Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] Good morning, Westside. My name is Josh Cordell, and I am the youth and family pastor here at Westside. I love this church, and I'm so thankful to be a part of it. I'm so thankful for the way that Westside is growing. And what I mean by that is, yes, our numbers are going up, but I feel like as a church where we're constantly growing in the way that we relate to each other and to Jesus and to the Word. And I'm really thankful for this practice that we've been in, as we've been in the Gospel of John, that we are standing together and reading the passage that we're in. And so we're gonna do that in just a moment. We're gonna read from John. Chapter 14 is where we're at. And before I ask you to stand, I'm gonna just give you guys a little disclaimer. If it feels like I'm struggling through the reading, I am. But don't feel any pressure, okay? You just relax and enjoy it. I'm just not great in front of people, and so it'll be just fine. We'll get through it together.
[00:01:01] John 14.
[00:01:04] Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am, you may be also.
[00:01:25] And you know the way to where I am going. Thomas said to him, lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on, you do know him and have seen seen him. Philip said to him, lord, show us the Father and it is enough for us. Jesus said to him, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me? Philip, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or else believe on account of the Works themselves.
[00:02:29] Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do. And greater works than these will he do. Because I am going to the Father, which is whatever you ask in my name. This I will do.
[00:02:46] That the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
[00:02:55] Let's pray.
[00:02:57] Heavenly Father, you are so good.
[00:03:00] Thank you that you sent your son, that we have an advocate before you, that we have a path to you, that we have seen you through seeing Jesus.
[00:03:13] God, would you speak to us today in this time of trouble, in this world of trouble. Would you give us a peace that surpasses understanding?
[00:03:24] We love you God, because you first loved us. And we pray all of these things in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:32] Have a seat.
[00:03:35] This I heard this comedian recently and he said that church is just the world's longest book club.
[00:03:45] He said that 2,000 years ago, some people got together for a book club and it never stopped.
[00:03:50] And we're more than that. We're more than that. We will get to what the church actually is. But there's an element of truth to that, that we are a book club. And this book is amazing, you guys. This book is incredible. It's the inspired word of, of God. And we are in a section of the scripture right now that is called the Farewell Discourse. The Farewell Discourse. And it's from John like 13 to 17. And it is the longest recorded piece of scripture of Jesus teaching, like, of just a straight teaching. It's the longest one that there is. And we are in chapter 14. And I'm reading from the English Standard Version today.
[00:04:33] This is the Bible that I have. I love my Bible, you guys. It has really big print, helps me a lot. I appreciate that.
[00:04:39] Lots of great translations. If you have a Bible and it has red letters in it, those are the words of Jesus.
[00:04:47] And so you're looking at your Bible and you see that there's the black letters and then you see red letters. Those are quotes of Jesus, direct words that he said. And this chapter is full of red letters. This chapter is full of so many things. John 14 has a lot of what has shaped the theology and belief of the church, the Big Sea Church, like the church as a whole. Not just here at Westside, but like how we all view God.
[00:05:13] A lot of the foundation of that we can find in this area. In fact, what we read to start this out, that part that ends is why we pray in Jesus name. That's where we get that when we finish a prayer and we say in Jesus name, Amen. If we're accustomed to doing that.
[00:05:29] From this section is where we find that another thing in this chapter is we see a really solid base for the Trinity, for God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and then God the Holy Spirit. And it's really encouraging.
[00:05:44] And so I wanna just ask you guys, spend some time in the Gospel of John if you haven't done it, if you don't have a Bible, get a Bible. If you need a Bible, ask for a Bible. We want you to be in the Word.
[00:05:56] It's the most amazing book club you'll ever be a part of. But the church is so much more than a book club because the church is the place where God has chosen to indwell his people.
[00:06:10] We are followers of Jesus and we are the indwelling place of the Holy Spirit. And together we are the church.
[00:06:18] And the church isn't just a building, but. But I sure do love this building.
