with His disciples in the upper room, and the night that He’s there in the upper room after He leaves at the end of John 14, we’re going to see that tonight, He is comforting His disciples because He’s going to go away, back to the Father. He came from the Father, He’s going back to the Father, so He’s trying to comfort their troubled hearts, prepare them for His absence, let them know He’s going to send the Holy Spirit who will be with them and abide with them, just a lot of amazing teachings that He’s telling them.

We really pick it up right in the middle of the narrative in verse 15. Jesus said, “If ye love me, keep my commandments. 16 And I will pray”—or ask—“the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17 Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18 I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” In this section of John is recording what Jesus said to them about keeping His commandments and sending the Comforter.

There’s going to be a lot more said about the Holy Spirit when we get to John 16, but this is the beginning of some marvelous truths that Jesus gave about the Holy Spirit. The “Comforter” in verse 16 is none other than the third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit. Jesus is telling them that, “If ye love me,”—you will—“keep my commandments.”

Believe it or not, we’ve got to back up just a couple of verses at least to understand why Jesus said what He said there in verse 15. Go back with me to verse 13. He said, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” It’s such a wide spectrum of answered prayer, anything you ask, I will do. I told you we need to balance Scripture with Scripture and realize it must be a prayer of faith, if we don’t ask in faith we won’t receive; and it must be asked in Jesus’ name, which means for His glory, for His sake, and according to His will; and it must be God’s will in order to be answered. If we’re not praying according to His will, then He doesn’t hear us or doesn’t respond to us or answer our prayer.

Another thing about prayer in verses 13-14 is verse 15, that if we pray loving Him and seeking to keep His commandments, in other words prayer is to be connected with obedience to the Lord’s commands. We can’t be walking in disobedience and expect to just pray and get whatever we want. This is not just a carte blanche write your own ticket with God, it must be in faith, it must be for God’s glory, it must be according to God’s will, and it must be when you’re praying in Jesus’ name, you’re praying for Jesus sake, according to the will of the Lord. So, “If ye love me,”—you will—“keep my commandments.”

Jesus says in verse 16, “And I will pray”—ask—“the Father.” Now, a lot of verses that we’re going to cover tonight you would have a difficult time understanding if you were not trinitarian, if you didn’t believe in or understand that God is three Persons, that God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; not three Gods, one God, three Persons; one in nature, three in Persons; one God—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Here Jesus, God the Son, in His incarnate state said He’s going to ask the Father, remember He’s going back to the Father’s house, He’s building many mansions, He’s going to come and receive them unto Himself, so He’s going to the Father and Philip said, “ . . . shew us the Father,”—and we’ll be satisfied. Jesus said, “Have I been so long time with you . . . he that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” Again, He comes back to the Father. So, you have God the Son praying to God the Father, asking Him to send God the Holy Spirit.

In John 14:26, it makes it very clear that this is a reference to the Holy Spirit. Peek at it with me real quick, “But the Comforter,”—there’s that same word—“which is the Holy [Spirit], whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” He says it very clearly, black and white, the Comforter is the Holy Spirit.

The word “another” in verse 16 literally in the Greek means another of the same kind, not another being a different nature, but another of the same kind. So, “I’m going to leave you,” they were sad to see Jesus go, but God the Son would leave and God the Holy Spirit would come. The Spirit is also known as the Spirit of Christ, so it would be Jesus as well, and because He is divine, it would be God as well, so Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit would all come and manifest themselves to them; but they wouldn’t be left comfortless, as we’re going to see in verse 18, but the Comforter would come. The word “another” literally means another of the same kind.

I mention that and want to make that clear because this indicates what’s called the deity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is divine. The Holy Spirit is God, is just as much God as God the Father and as Jesus Christ, God the Son. It’s talking about His essence. He’s also a Person, and I want you to see that in verse 16, “ . . . that he,”—it’s the Greek word ekeînos. It’s a personal pronoun, and it means that He is a Person—He not it, it’s not an active force. “ . . . may abide with you for ever.” He promises the Holy Spirit, who is divine, that He will come and be with them and abide with them forever.

The word “Comforter” a very important key word in reference to the Holy Spirit, which Jesus uses over and over here and in John 16 is the Greek word paráklētos which means one who comes alongside of you to comfort, to strengthen, to help, to assist, and to guide you. He’s called the helper. He’s the Holy Spirit. He’s the paráklētos. It’s interesting, that same Greek word is used for Jesus in 1 John 2:1, “ . . . we have an advocate,”—there’s the word paráklētos—“with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: 2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.” The same word is used for Jesus Christ. Here, He’s called the other Comforter. I’ve always loved this, He’s come alongside of us to strengthen us and to help us and to encourage us. We will never be alone when we are Christians. We’re never alone, and He’s promised never to leave you. Amen? He says He will abide with you forever.

