John 16

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Father, we thank you for this day that you have given us. We thank you, Lord, for your many blessings, for your providence, your mercy and your goodness. Lord, we thank you for your salvation that you have given to us, or that we have cause for joy and celebration and to worship you and glorify you. Father, I pray, as we come to this hour before you, you. To worship you and to be in your word today, that you will hide our hearts and our minds from the distractions of the world.

Lord, let them fade away. No longer be with us, that our focus and our heart may be on you. Father, I pray, as we hear from your word today, that you will instruct us in our spirits, that we will not only hear your word, but be doers of it also. That we will glorify you in heaven. And we pray for these things now.

In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, amen. All right. So last week we finished chapter 15, and we made our way into chapter 16. And real quick, I forgot announcements. We normally don't announce anything because it's in the slides.

And I forget Easter Sunday, three weeks from today, will not be in Cedar City like normal. I believe I announced that last week as well, but I just want to keep everyone reminded. We will be meeting here in Milford. So for everyone who is part of the local church that wants to participate, we will be meeting at my house at 07:00 a.m. and worship will start promptly at 717 am when the sun rises.

For everyone else, I will broadcast a worship service, if you would like to join. And then we will have our regular evening service as well. And then also this coming week, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I will be in Salt Lake on a mission trip. We'll be teaching a couple of churches and christians up north, not south, north, how to evangelize and share the gospel and make disciples. So please keep us in your prayers this week as we are up there instructing people on how to make disciples, that our time will be fruitful.

So back to the word. We got through chapter 15 last week, and we came into chapter 16 by 15 verses. But to recap what we talked about, Jesus warned us. He said, I'm leaving. I've been with you for three years.

I'm leaving. I will no longer be here. So you need to understand that the world, if it hated me, it will hate you. And if it persecuted me, it will persecute you. And if they receive my words, they will receive your words.

But if they don't receive my words, they won't receive yours either, because the servant is not greater than the master. And so Jesus is instructing us, is preparing us for the disciples, for his departure, to understand that the protection they have had with him around the isolation from the world, that's going to disappear. And they need to be ready to be hated and persecuted and ignored and despised and rejected the same way that Christ was. But that warning is not just applicable to the disciples who are with him. That's applicable to us as well.

If we stand with Christ, if we worship him and stand for what he stands for and live the way that he lives, we are not of the world, and the world will hate us and persecute us and despise us the same way that it despised Jesus. As we came into verse one of chapter 16, he told us, he says, I'm telling you this to keep you from stumbling. Jesus is warning us of these things, not to scare us, you know, frighten us or discourage us. But he wants us to know in advance. So that we don't stumble when it happens.

So that we don't get discouraged and give up or abandon the faith. He wants us to know what things will come to pass.

That brings us up to date, up to where we are. And we're going to pick up in verse 16. Today, as we continue in John, chapter 16. We're going to read through verse 24. We'll put the scriptures up here on the screen.

For those who don't have bibles with them. It says. In a little while you will no longer see me again. In a little while you will see me. Then some of his disciples said, one to another, what is this?

He's telling us. In a little while you will not see me again. In a little while you will see me. And because I am going to the father, they said, what is this he is saying, in a little while, we don't know what he's talking about. Jesus knew they wanted to ask him.

And so he said to them. Are you asking one another about what I said? In a little while you will see me. Not see me again. In a little while you will see me truly.

I tell you. You will weep and mourntain. But the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful. But your sorrow will turn to joy.

When a woman is a neighbor, she is pained because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child. She no longer remembers the suffering. Because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. So you also have sorrow now.

But I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice and know. Will take your joy from you. In that day you will not ask me anything. Truly, I tell you anything.

You ask the father in my name. He will give you. Until now you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive. So that your joy may be complete.

So remember, as we are reading this, as we're seeing what jesus is saying here. This is the night in which he is betrayed. All the way we've been since we entered chapter twelve. Until now we have been in the 24 hours leading up to his betrayal, arrest and crucification. So jesus is in the last chapter beginning in chapter 15.

Or the latter half of it, until now. And will continue to do so. Is preparing us for that departure. And he has prepared us by giving us some commands. Love one another.

He has done it by giving us warnings. You will be persecuted. You will be hated. You will be rejected. But now he's also doing it by telling us.

Look you're not going to see me for a while, but you will see me again. And that's where he begins in verse 16. In a little while you will no longer see me. And then again, in a little while you will see me. Now, a lot of people read this and they think that he's talking about the second coming when he says again, in a little while.

