14 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 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? 3 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.
John 14:1-3
6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.
Philippians 4:6
33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33
With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is hard to say really live in Jesus’s command: “do not be troubled.” We have so much to think about, as people, as brothers, sisters, wives, mothers, hubands, fathers, colleagues, bosses, teachers, students, as Christians. Join us this week as we take our church service online for the first time with Dr. John Parks giving us an informative overview of the Coronavirus while also keeping it light and making us laugh. Pastor Yami takes up the baton from there and reminds us that in this world we will have trouble, but Christ assures us that he has overcome the world. Do not be troubled or anxious, take heart!
Before jumping into the scripture, Pastor Yami spends sometime going over 10 basic instincts that cause us to react incorrectly to the world, based on the research of Dr. Ron Gosling. In his book, Factfulness, Dr. Gosling draws attention to the fact that our perceptions of the world are often wrong, distorted by 10 specific and identifiable instincts. Pastor Yami briefly discusses these instincts and how they are being put on display by our global and local responses to the spread of the coronavirus. To love each other well during this crisis, we need to learn to adjust our perceptions and be aware of these instincts at play in our lives. The good news we come to in the end, though, is that even if our human instincts are off base, Christ is carrying and comforting us. Let us bind together to learn to love God and love our neighbors in new and creative ways in a time of prohibited gathering, banned physical contact, and rampant fear.
Next Steps:
- Be kind and patient; share real facts about COVID-19
- Life up your troubles to Jesus; pray to Jesus in faith
- Serve others
About the series: the reality of life is there is no life apart from relationships. Your relationships might be with stuff, not people, but your life is relating itself to STUFF. So our heart and our goal in this series is to just be at a place where we ask the hard questions, we get into the space of trying to understand what is love really like. Now when you get into scripture, scripture has a lot of stuff to say about love. So we are are looking at some few amazing things that God has said in his word in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 of what love is.”
Catch up on earlier Relationship Goals sermons: Week 1 , Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5, Week 7, Week 8, Week 9, Week 10, Week 11
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