So, Jesus would go back to heaven. They were freaking out, “Don’t worry,” He’s basically saying, “I’m going to have the Father send to you the paráklētos, the Comforter. He will come to help you.” We could not live the Christian life apart from the help, the comfort, the strength, the guidance, and the wisdom—we’re going to see the teaching of truth through the Scriptures—that the Holy Spirit would bring. “ . . . that he may abide with you for ever.” He will never leave you; He will never forsake you.

Now, I don’t want to open a can of worms. I don’t want to go where I shouldn’t go right now, but you know me, right? I believe that once you have been born again, this is another indication of this, once you’ve been born again, and we’re going to see tonight He dwells in you, you’ve been regenerated and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, He will never, ever, ever, ever, ever leave you. You can grieve Him, and you can resist Him, and you can quench Him, but He will never leave you, and He will never forsake you.

Some say, “Well, David asked in the Old Testament, ‘Lord, take not thy Holy Spirit from me,’ what’s the deal there?” David lived in the Old Testament dispensation when the Spirit would come upon people and leave them, come upon them and leave them, come upon them and leave them; or indwell them and then leave them. They did not have the Holy Spirit as we do today, and a lot about what we’re going to read tonight is supporting this concept, that came in Acts 2 in His fullness when the Church was born. If you missed the Church being born in Acts 2, you’re misunderstanding the Bible, and that we have a new covenant where God writes His laws upon the fleshly tablets of our hearts and we are regenerated. All of us have the Holy Spirit, that’s the new covenant. He takes out our heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh. It’s not that we need to be a king or a prophet to have the Spirit come upon us as in the old covenant, we have the new covenant where we are regenerated and we’re indwelt and we have a permanent abiding there, verse 16, of the paráklētos, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

He’s called, verse 17, “Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive.” Jesus in verse 6 was called, “ . . . the way, the truth, and the life.” The Spirit is called, “ . . . the Spirit of truth,” and when He reveals the Word to you, He reveals the truth of God’s Word. “ . . . whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him,”—they’re not born again, they’re not regenerated, they have not the Spirit of God. They can’t comprehend the things of the Spirit. “ . . . but ye know him”—as believers—“for he”—very importantly, verse 17—“dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” Again, a reminder, “I will not leave you comfortless.”

Before I forget, that word “comfortless” in verse 18 is not paráklētos. It’s a different Greek word that actually means orphans, orphanós. We get our word “orphans” from it. He’s saying, “I’m not going to orphan you, I’m going to come to you. You won’t be orphaned. You won’t be left alone. I’m going to come to you.”

Notice the Holy Spirit is not understood by the world. They can’t understand Him because they know Him not. As believers though, we know Him because He dwells with us and He is in us. I believe this is true of all believers, all believers. All believers have the Holy Spirit with them and in them. They are regenerated, and they are indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Read 1 Corinthians 12:13. He says, “For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body . . . and have been all made to drink into one Spirit,”—in Christ. The minute you were born again, by the work of the Holy Spirit, you were placed into Christ, and we have that unity together. He is with us, He is in us, and I will not leave you orphans, “I will come to you.” Again, He will come to them in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost.

Now, it says, verse 19, “Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.” Again, Jesus is speaking about leaving them, and He’s going to go to the cross and be crucified, He’s going to be buried, three days later He rose from the dead, and at the end of a period of forty days appearing to them after the resurrection, He ascended back to heaven. They watched Him go back into heaven. They lose Him, they have Him again, and then He goes back to heaven. They thought He would set up the Kingdom, Acts 1, but it wasn’t the right time, so He went back to heaven, but He will come again.

I love this. He says, “Yet a little while . . . seeth me no more; but ye see me,” He’s probably referring to the resurrection or the post-resurrection appearances and the ascension. It could be also referring to Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit comes and they see Christ more clearly through the work and the agency of the Holy Spirit. Then, He says, “ . . . ye shall live also.” Because Jesus died, was buried, rose from the dead, we through faith in Him will also live with Him.

