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John 17:6-19 It’s been a week now since two young girls from St. Charles High School died in a car accident following a camping trip. While both of the young ladies attended the same Catholic church, there are several families in our congregation who knew them and were friends with their families. As you can imagine, it has not been an easy week for these families. I visited this week with one of our members who just moved into a nursing home. I visited her the day she actually moved in and I could tell that she just wasn’t happy with her situation. But with her deteriorating health, it truly is the best place for her. Yet I know her and her family have struggled with this decision. As you can imagine, it has not been an easy week for this family. Yesterday, I presided over the marriage of Katie Nielson and Josh Fildes. They had lots of family come to town, lots of little last minute arrangements to make, and lots of things to worry about. The wedding last night went off without a hitch, but as with any wedding, the stress level was a little high. Even though this was a tremendously joyous occasion, as you can imagine, it has not been an easy week for this family. My friends, as you all know, life is not easy. It is tough. It seems like there are always things coming at you from all different directions. Whether it is friends dying or getting older and facing difficult decisions or having lots of family over for a week or the thousands of other things that cause us stress or threaten us – life is challenging. And anyone who says otherwise, hasn’t been alive long enough. Think about your own life for a moment and all of the things that are causing you stress – maybe it’s a situation at work, or you’re facing financial difficulties. Maybe you are struggling to find direction in life or you have signed up for too many activities. Maybe your folks just found out about your grades and you’re grounded for the entire summer or your girlfriend just broke up with you. I look around this room and I see a lot of wounded people, people who are just getting beat up by the world. Here’s the amazing thing about Jesus and its so evident in today’s gospel lesson. Jesus got beat up by the world too. Jesus knows what it is like to lose loved ones. Jesus knows what it is like to make difficult, life changing decisions. Jesus knows what it was like to have to provide for a lot of other people. Jesus knows how tough life can be and how mean and ugly the world can be, yet it didn’t defeat him and it didn’t break him. Jesus experienced the worst the world had to offer and we now know that he is bigger, stronger, and more powerful than the worst the world can do to us. And Jesus, knowing how tough the world can be, decided to pray for us. He wanted his disciples and he wanted all of you to know how much he cares for you, so he prayed for each one of us. He prayed, Holy Father, protect them…I guarded them and not one of them was lost…But now I am coming to you and I speak these things in the world so that they may have my joy made complete in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they do not belong to it, they belong to you. I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I am asking that you protect them from the evil one. Make them holy in your truth. Amen. Jesus knew your life would be hard and that is why he prayed for you. He prayed that you would be protected and guarded and that you would remain in this world and let his light shine through you, especially in those difficult times. You’ve all seen the Allstate Insurance logo and heard their tagline, “You’re in good hands with Allstate.” Well, we as Christians, because of Jesus and because he prayed for us, we’re in the great big loving hands of our Father, who has promised to protect us and be with us as we face the tough times of life. Psalm 131 uses the imagery that we are like small children wrapped in the calm, quiet arms of our mother. God loves each of you and protects you, especially in the difficult times of life – so its okay to lean on God, and its okay to lean on each other because we’re all in this together. Now, when Jesus prayed for our protection, that could mean any number of things, and I think this is often where people get discouraged or disillusioned with God. People often expect one form of protection from God, when in reality, he’s offering a completely different kind of protection, which is necessary for the circumstance and to achieve his will. For example, one form of protection is like an enormous, giant wall that keeps all the bad stuff out. Martin Luther had this idea of protection in mind when he wrote the great hymn, A Mighty Fortress is Our God. And God often acts like this, shielding us from bad things, actually keeping those bad things from happening to us in the first place. This probably happens way more than we think, yet we probably don’t even realize it when its happening. Mike Conway told a story in Bible study on Tuesday that I just have to share. A number of years ago, while he and Norma lived in Texas, he just one day decided to talk to Norma about how to handle the car if the brakes ever went out, and how important it was just to put on the parking break. He had no idea why he decided to talk about it, but he just did. Well, the very next day, while Norma was driving that car, the breaks went out. She calmly put on the parking break and it saved her from a very close encounter with a tree. God was protecting her like a mighty fortress that day and he used her husband, Mike, to do it. This isn’t the only form of protection that God offers however because this may not always be how God decides to protect you. And we know this is the case because there