[00:06:24] So the church goes far beyond the walls of this building. But I'm a big fan of this building. I spend a lot of time on the other end of the building, which is the student center. And one of the things about being in the student center is it's been here for a little while and people will come in and they'll be like, used to be a skate park when I was here, right? There will be like, there's such a long history. Or there will be stories where they're like, do you know about the zip line that was here one time? It's like, oh, I wasn't here. But I sure know about it because yes, those things come up. But this building is so special and it's special for all of us. But I want to tell you about one group who it's really special for. In the student center, we have high schoolers, we have middle schoolers, we have fourth and fifth graders. When the fourth and fifth graders walk into that room, you guys, it's like they're buzzing. Like they walk in and they just put their hands in the air and they're like, yes, the energy and the stoke level is kind of mind boggling. And so I am so thankful for.
[00:07:20] But the church is not a building.
[00:07:23] The church is a group of people following after Jesus.
[00:07:28] And we see in this section of scripture that Jesus is the source of peace.
[00:07:35] And I want to encourage us to think about peace and hope really going together if we want to have peace. We are in such a better position to have peace when we have hope and so right away, I'm gonna read the first part from 14.
[00:07:51] Let not your hearts be troubled.
[00:07:54] So in the mix of what's happening right now, we heard Ben 2 weeks ago that in chapter 12, the disciples are kind of jockeying for position. They know that things are coming.
[00:08:05] They don't understand it all, but there's a tension. And then from Pastor Evan last week, now it's really getting serious.
[00:08:13] Things are about to change.
[00:08:15] Peter is told that he's gonna deny Jesus.
[00:08:18] They know that there's a traitor amongst them. They know that he's leaving, he's going to someplace else. And so that's where this gets into that Jesus is going to be leaving them.
[00:08:27] Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself. That where I am, you may be also.
[00:08:47] Jesus is talking about leaving this earth, going to heaven, creating a place that will then be where we. Where the disciples, where us get to go and be with Him.
[00:08:58] When I read the scriptures, sometimes I'm like, josh would like a little different information than what is shared there. Okay? Whenever that comes out of my mouth, and I usually know I'm wrong and what is there is what I need.
[00:09:11] But I read this and I'm like, you guys, I have so many conversations with young people about what heaven's gonna be like. Like, I would've loved, like, Jesus. Couldn't you have just thrown in real fast? Like, do we get to fly? Like, that comes up a lot, like, are we gonna be flying? Because this is for sure gonna be a conversation I have this week. But he doesn't go there. He doesn't go there. Instead, he says, I go to prepare a place for you. In my father's house are many rooms.
[00:09:38] Well, in the culture of this time, with the Jewish culture, marriage had a first part that was kind of like engagement for us. And it was a celebration. And then when that happened, the groom would leave and go back to his father's house and would build an additional room at the house that would then be the dwelling place of he and his bride. That's where they would move to once they were married.
[00:10:04] But there's some interesting things about this one, is it was kind of like a compound. Imagine, and he's coming and he's building this room. That's more like an Apartment and the bride doesn't know when he's gonna return for her.
[00:10:18] So they have committed to each other, they're in it for forever, but they're not really together yet and they don't know when that's gonna be. And in fact, the father of the household has more of the say of, of when that time is, of when that room is ready. And so the groom leaves to prepare this place.
[00:10:39] And it's going to be a great place, but the bride is waiting. When is that going to happen?
[00:10:45] And so instead of finding out if I'm going to fly, I'm finding out that Jesus is going ahead of me and making a place that is for me. He's making a place that is actually for me.
[00:10:58] Like for us. He's got a room. He's got a room for Cameron, right? He's like, he's prepared room for Cameron. He's prepared a room for Leslie, right? Like, he's prepared a room for us. He's prepared a room for Rod. Good to see you, Rod. He's prepared a room for us. He's gone ahead and he has chosen this place that is where we are going to go spend eternity with him. And there is so much hope in that.
[00:11:23] I am one who is pretty outgoing and comfortable in different settings.
[00:11:30] My wife and I right now. Well, for a long time we get invited to things and they're just kind of like one off type things we're invited to. And my wife Emily, who was up on the announcements, she'll say to me, josh, do we know anyone at that?
[00:11:43] And I'm like, no, we don't know anyone, but we have an invitation to go. And she's like, I'm not going. And I'm like, I understand that. That's fine. And she's like, but you can go. And I'm like, I am going to go. And she says the same thing every time. She says, have fun, make a new friend.