Verse 20, “At that day,”—I believe that’s a reference to Acts 2, the day of Pentecost—“ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” It kind of sounds like a Beatles’ song, doesn't it? You are in me, and I am in you, and we are one and we are all together, or something like that. The truth of verse 20 is amazing. He said, “At that day,”—which I believe is Acts 2—“ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.” This is our unity in God, our position in God, and it’s a marvelous truth. Again, in 1 Corinthians 12:13, “ . . . and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.” We’ve all been placed into the same body.

If you are a Christian, you are “in Christ,” and you are also in God the Father and the Holy Spirit is in you and you are one with Him. What a marvelous unity we have in our position “in Christ.” How marvelous that is. That is, again, the day the Church was born. How marvelous it is to be “in Christ.” Again, I believe once we are in Christ, we will always be in Christ. Not only will the Holy Spirit never leave you, He will never take you out of Christ placing you back in Adam under condemnation. In Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus.”

Verse 21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” He’s referring to this future time when the Spirit comes and we’re one with Christ, we’re one in the Spirit, we’re one in the body, we’re one with God the Father, and we see things more clearly.

Verse 22, “Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot,”—there was another disciple named Judas, and he’s identified here as, not Judas Iscariot. Earlier in the Upper Room Discourse, John 13, Jesus had dismissed him, and he’d already gone out to betray the Lord. This is Judas known as Judas Thaddeus in the New Testament. He said, “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us,”—being disciples—“and not unto the world?” This is the fourth in a series of questions that tie in to John 14. The first question was back in John 13:36 where Peter said, “Lord, whither goest thou?”—we don’t know where You’re going. The second one is in John 14:5 where Thomas said, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?” The third one is Philip in John 14:8, where he said, “Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us.” Here’s the fourth question, verse 22, Judas Thaddeus, who said, “Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?”

What he’s probably thinking, and it makes sense, is that Jesus manifesting Himself to them would be the outward visible Kingdom of God on earth known as the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant, also known as the Millennial Reign of Christ. All through the Old Testament it prophesies that the Messiah will sit upon the throne, all the descriptions of the Millennium, and they’re marvelous, are there in the Old Testament. They’re thinking in those terms. “How are You going to set up Your Kingdom? How’s Your Kingdom going to come? How’re You, as Messiah, reign on the throne of David, yet You’re only going to manifest Yourself unto us?” They did not understand that there would be a period of time when Christ would leave, send the Holy Spirit, Church would be born, Church would evangelize the world, the Church then would be raptured up to heaven, then the Christ would come back at the Second Coming and Israel then will be restored and brought into the Kingdom Age, and Jesus will sit on the throne of David. They didn’t understand all that. It wasn’t really made clear to them. They needed the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 to come on the day of Pentecost to begin to teach them and to be able to make sense of some of the things that Jesus had taught them.

Judas was probably thinking, How are You going to set up Your Kingdom? “ . . . how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?” The answer is He would come in the Person of the Holy Spirit, and that He would regenerate them, indwell them, and reveal Himself to them. It would be spiritual. This doesn’t mean that the Millennial Kingdom is to be spiritualized or allegorized, that it’s a literal Kingdom that will come, but there is the Church period of time or the Church Age, which we live in right now when the world does not know Him, the world does not see Him, but we see Him, we know Him, He’s manifested Himself unto us.

Verse 23, “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words,”—He keeps coming back to that love Me and be obedient to Me, keep My words—“and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” That’s the same “with” we saw in verse 17 about the Holy Spirit being with us. So, He’s with us, He’s in us, dwelling inside of us.

Verse 24, “He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father’s which sent me.” Again, a clear reference to Jesus came by being sent of the Father. Again, if you didn’t have a knowledge of the Trinity, you wouldn’t be able to understand what Jesus is speaking about here. “ . . . the Father’s which sent me. 25 These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.” The Father sent Him, sent the Son; the Son came voluntarily to die on the cross vicariously as the substitute for our sins. But He spoke these words, “ . . . being yet present with you.” He had not left them yet.

Verse 26, and here we come back to the Holy Spirit, “But the Comforter,”—this is the word paráklētos—“which is the Holy [Spirit], whom the Father will send in my name,”—again, a personal pronoun ekeînos—“he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.” The Holy Spirit is divine. The Holy Spirit is a Person, and the Holy Spirit indwells every believer. All the same attributes possessed by God the Father, possessed by God the Holy Spirit, as well as God the Son. The Holy Spirit comes, and He says, “ . . . whom the Father will send,”—and a clear reference to His teaching ministry, verse 26—“he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance”—what all things?—“whatsoever I have said unto you.”

