Balancing Out Fear - In Christ We Have Peace

‘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.’ John 16:33 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/jhn.16.33.NIVUK I will never forget our first holiday overseas with our family from the Philippines. We flew from Cebu to Singapore on a late flight, got into Singapore just after midnight and to our hotel by 1 AM. We checked in and got settled in for the night - all fifteen of us. With six kids. Before we were fully asleep, the fire alarm went off. So we rounded everyone up and followed the directions to the fire escape. Half an hour later the fire marshals let us back into the building. So we made our way back to our rooms and settled down again. Before the fire alarm went off. Again. At 3 AM. The hotel was new and they were still having a few "teething problems". We completely accept safety information and drills in any building. We are quite familiar with the safety presentation on planes. Some of us even don't mind standing on a cruise ship deck in an orange life-jacket while someone checks our names and shows us where the location of the lifeboats. Why would we mind it? It keeps us safe. However, this information is there 'In case', so that if the worst case scenario happens, we know what to do and don't panic. Why? Because someone who panics is a risk to everyone else's health, not just their own. Jesus, however, goes further. He doesn't tell His disciples what to do IF they are persecuted. No, He tells them what to do because they WILL be persecuted. Just imagine you checked into a hotel when they told you they were planning an actual fire at 3 AM, or you were in a plane where they told you they would be landing on water. I'm sure you'd be out of there as fast as you could! Yet that's exactly what Jesus is saying. Here in John He tells then that the world will hate them (John 15:18-19). They will be persecuted (John 15:20). They will be thrown out of their places of worship and community (John 16:2). Those who kill them will think they are doing a service for God (John 16:2). And there is even more in the other Gospels (Matthew 24:9; Mark 13:9-13; Luke 21:12-19)! They all say the same thing: persecution for following Jesus would be inevitable for these disciples. So how on earth could this bring the disciples peace? Well, this was on one side of the balance. But what is on the other side of the balance is completely wonderful. Jesus was going (John 16:16). But He was ascending into Heaven so the Holy Spirit would come down (John 16:17). The Holy Spirit is their Advocate. He brings them peace even in very troubled times (John 14:25-27). He will give them the words to say when they need it (Matthew 10:18-20). He will guide them into all truth (John 16:13). And the Spirit intercedes for them, and us, before God (Romans 8:26). Add this to everything else we have, such as assurance that God is always working for our good in every situation (Romans 8:28), and the assurance that God will provide for us and we have that we will be saved, then you can see that the other side of the balance is pretty full. You see, this is exactly what Jesus is trying to say. Feelings of anxiety, worry, stress, 'freaking out', blind panic... they all have the same root cause. We feel like the problem we are facing is bigger than the resources we have to face it. But what Jesus is saying is this is not true. In Him we have the resources to face any problem. He is enough. He is always enough. The Gideons has a very helpful guide, available here, that provides us with what the Bible says about almost every problem in life. It's worth a look if you feel overwhelmed or out of your depth right now. The fightback from adversity for every Christian begins when you realise that God is always bigger than your problem, that He tips the balance in your favour, that He is enough. In November 2013, the Philippines was battered by the biggest typhoon ever to make landfall - Typhoon Haiyan. 6,300 people were killed and 1,061 were missing. What made this disaster just so awful was that the country was not as prepared as it could have been. It was quick to learn. Procedures and protocols were tightened up because although they knew another storm of this magnitude would be rare, big storms are almost an annual event. Which is what happened. Just one year later, Typhoon Hagupit struck pretty much the same area. But this time they were ready. Only 18 people died. Preparedness is key. It takes the fear out of a fearful situation because we feel that we are better resourced to face the problem. This is exactly what Jesus is doing here. He is saying to His disciples that they will have peace because the troubles lined against them may be big - and there can be no doubt that they were - but their God was bigger and He had given them all the resources they needed to meet the challenge head on. What a difference it would make to our lives if we always believed it! In my next blog we will go on to see that IN THIS WORLD WE WILL HAVE TROUBLE.