But this verse is not referring to the second coming. That's referring to the resurrection. We will no longer see him. The disciples will no longer see him because he will be crucified, he will die and be buried. And then in a little while again, three days later, he will resurrect out of the grave and he will be seen by no less than 500 people.

So he will be seen again. But his disciples say, one to another, what is the saying? What does he mean? They don't comprehend what is going on here. As we build up to Easter, something we're going to want to evaluate, something I evaluate every year with you guys is the evidence of the resurrection.

The world tells us that Christianity is a religion based on faith. That's true. But they tell us that faith is blind and that is not true. Faith is not blind. The Bible does not define faith as blind.

In the book of Hebrews, chapter eleven, verse six, the Bible defines faith as the substance of what we hope for, that hope that is inside of us based upon the evidence of that which we do not see. In other words, Christianity is based in evidence. It is something unique about the Bible that is different from any other religious work out there. Whatever it is, the Bible is provable. It's searchable.

We can search the claims of the Bible and find historical evidence. When we talk about the resurrection, one of the evidences that we look for in the resurrection is whether or not the story is made up.

We can look at historical evidence, we can look at customs of the area, the Jews, the way they thought and felt to see whether or not this is made up. And this is something that is interesting if you wanted to begin a new religion and you wanted to do so with people from your native religion, right? Christianity is a jewish religion. Religion. It was formed by a jew.

Jesus was a jew. The initial disciples and evangelists, they were all jewish. All of the apostles and sent ones were Jews. This is a jewish religion. And they were trying to convert Jews.

And if you're going to try to convert Jews, the last thing you want to do come up with some weird claim that nobody would believe in.

We are here 2000 years later. Can we go examine the empty tomb. No, I mean, we first would have to discover which tomb it was, and I don't think we can get that accurate. But even if we could, it's 2000 years later, the body would be gone. We can't go and examine that tomb today.

But 2000 years ago, three days after his death, when the believers are out proclaiming that he has risen from the grave, could they go examine the tomb then? Yeah, they could. They were there. They were in Jerusalem. Anyone who doubted the claim that Jesus rose from the could have gone to the tomb and looked inside of it and said, it's empty.

Now. Is an empty grave proof, undeniable proof of a resurrection? No, but it's evidence of one, because where's the body?

But the Jews did not believe. Half of the Jews did not believe in a resurrection. I always make the joke, what is the difference between a pharisee and a sadducees? You see, the sadducees do not believe in a resurrection, so they are sad. You see, that's how you remember the difference.

Half the Jews did not believe in a resurrection, and the other half that did, they believed in one single resurrection that would occur at the end of history. None of them believed in an individual, unique, bodily resurrection of a human. So the claim of Jesus rising from the grave cannot. Is unlikely to be made up. And the reason it's unlikely to be made up is you would not make up a claim to try and convert people that no one would believe in.

So if they are claiming it, there must be some reliability, some evidence toward it. And that's just one of the things back to this, though, that got us on this, on this rabbit trail, is they don't understand what's going on right now. They do not believe, and they're not conditioned to believe in a bodily resurrection of a single person. They're conditioned to believe in a single resurrection of all people at the end of history. So they do not understand what he means when he says, you will not see me.

And then in a little while again, you will, because I am going to the father. As they, as we've seen, they're talking amongst themselves. None of them want to ask Jesus, Lord, what do you mean?

They're like the school children who don't understand what the teacher is saying, and none of them will raise their hand and say, say, I don't understand it, because they don't want to seem stupid in front of the group. But they talk amongst each other, and Jesus, he says, knew what they wanted to ask him. And he asks them, are you talking to one another about what I said? In a little while, you will see me. Not see me.

And then again, in a while, you will see me. And he says, I tell you now, you will weep, but the world will rejoice. There's two ways to look at this verse. The weeping and mourning is in reference to his death. When Jesus dies, when he goes to the cross and is executed, the disciples mourn.

In fact, they do more than mourn. They flee. And here is something that I find relatively sad. Do you know what the disciples do in the three days that Jesus is in the grave?

Do they come together, band together, support one another, cry over each other's shoulders? No. They disperse and each go back to their old way of living.

When Jesus resurrects, he goes and finds them, some of them in the boat, some of them hiding in the upper room. Some of them work in the field. They disperse and just go back to their way of living. But it was a very difficult, emotionally difficult thing for them. But he says, the world will rejoice.