[00:11:58] And so I have that. Like, that's okay with me. I'm wired in a way where I'm up for that. But even though I'm wired that way, you know what I like? I like to walk into a room and have someone go, hey, Josh, I saved you a seat.
[00:12:12] I love that, right? I love that feeling. Oh, I'm not alone. I'm seen. There's a place for me here.
[00:12:19] My daughter Brynlee's a sixth grader and they were having an assembly at her school. She told me about this this week they were headed there and she had forgotten Something in the class she was coming from. And so she had to go back. And this is the kind of thing that could be like, a big deal for her, right? That's how she's wired.
[00:12:35] This was not an ideal situation. And her friend said, I'll save you a seat. And she went back and got the thing. And when she came in, her friend waved and had a seat for her. And that was huge.
[00:12:47] There's so much peace in that.
[00:12:49] It's amazing to be seen and to be known and to have a place.
[00:12:54] And when we talk about heaven and when we talk about the kingdom of God, there's this phrase I love that's so helpful. And it's now, but not yet now and not yet understanding. Like, there is a place that God has for us, and ultimately he has prepared a perfect place for us, just for us. And there's so much peace that should come in that.
[00:13:20] But we live in a world where peace is hard to find, like this world. We can lack peace in this world. And I love that.
[00:13:31] That word yet.
[00:13:34] Because one of the conversations that I've had with a lot of people is they're like, I've prayed for peace. I don't have it.
[00:13:43] I've done the thing. Like, I've believed and I don't have it.
[00:13:49] And I think that it's powerful when we can say, I don't have peace yet.
[00:13:54] That trust.
[00:13:56] You believe in the Father, believe also in me. You trust in the Father, trust in Jesus yet, right? This patience.
[00:14:05] I was talking to someone recently, one of those fun relationships, maybe you have, like, this kind of thing, especially when you've lived in the same place for a while. Someone who I met over a decade ago.
[00:14:16] We're friends on Facebook. We met in real life through something, and then we've seen each other in person a couple of times in the last few years. But we both post occasionally and, like, comment on stuff so you feel, like, familiar with each other. And so I saw them just recently and we were having a conversation about something very specific. We were actually meeting about this thing and we're talking and he says, just out of nowhere, this is very off topic and so fun. This is the life I wanna live. He says, I used to call myself an atheist.
[00:14:46] And I'm like, oh, we are going here. This is great. And he says, but I was never an atheist, because when things were hard, I always asked God for help.
[00:14:58] And I was like, amazing.
[00:15:00] And he said, now I call myself a Christian. I said, you do? That's incredible. And he Said, because I've been reading this, and I really like Jesus.
[00:15:13] And I said, me too.
[00:15:15] Big fan.
[00:15:18] And he then went to say, like, Jesus really is the picture of, like, what this world needs, like, what we need individually and what the world needs as a whole.
[00:15:27] And he gets it. He understood that where Jesus is going with this, when Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life, this is not that I'm a good option, but I'm the way, the truth, and the life, that Jesus is the source, that Jesus is our peace, that if we want to have peace, it truly comes from Jesus.
[00:15:53] And so how do we do that?
[00:15:56] Because there is a lot of.
[00:15:58] We talk a lot about, like, how do we find peace? How do we find peace? I want to read you from Romans 8. 25.
[00:16:07] It says, but if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
[00:16:14] Another translation for that do not see says, not yet.
[00:16:19] If we hope for what is not yet.
[00:16:22] And so patience and hope to me are just intertwined.
[00:16:27] I'm sorry, Sorry. Peace. Patience is good. Patience is there too. Peace and hope are intertwined.
[00:16:34] We have to have, like, all of those things flow together. They're the fruit of the spirit, right? Love and joy and peace and patience. All these things go together. But if we want to have true peace, there has to be this hope element, because it's very hard to have peace, as Evan shared earlier, of just this world that we live in, and that's the big world, but just the world of just like, right, the circle I'm standing in, right? There are difficult things. And if I'm going to try to find peace with just thinking that, like, okay, this thing is just going to work out, that I'm standing right here, that's tough.
