John 16: 16 - 33 // Courageous Joy

Today we're going to be in John chapter 16 verses 16 to 33.! If you open your Bibles or tap and swipe, get there.! However you get there, get there. This is a passage about courageous joy.

And it may seem like two strange words to put together, but I think it takes courage to have joy in our day and age today. And it's a reminder that Jesus wanted to have for us here as he talks to his disciples.

Because as we have been, we've been closing off Passion Week. And that's the final week of Jesus' life before the cross, before his crucifixion.

And in right now, we're actually in the last 24 hours. So these things that Jesus shares with his disciples now are things he really, really, really wanted to get across.

And this message is to have courageous joy, despite the sorrow and the difficulty that may come, or that we may find ourselves in now.

Have great courage. Have great cheer. Take courage. You know, history, as I've read it, and I'm sure you have too, up until the cross from the very beginning, has been screaming like 90 miles an hour down the highway to a cliff's edge.

The cross is that cliff's edge. Waiting for the Messiah to come. Waiting for the payment of sin. Waiting for the freedom of being able to come home to our Father in Jesus' name through what he's done for us on the cross.

That happened. And now history has been walking, sorry, running across the side of that cliff's edge until now. It's like we're in a holding pattern.

We're caught in this in-between. Between when our Messiah came and when he said he would come again. And that time, I believe, is soon. And all history waits and groans towards that moment.

All history waits and groans towards that moment as we wait. Now, I'm going to, I wasn't going to do this, but you know, I'm going to say something that's going to age me horribly.

So if you know what I'm talking about, you're in this camp. How many people remember cassette tapes? Do you remember what those are? Okay. All right. If you know what they are. If you don't, you're in for a history lesson that you don't need to know at all.

But those cassette tapes, I remember on more than one occasion putting them into a stupid friend's car and it happens to eat the tape. And of course, at that time, music was like the car ride.

It was everything. You wanted to listen to music, drive other friends, and you'd put that tape in and you'd hear this. And you'd have to fix it. So what you do is you take it out and you pull out the ribbon.

Aren't you glad for MP3s now? Right? You pull out the ribbon and then you'd have to cut where that garbled part was because it'll never play. And then you take regular tape and you'd tape that sucker back together.

And then you'd wind it back. And you know how you'd wind it back? A pencil. Right? And if you were really good, you could do this with flipping motion like you're, you know, about the lasso. But it's not quite like that. Not as cool.

And you'd put that tape back in and it would start to play. And you know what would happen? You'd hear this pause. Bit of a silence. And then the music would play again.

And I feel like that's exactly what we're in right now. We're in that great in-between. There's been some garble. There's been some fix. And now we're just waiting for the music to begin. And it's that mood that Jesus is speaking with his disciples right here, right now.

So let's dive in. Because, yeah, I want to get into this for sure. Verses 16 to 22. A little while and you will see me no longer. And again a little while you will see me.

So some of his disciples said to another, What is that he says to us? A little while and you will not see me. And again a little while and you will see me. And because I'm going to the Father.

So they were saying, What does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about. And Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, Is this what you're asking yourselves?

What I meant by saying a little while and you will not see me. And again a little while and you will see me. Truly, truly, I say to you, You will weep and lament, But the world will rejoice.

You will be sorrowful, But your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, She has sorrow because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, She no longer remembers the anguish For joy that a human being has been born into the world.

So also, you have sorrow now. But I will see you again, And your hearts will rejoice. And no one will take your joy from you. See, God brings joy into our life, Not by substitution, But transformation.

I know, you know, You're raising kids, They break a toy, And you're like, Here, just have another one. Right? Just do this. That's trying to replace something by substitution. Okay? But God does something different for us.

He doesn't replace all of our broken toys. He transforms the situation to bring joy. It's a big difference. Happiness, as we all know, It's deeply affected by circumstances.

You can wake up on a Monday morning, And everything can be normal, And you feel like it's raining inside your house. And maybe for the dry season, That's actually a dream. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. You can wake up, And everything seems normal, And you still feel sad.

That's normal. That's regular, human, everyday life. But joy is something different. It's a bedrock. Having joy in the Lord Is not dependent upon circumstances at all.