Now, there's two ways to read this. We can read the world will rejoice in the sense of salvation has finally come, or we can read the. That the world will rejoice and that they killed the messiah, that they killed the one who. Who claimed to be God, who claimed to be deity.

There is a lot of conflict over that interpretation, a lot of people who debate which one it means. I believe that the world is rejoicing because they killed God. I believe they rejoice. And we see that we just read in revelation a couple weeks ago in our Wednesday study, we read that when they killed the two prophets, the two witnesses, what did the world do? They rejoiced.

And they sent each other gifts and celebrated because they had killed the witnesses of God. And this is the rejoicing that I believe Christ is talking about here when he says, the world will rejoice. They got rid of the person who stood in their way, but they did not know. They did not know that he would rise again. They did not foresee that.

And so he says, your sorrow will turn to joy.

Do you think they were joyful on that third morning when they come down and the grave is empty? And then Jesus appears before them, glorified in his body, living.

How about our sorrow? Right. These words were not recorded just to tell us what they would feel, but they're recorded for us today. Our sorrow can turn to joy. We live in a.

In a very dark and cruel world. The world we live in is horrible. It's filled with pain and suffering, remorse, sin.

But when Jesus says that your sorrow can turn to joy, he's not just referring to the disciples. Our sorrow can turn to joyous. We can leave behind that life of misery, that life of sin and worthlessness, and we can have joy in our hearts, and we can have joy for the same reason the disciples have joy, because Jesus has raised from the grave, he's alive. We do not serve a lord who is dead. While the cross is central to our message, without the cross, there's no salvation.

While it's central to our message, our lord is not still on that cross. He got off. And he tells us, when a woman is in labor, she is pain because her time has come.

And when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world. I won't comment on that. I do not have that privilege of knowing firsthand what that sorrow is like in labor.

But I do know that every woman I have talked to who has given birth has said that the pain disappears immediately when they are done. The pain and suffering of labor is gone, and their hearts are filled with joy and with love and with happiness for that life that they now have.

And that is how Jesus likens what is about to happen. Right? Labor is about to occur. The God of all creation is about to be crucified and go into the grave.

But then will come joy. Right? When Jesus resurrects three days later, when he gives us victory not only over sin, but over death, when he takes the keys to death and Hades, there will be joy because of the life that has come into the world. Remember that Jesus taught us several chapters back that we we don't pass from life unto death. Right?

That is the humanistic way of thinking. We are alive now, and we will die. But God's way of thinking is, we were all dead. We are born dead. Every person absent of Jesus Christ is already dead.

They're dead in the spirit, and that's what matters. And he says, you pass from death into life. We go from being dead, having no living spirit inside of us, till you were born again. You are a new creation in Jesus Christ, and you are alive. And he says, you shall never die.

Our spirits will never die from that point. And so there is joy for the life that is brought or born into the world. First with Jesus, the firstborn among the fruits of the dead, but then with every believer who has professed his name who has truly believed in him from that moment forth, has come alive. He says, so you have sorrow now, and we have sorrow before we are saved. He says, but you will rejoice, and I will see you again, and no one will take your joy from you.

I am reading a book right now. The book is called evidence that demands a verse. It. Anyone who has read the case for Christ will be familiar with the type of book that evidence that demands a verdict is. I will tell you, it's significantly longer than the case for Christ.

It's about 880 pages, and I would highly recommend reading it. But the book was written by an atheist who converted to Christianity. He was a law student. He wanted to be an attorney. And when he was going through school, he writes in the preface of his book that he sought the meaning of life.

And he initially sought the meaning in education and couldn't find it in education. Then he sought it in work, and he worked himself till he was dead and couldn't find it in work. And then he saw it in drugs and alcohol and couldn't find meaning in drugs and alcohol. And one day, as he is finishing up his law school, he notices a group of students that are always happy, always happy. This group of students, it did not matter what was thrown at them.

It could be death, could be a loss of job. It could be things not going their way. It never seemed to matter. They were always full of joy and always helping other people and giving that joy to other people. And that observation is what prompted this guy to search for Christ.

And I point that out because it's not just unique to them. Have you ever really seen a Christian? Are they doom and gloom all the time? No. It doesn't matter what is going on in our lives.

We have this supernatural source of joy inside of us. It doesn't matter. It can be job loss. It can be a death in the family. It can be a really close death of your kids.