A couple facts about the Holy Spirit: sent by the Father; teaching us. We can’t know anything about God apart from the revelation and illumination of the Holy Spirit which brings transformation of our lives, and that He is our teacher. He’s the Spirit of truth, and He’ll teach us in the Word of God what is true. But I believe that this is a great classic verse which gets missed for this aspect that when he says, “ . . . and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,”—Jesus is reminding them that the Holy Spirit will bring to their remembrance everything He spoke and everything He taught so they would be able—listen very carefully—to write the New Testament, to write under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit with His assistance and illumination, so everything Jesus taught them. It wouldn’t be something they would forget or they’d have to think up ideas of their own, they would be given understanding as the Holy Spirit would superintend these human authors so the very words they wrote would be the words of God as Peter said they would be carried along by the Holy Spirit.

I believe the end of verse 26 is actually a support for the doctrine of inspiration of the New Testament, that what the disciples wrote that they had the authority given to them by Christ and the teaching of the Holy Spirit to “ . . . bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you,” so they knew what they were saying was true.

Jesus says, in verse 27, and it’s running down to verse 31, in the wrap up, “Peace I leave with you,”—He doesn’t leave money, He doesn’t leave land, He doesn’t leave possessions. He says, “I’m going to leave with you My peace.” Christ bequests a legacy of peace. This is the subjective experience in the heart of a child of God. This isn’t our standing or position, this is our experience of God’s peace in our hearts in this troubled world. “Peace I leave with you,”—remember they were sad because He was leaving them—“my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” The chapter opens with those words and it closes now again with those words.

Verse 28, “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.” I want to stop there for just a moment. I was reading Matthew Henry today on this text and I love what he said. He said, “When Christ left the world, He made His will. His soul bequest to His Father, His body to Joseph, His clothes fell to the soldiers, His mother He left to the care of John, but what should He leave for His poor disciples who had left all for Him? Silver and gold? He had none, but He left them what was far better, His peace.” He left them His peace, and us as well.

I mentioned it earlier that there’s what’s called peace with God and there’s peace of God. Peace with God is what you get the moment you are born again and saved. You’re no longer at war with God, you have peace with God. You have a relationship with God. But as you walk with Him and trust Him, and put your faith in Him and rely upon His Word and His Holy Spirit and His promises, the Spirit fills your heart with His peace, His shalom—peace that the world doesn’t know, peace that the world doesn’t understand, peace that the world does not have. Only the child of God can have this kind of peace. What a blessing—Jesus leaves us His peace. Amen?

If you’re troubled tonight, your heart is troubled and you are afraid, you need to look to Jesus Christ in faith and rest in Him and experience His peace. The peace of God which passes all understanding, the Bible says, will keep, which means to guard, protect, or garrison, your hearts in Christ Jesus; and we should cast our cares upon Him because He cares for us.

Now, verse 28, “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away, and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father: for my Father is greater than I.” This is a verse that throws people for a little curve trying to figure out, “How could Jesus be God and be equal to the Father as far as His essence is concerned, yet say, ‘ . . the Father . . . is greater than I’”? Those who deny the deity of Jesus Christ turn to this verse, being many times Jehovah’s Witnesses, and say, “Jesus is not God, He said, ‘My Father is greater than I.’” The simple answer to this is He is greater in His position and His ministry as the Father has the Son submitted to Him. God the Father sends God the Son, and they also need to understand when Jesus said these words, He was in His state of incarnation and humiliation. Hebrews 2:9, quoting from the psalm, said, “But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels,” Jesus here is lower than the Father because He’s lower than the angels in His humanity, in His body, in the incarnation; and for His function as the Messiah the role that He had to fill. But in His essence and in His nature, He is equal to God the Father.

It’s similar to the marriage relationship. Husband and wife are equal before God. God doesn’t love a husband more than the wife or the wife more than the husband, they’re both equally saved, they’re both equally the child of God, but they have different functions. The Bible says the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church. It speaks to that relationship of loving your wife and a wife submitting to her husband. Even within the Trinity that’s reflected in the marriage relationship, but it doesn’t mean greater in the sense of His essence, Jesus is divine. He’s every bit as much God as God the Father and as God the Holy Spirit.

Verse 29, Jesus says, “And now I have told you before it come to pass, that, when it is come to pass, ye might believe. 30 Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” The “prince of the world” is a reference to Satan, and of course, Satan is going to influence Judas, and Judas in just a few hours here in the text, the night that Jesus was with them would actually betray Him, He would be arrested and tried, and the next day He would be crucified on the cross, Satan thinking that he was conquering the Son of God. But God uses the wrath of man to praise Him. He turns the tables and uses even the cross of Christ to save many to bring about His divine purpose of redemption. The “prince of this world” is a reference to Satan. He’s also called the god of this age, the prince and the power that works in the spirit of disobedience in this age. “ . . . and hath nothing in me.” We are in Christ, so he has nothing in us.