[00:17:10] We need a future hope, and we need to trust. And it can't be in a system, but it has to be in the one who is the source of things.
[00:17:19] We see this in Isaiah all the way back. This is pre Jesus. This is talking of the coming of Jesus.
[00:17:26] Isaiah says, you keep him in perfect peace. He's speaking to God. You keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you because he trusts in you.
[00:17:36] We will find peace when our mind is full of focused on Jesus, when we stay focused on God. This world is full of distractions.
[00:17:45] But we will find our peace as we are close to God. We see in Second Thessalonians how may the Lord of peace now. May the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times, in every way. The Lord Be with you all.
[00:18:03] The Lord of Peace, the Prince of Peace, our source for peace has a name.
[00:18:10] We often look for peace. We look around. How would I find peace? Where might peace come? Peace has a name, and it's Jesus the Christ.
[00:18:20] And that is our source for peace. I was at the coffee shop, and usually you'll find me in a lot of the same places. I'm either like walking this lap that I walk, or I'm here or I'm at a coffee shop, or I'm watching a sporting event, like high school sporting event, like that's our. Or and then sometimes home.
[00:18:39] But the nice thing is that I work with my wife and our daughter is here a lot. So I do. I'm not neglecting them. We spend a lot of time together, don't get me wrong.
[00:18:49] But I'm at this coffee shop and I'm sitting there and this young man who's a West sider now comes walking towards me. And I've known him for many years, known him since before he was here. And he comes walking and. And he's just glowing. He just has that twinkle in his eyes. A little cartoon character twinkle in their eye kind of feel.
[00:19:09] But he is just. He looks so stoked. He looks so good. And he walks up and I say, you look amazing. Like, you look so happy right now.
[00:19:19] And in the moment that I'm in, I was kind of expecting an answer, like, just aced my test.
[00:19:25] You're not gonna believe what girl I was just hanging out with, you know, something along those lines.
[00:19:30] And I said, you look so good. You look like you have so much joy. And he said, jesus, he gave me a one word answer. He gave me a one word answer and he said, jesus.
[00:19:42] And as we dove into it and had a great conversation, I've known him for a long time and I've known his story. And what was amazing is that the struggles of life, relationships, goals, sports, future, family.
[00:19:59] There was no, like, oh, that just got easy. And the box is checked. All those things were still there, right? But he had a fully new lens that he was seeing everything through.
[00:20:11] He had a completely different perspective. And there was this peace about him, this peace that surpasses understanding.
[00:20:20] And I want to read to you from chapter 14, verses 26 and 27.
[00:20:28] But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and will bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
[00:20:41] Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives. Do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.
[00:20:55] So much good from this.
[00:20:57] One of the things in this peace is a substitute for fear.
[00:21:02] Don't be afraid.
[00:21:04] The Bible says don't be afraid. So many times. In fact I fell for something a while ago that the Bible. There was this thing going around that the Bible said don't be afraid 365 times. I was like, that is so cool. That's amazing. It's not actually 365 times. It's a great idea that it's exactly 365 times. But the Bible is full of have no fear, do not be afraid.
[00:21:27] And peace is the substitute for that. And we are longing for peace and we're looking for what kind of peace the world would have to offer, but what we find. And I meet so many people like this. The peace that we think the world will offer doesn't. Doesn't get it done or it doesn't last.
[00:21:46] I sometimes jokingly call Bend the self care capital.
[00:21:52] I meet many people who move to Bend because I'm going to go mountain biking. I'm going to be out in the woods, I'm going to do a little yoga. I'm going to do a combo like hot tub, cold plunge, mismatch kind of thing. And I'm going to do all of that before lunch. Right? Like Bend is a place for active people looking to feel good.
[00:22:17] And I get that. I want to feel good and those things do feel good. But here's the thing. We could focus on our breathing, you guys, which we should. But if it's just breathing, it's just breathing. But if Jesus is at the center of it and we realize I'm focused on my breathing because I, I have the breath of life.
[00:22:37] I am touched by God. This life that is in me is a breath given to me by God.
[00:22:43] That changes everything.
[00:22:45] That changes everything. If, if we're going to meditate, let's meditate on the goodness of God.