It can be sickness in yourself. It can be financial distress. It can be whatever is going on. It does not take away our joy. And that is what jesus meant when he said that he gives us his joy and his peace, not as the world gives, but his.

Because his joy and peace is not based in the temporal things around us. It is not based in whether or not today was a good day or a bad day. It is not based on whether or not I have what I want or think I want or need to have. It is not based on the whims of the world, but it is based and rooted in the God of creation. And so he says, your hearts will rejoice and know.

No one will take away your joy from you in that day. You will not ask me anything. I believe he's referring to on the day of the resurrection. He's telling them, you will be so happy, you will have questions, but you're not going to ask.

You're just going to be joyful. But he does tell us again. He says, truly, anything you ask the father in my name, he will give you. Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be completed. So in the last three weeks, this is the fourth time we have seen the statement.

And as with every time, I want to reiterate what Jesus means when he says, anything you ask, you will be given. Does Jesus mean that I can decide, I want a million dollars plus the Ferrari, plus a mansion, and it will be given to me? No. What is the clarifying statement here? If we go back a little, I'm going to go back a little.

Chapter 15, verse seven is the clarifying statement. He says, if you remain in me and my word remains in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. My father is glorified by this, that you produce much fruit and prove to be my disciples. So the clarifying statement is, if we abide in him, stay in him, and his word stays in us, what happens if his word remains in us? If Jesus is living inside of us, what happens?

He says, if you abide in me and I in you, in verse five, he says, you will produce much fruit. So what happens is we begin to have the mind of God. We want what God wants. We do what God does. We ask what God would ask.

And if we are doing that, then whatever we ask is what God would have us ask. That is the clarifying statement. Let me get back to our chapter and verse here. So he says, ask right? If you are in me, ask what you want and you will receive it.

Another clarifying statement. He says, ask in my name. And we talked about the fact that it's not the name of Jesus, just proclaiming the name of Jesus, that gets us what we ask for. In the biblical worldview, a name had power. So when he says, ask in my name, he says, ask in the full assurance and confidence of the power that is behind my name.

And the reason there is power behind his name is because of who he is. He is God. He is deity. He is the one who says, my word will never return. Void.

And so when we ask in his name, it is not just proclaiming his name, but it is acknowledging the very person behind the name that he is YahweH of the Old Testament.

And he says that in doing this, your joy may be complete.

We receive joy when we ask God for something, and he gives it to us the same way. When you ask your parents for a toy or a gift or whatever it was, and you receive it, do you not have joy? And Jesus tells us, ask, and we will receive. And we will receive so that our joy may be full, so that it will be complete.

He says in verse 25 through 28, I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father on that day. You will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that I will ask the father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I am came from God. I came from the father and have come into the world again. I am leaving the world and going to the father.

So Jesus says, right now I talk to you in figures of speech. I talk to you in parables, in stories, but a time is coming when no longer will it be that way. But I will talk plainly to you. And he says, I will talk plainly about the father. And on that day, he says, when you ask, he says, I'm not saying that.

I will ask on your behalf. This is interesting. There are, there are religious institutions out there that still believe and teach, Catholicism being one of them, that you have to go to a priest and ask an intermediate to ask God on your behalf. And then there are some who believe. If you ask God, you're asking Jesus, who will ask the Father.

Jesus says, I am not telling you that. I will ask the Father on your behalf because the father himself loves you. You. So when we ask the Father for something, we can communicate directly with the Father. We have that privilege as christians, as sons and daughters of God.

We have that privilege to directly access the throne room of God in prayer and petition God for our heart's desire. He says, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and believed that I came from God. He reminds us finally, he says, I am leaving the world and going to the father. So Jesus does not just disappear, leaving us to imagine where he is going, but he tells us plainly, I am going to the father. We're going to finish this week off with verses 29 through 33.

He says, it says, his disciples said, look, now you're speaking plainly and not using any figurative language. Now we know.

Now we know that you know everything and don't need anyone to question you by this. We believe that you came from God. Jesus responded to them. Do you now believe? Indeed, an hour is coming and has come, where each of you will be scattered to his own home, and you will leave me alone.

Yet I am not alone, because the father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous. I have conquered the world.

So his disciples say, hey, now you're talking plainly. Now you're talking our language. We get you now. And we believe. And Jesus questions then says, do you really believe?