is still an awful lot of bad stuff that still happens out there. Another form of protection comes in the form of a holy insurance plan – just like Allstate, only with no deductible and better benefits. Sometimes bad things just happen, people get sick and die, accidents happen, people make stupid decisions. Yet, with God, there is always a happy ending, we just may not appreciate it in this life. Insurance companies don’t prevent car accidents or keep houses from burning down. But they do correct the situation when something bad has happened. This is exactly what God has done to death. Anytime death happens, God will rectify it, God will reverse it, God will bring resurrection out of death. No matter what happens to us in this world, we have the best insurance plan in the universe because we’re going to heaven, and no bad thing will ever take that away from us. Now, there’s one more form of protection that God offers to us that can be incredibly powerful, but can also be incredibly frustrating. And the only thing I can think to compare this to is like having your own personal Indiana Jones. God is someone who will go to the deepest, darkest places with us, walk with us every step of the way, and show us how to get through it. This can be incredibly frustrating because there are lots of bad things that happened to Indiana Jones and he was always getting stuck in one frightening place after another. He got beat up, tortured, taken advantage of, robbed, and lied to. And that’s the way life is also. We’re always getting stuck in one tight place after another and God doesn’t always prevent that. There are times where we get hurt and beat up, taken advantage of, robbed and lied to. And God experiences all of that with us. But here’s the great thing about having a God who protects you like your own personal Indiana Jones - Indiana Jones experienced some pretty cool stuff, he found some pretty cool treasures, and he always came through it okay in the end. This is how God works with us – Psalm 23 - even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. God goes with us on our exciting life journeys and he’s an ever-present resource to lead and guide us, and to help us endure the tough times, even when we get bumped and bruised along the way. And, to keep up with our theme about the purpose of the church that we’ve been talking about for the last several weeks, perhaps the purpose of the church is to offer the world exactly what Jesus prayed for us - God’s protection. Maybe our purpose is to be a wall against evil, to offer sanctuary and asylum for the needy like a mighty fortress. Maybe our purpose is to continually remind our friends and family of what a great heavenly insurance plan we have. Maybe our purpose is to be like Indiana Jones and walk with people through the dark valleys and help them make it though life’s adventures to discover the real treasure of Jesus Christ. Amen. Now, one of those things that often causes us the most stress and difficulty in life is having to make tough decisions. And that is where the disciples found themselves in our passage from Acts – having to make a difficult decision, one that in this case, would effect their entire ministry. They had to chose another disciple to take the place of Judas, the traitor. We had a great discussion about this passage in our Tuesday morning Bible study because we talked about how we make tough decisions like this. The disciples did a pretty amazing thing when choosing the replacement for Judas. They set some basic criteria for who should be considered for the position – it had to be someone who was with them from the beginning. Once they narrowed it down to two qualified people, they basically put both of their names in a hat, prayed about it, and then chose one of the names out of the hat to be the next disciple. In our Bible study, we talked about what it would be like if we made decisions like that – narrow it down to the two or three best alternatives, pray about it, and then just choose one of the solutions out of a hat. Jesus is praying for you – he knew how tough life would be You’re in good hands with Allstate When faced with difficult decisions, learn to let God help you make those decisions – this is the purpose of the church – making decisions according to God’s will. We’re going to have a little fun this morning. I need 10 volunteers to come forward. Trust me, you will get paid for your services….Alright, each of you gets a coin. I want you to flip your coin and if your coin is heads, you have to turn to your right and take 3 steps. If your coin is tails, you have to turn to your left and take 3 steps. I want you to flip your coin 15 times and see where you end up. Everyone else in the congregation, we get to watch them in their decision making process. Alright, give them a A few weeks ago, I had our senior high students to an activity at one of our pre-Cruzando events. As we get ready to take our 12 youth down to San Antonio for the National Youth Gathering, we’ve been doing these short Bibles studies to help introduce the theme. On this given night, the opening activity was very simple. Each person in the room was given a coin. When they flipped the coin, if it came up heads, they had to turn to the right and take three steps. If it came up tails, they had to turn to the left and take three steps. They had to flip their coin 30 times to see where they ended up. I wanted to do this activity with all of you this morning, but The purpose of the church is to make decisions based on God’s will – This means praying about decisions first This means accepting the outcomes whether or not you like them This means having faith that God’s way is the best way. Thy will be done
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