[00:22:51] Let's meditate on his promises and what he's shown us already. Because we can believe his promises. We can have faith in his promises because we can trust in his promises, because we have faith and we believe in what he's already done.
[00:23:05] And because of that, you guys, all of these things that are available to us, we should do. We should go out in the woods. I'm a huge fan of being at a waterfall. I'm a huge fan of being on a mountain. I love sunsets.
[00:23:20] I hear about sunrises. Haven't seen many of them. I love sunsets. Okay. I love to see God's creation.
[00:23:29] And it's different if I'm worshiping that thing or if I'm able to say, oh, the prince of peace who loves me so much is the maker of this.
[00:23:40] That changes everything for us. And so as we look at this scripture, there is so much in this. You guys, we didn't even touch on the fact that we now have the Holy Spirit, which is, it says, will remind us of the things that. That Jesus said.
[00:23:56] Like, we actually have God in us. And so sometimes when we don't know, we need to just say, God, show me, right? I wanna be available for that. Like, I wanna talk about. I wanna talk about, like, do I get to fly in heaven? I still really hope so. I wanna fly right now, right? Like, I want. Like, I want to believe that, like, God is doing a work right now. Like, what would he do? Like, what would he do if I'm available? And what kind of peace could I have if I'm like, God, you're in charge.
[00:24:22] You're in control. Do what you want to do.
[00:24:24] I want to surrender and be obedient to you and see what you would do next.
[00:24:30] I said earlier that I love that we stand and read the scriptures together.
[00:24:34] One of the things that we have committed to here at Westside, a couple of beautiful things. First of all, Evan mentioned baptism coming up on Easter. We had a hundred Westsiders get baptized last year over the. Of course, course of the year. Like, how awesome is that? This. This beautiful season of people coming to faith, right? Like, that was so beautiful. And we have committed as a church to be very intentional about baptism that we're like, earlier in this chapter, we read Philip, where Philip's like, God, wait, Jesus, like, what's going on? Can we please see the Father? Like, I don't. I don't get this. And Jesus, like, no, you don't get this yet, right? You don't get this yet. But we see that Philip later gets it. And Philip has the incredible story in the book of Acts where he goes and baptizes the Ethiopian eunuch. And we see this. This thing that's so encouraging to me of in this chapter here are all of these followers of Jesus who don't get it yet.
[00:25:32] And so maybe we're at a place where, like, we don't get it yet, right?
[00:25:37] Maybe we're like, what is this?
[00:25:40] God is patient.
[00:25:42] It's really amazing how patient he is with us.
[00:25:45] And I love that we've committed to baptism the way we have here. And I so love the way we've committed to communion here.
[00:25:53] That has been just such a beautiful thing of where we are always going to finish a service by coming back to the thing. That is the thing.
[00:26:04] And that's Jesus Christ, him crucified and raised from the dead.
[00:26:09] That's the thing. That's what this is all about.
[00:26:13] And if we want to have peace, it has to start there.
[00:26:17] The peace for us starts at the cross because it gives us peace with God and it gives us peace with each other and peace within ourselves because we get to be reconnected with with God not because of anything that we could do, but because of what he did for us.
[00:26:34] And so I'm so thankful that we have this moment every week where we come together for communion. And before we do, I want to say a quick prayer over us because we don't all have peace yet.
[00:26:51] And God wants us to be a peaceful people.
[00:26:55] He wants us to not only feel an inner peace and be at peace with him, but he wants us to be a peaceful presence in this world.
[00:27:03] And if he's a God of peace and we are his instruments, then we are called to bring peace to others.
[00:27:11] And so I want to pray for us that we would have an overwhelming amount of peace.
[00:27:19] Heavenly Father, you are so good.
[00:27:24] You made a way for us, Lord. Would you fill us with peace?
[00:27:30] If there's anyone in this room who hasn't tasted of your peace and known that you are good and have a plan for their life, would you just touch their heart right now? God, would this be as we go to communion? Would this be a moment of surrender where we accept the gift that you've given us? The work you did on the cross, Jesus Father, the sacrifice you made through your son on our behalf, Would we eagerly and willingly accept that and find the peace that only you offer, Lord?
[00:28:04] And we pray these things in Jesus name, amen.