I have people come to me for prayer all the time who as far as they can tell they’re believers, they’ve trusted Christ, they’re born again, they have the Holy Spirit, they have the Word of God. But they’re all completely freaked out about the devil. They’re worried the devil’s in their home living in the kitchen up on the shelf, third shelf behind the dishes. They want me to come over and sprinkle holy water on their house and get the devil out of their house, and the devil’s in the bedroom, the devil’s here and the devil’s there and on and on. I’ll stop right there. We are in Christ, Christ is in us, “ . . . greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” You don’t need to sprinkle holy water on your house. If you’re a child of God, the prince of darkness has no place with you. He can attack you, he can oppress you, but the Bible says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” There you go. It doesn't say, “Call the pastor to come to your house and sprinkle holy water on your house to anoint your house.” It says, “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”

If you do feel oppressed or attacked by the enemy, begin to sing songs, begin to praise the Lord, begin to read Scriptures, begin to meditate on God’s Word and quote Scriptures to your fearful heart. This is why Jesus said, verse 27, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” Satan has nothing in you. You are in Christ, and the Holy Spirit will never leave you or forsake you.

Verse 31, says, “But that the world may know that I love the Father; and as the Father gave me commandment, even so I do.” Again, this throws people for a curve, “Arise, let us go hence.” You say, “What’s the deal here? They’re leaving the upper room and we’re not done with the Upper Room Discourse.” I’ll probably come back to this more next week, but most likely one of two things. There’s about five or six different theories about what’s going on here because in John 15, 16, and 17 it seems Jesus is still in the upper room with His disciples. So, one of two things, it’s possible that like us they were talking and Jesus was teaching, and Jesus says, “Okay, let’s go.”

Have you ever been with a group of people and you keep saying, “Okay, let’s go,” and you sit around for another hour, and another hour, and another hour? You say, “We were supposed to go two hours ago.” It might’ve been that He said, “Come on. Get up. Let’s get going,” and they lingered longer still in the room. Most conservative Bible scholars believe that Jesus did leave the upper room with His disciples and that John 15, 16, and 17 are taught en route as He walked, which is interesting to think about.

The Spirit of God would bring all things to their remembrance, so they weren’t writing notes down. Even if they were walking and talking, they could’ve retained by the Spirit’s help what Jesus taught them. So, whether they’re still in the room, which I kind of like to think so, or whether they’re walking, which would be a beautiful picture, too, as they would walk, and it would be Passover, and there’d probably be a beautiful full moon like we’ve had the last couple nights, and what a picture that would be as they walked down through the Kidron Valley and over into the Garden of Gethsemane where He would be arrested as Jesus had prayed His great High Priestly prayer of John 17. He says, “Arise, let us go hence.”

I’m going to wrap this chapter up with four things you need to remember that your heart be not troubled or afraid that we learned in John 14. First, we learned that we have a home in heaven, “Let not your heart be troubled,” amen? You and I, as God’s people, have a home in heaven. We know we’re going to heaven. I love songs about heaven. I love to sing about heaven. I love to think about heaven. Heaven is where we’re going. Heaven is our home. That’s where we’re headed, we’re headed to heaven. The Bible says Abraham, “ . . . looked for a city . . . whose builder and maker is God.” He looked for that city.

Secondly, “Let not your heart be troubled,” or afraid, you know the Father. You know “Abba,” you’re His child. You have a personal relationship with God the Father. This Sunday morning we’re going to start Luke 15, and it’s one of the great chapters of the Bible where we have the lost coin and the lost sheep and the lost son, the prodigal son, and the picture of the Father lovingly running to the son and receiving him back into his arms. So, we know the Father.

Thirdly, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” you have the Holy Spirit. Don’t ever let the devil lie to you or tell you that He’s moved out, that you’ve lost your salvation, that you’ve grieved Him away. He’s promised never to leave you or forsake you. In Ephesians it says that, “ . . . ye were sealed with that Spirit . . . until the day of redemption.”

Fourthly, write it down, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,” you have His peace. Amen? His peace. Not like the world’s peace that’s based on circumstances, you have the peace with God and the peace of God which passes all understanding. Let’s pray.