This is a piercing question. The Bible says that on the day that we are judged, many of us are going to say to God, Lord, didn't I worship you? Didn't I do works in your name and heal people in your name, and cast out demons in your name. We followed you, Lord. And he will say to them, depart from me, you lawless worker, for I never knew you.

So his question, do you now believe? When he is asking, are you sure you believe? This is a piercing question, because he has already taught that many who say they believe now will be turned away. And we know that there are Mendenna, people who profess his name, many people who say, I'm a Christian. I follow God.

But they don't actually believe. When he's saying, do you really believe? He's talking about in your heart of hearts? Is your belief in your heart so firm that nothing can move you, that there is nothing at all that can cause you to renounce the name of Christ? Is your belief so firm that whatever Jesus says he wants you to do, do however hard it is or difficult that you will do it, because the God of creation has told you to, that regardless of your family or your coworkers or your friends or anyone else who says anything otherwise mocks you, that you are willing to lose them for Christ?

Do you really believe? Jesus says he does not wait for an answer here. He tells them. He says, an hour is coming and has come.

This is twofold. He says, the hour is coming because he has not yet been arrested, he's not yet been crucified or been put on trial, but at the same time, the hour is here. Judas right now is in the act of betraying him. He is in the act of being paid silver to tell the guards where to come and find him at this very moment. So it is not long that the guards will arrive.

And will arrest him.

So he says, the hour is coming and has come when you will be scattered to your own home and leave me alone. How many people remained when Jesus was arrested?

None.

They put up a fight initially, right? Some of you will recall that Peter cut off the guard's ear. They put up that initial fight. But then when the guards seized Christ, they scattered. They ran.

They went into hiding. Some of them were questioned. Do you know him? And they said, I don't know the guy. Right.

Peter actually followed him to the trial and listened in until someone said, hey, see that guy over there? He was with him. And then when they questioned Peter three times, he said, I don't know him. I've never seen him. I've never been with him.

Denied him three times. And then after that, it says that Peter left.

They scattered, and they left him alone. But he says, even so, even though all my friends will abandon me, Will. Will leave me, I am not alone because the father is with me.

And there is a truth for each of us. It doesn't matter how alone we are. It doesn't matter if we have family, friends, anyone who believes in us or supports us. We have the father.

And it says, I tell you this, that you will have peace. You will have suffering in the world. He is warning us once again. You will have suffering.

But be courageous. Don't let any of this stuff wear you down. Don't let it scare you. Don't let it cause you to run and hide. Be courageous.

I have conquered the world.

And that he has. He has overcome all things. He was tempted the way that we were tempted. He suffered the same feelings and emotions and sufferings that we have.

He died a death that none of us are ever going to die.

But even more, he came back from that. He rose again.

He bore the victory. And through him, we can overcome all sin, all temptation, and. And the enemy that we all have in common, death. But it begins with admitting that we are sinners, with understanding that we cannot save ourselves, that we have no good thing inside of us, that our ways are not God's ways and his ways are not ours. With believing that Jesus Christ is exactly who he claimed to be, that he's the God man, the creator of heaven and earth and all things that are inside of them.

And confessing him, not just as your savior, we're all happy to say, yeah, Jesus is my savior, but as our lord, as our God and king, to say, Lord Jesus, I take my crown off and submit to yours.

And if you are ready to do that, and to believe in your heart, in the very being of who you are. Those things, he says you will have joy, and no one can take that joy away from you. And if you're ready to have that joy and you've never had it here in our closing prayer, I invite you to repeat those things with me. And if you really believe that you will experience this joy as you walk with Christ. Immediately after our closing prayer, we will partake of the Lord's supper.

For anyone who desires to partake of that with us, I ask you to stay after service, and we'll partake of that. We will meet on Wednesday at 630, right here in Zoom or in my house, as we continue our Bible study in the book of Revelation. Let's pray.

I admit that I am a sinner, Lord. I admit that I can't save myself, that my ways are not your ways, and that in me, apart from you, is no good thing. Father, I believe that Jesus is the God man, that he is the creator. And I confess you, Lord Jesus, as my God and my king and my savior forever. And I ask you for this free and precious gift.

I ask you to fill me with the joy that you promised in this, Father, I pray that you will give us our strength and courage as we walk this world, as we are hated and persecuted and despised on your account. Lord, give us the courage to walk through that and suffer through that for you, and to have the joy that you have promised. And we thank you for all of these things. In Jesus name, amen.