And so when he's saying, You will have joy, It's because he also knows that they will have sorrow. And this sorrow is simply because, For the last three years, They've been under the greatest teaching And Bible study known to earth.

Period. Period. No greater pastor than Jesus. No greater teacher than the Lord. None. I hope nobody feels that they rival him, Because they'd be foolish to say that.

And that's being polite. And all of a sudden, They're told, You're not going to see me for a little while. But you will see me soon.

But you're worried that you're not going to see me, And then you'll see me again. And you can imagine their minds are just saying, I can't keep up with this. I can't keep up with it. What does he mean? So when I'm saying history ran right up to a ledge, And then just started running parallel with it, There can be some confusion thinking, What are you talking about?

And it's all explained in here. Because of this transformation. And the example of birth makes a lot of sense. Now, I know, Ladies, mothers, Hearing a guy talk about birth, It's probably like, Come on, pal.

This is not your area, right? I know that. I've watched birth. The best I could do is just say, Can I get you water? You feel kind of useless as a man in that whole situation.

Okay? But watching it and seeing the birth of the child, I'll never forget holding my oldest son, Nick, In my arms.

And the first thought that came to me, After just being emotional, Was, I've got to get my act together. Right? I've really got to pick up some stuff here. I've got to figure this fatherhood thing out.

Because this kid is right here. And I'll never forget, You know, Seeing his face. And just that overwhelming feeling of joy. And it erased, Believe me, I know how this sounds, I say this.

It erased all of the difficulty Of the time leading up to that. Now for the mother, Of course, It's a different kind of difficulty. I deeply respect. Pain that I didn't experience.

Okay? But there was joy that happened. So I don't think it's inappropriate Or strange that Jesus would use this example. Because in this pause, Like we're waiting for the music to kick back in On that cassette tape.

The world is pregnant. Waiting. There are groans. We're waiting. Father, All of these things are happening in the world.

It seems like evil is gaining ground. We're waiting. There doesn't seem to be an end To the mystery, To the difficulty, To the struggle. Sometimes the sorrow we have in our own lives Feels like it goes on forever.

You ever notice that? And the reason why sometimes that happens Is the way that our brains Plug into experiences. The reason why when you feel like You're having fun And time is just ripping by, It's because your brain is overloaded By stimuli.

It's overloaded by experiences. It can't take in everything that's happening Because all the excitement, All the fun, Or all of the difficulty And the pain of birth.

And you notice that when you're waiting For, say, the dentist, Time just crawls. Right? You're just sitting there Like, wow, man, I've got to wait through this.

It's because your anxiety And your fear Is focused on one thing. And that's why time seems to crawl. When we're going through this sorrow Or this anxiety, It can feel like there's just no relief.

There's no end to this. Lord, where are you? And so when he says to take courage, He's meaning it's just around the corner.

Just around the corner. The way of substitution For solving problems Is actually a way of immaturity. And what I mean by that Is that we can self-medicate Through a lot of stuff.

We really can. I would say it earlier. It's like, you know, If I'm having a down day, I have down days, right? If I'm having a down day, My first thought isn't, I'm going to get up, I'm going to pray for three hours, And I'm just going to be right with the Lord.

My first thought is thinking, I want some chocolate. And I want it in the ice cream format, And I want the tub. You know? And then a few days later, I'm thinking, Man, my shirt is just fitting too tight.

Now I'm depressed that I'm fat. Right? And I go through this thing in my mind, And I realize, I'm the only one that created This situation for myself. Had I actually just said, Lord, I don't know why I'm feeling this today, But please transform this into joy.

Transform this into something That I can walk on from And share with others. It's not easy in the moment. I don't think it's supposed to be easy, But it is a better choice than going, Wow, I should have just skipped that ice cream A few days ago.

I hope you see the point. Because the way of transformation Is the way of faith and maturity. It can be difficult to go through things That you don't have the answers for. Where you don't see the end to it.

You don't understand the process That we're going through. You don't see it from the Lord's perspective, 10,000 feet up, so to say. And just being able to look at something And know that the outcome Is for His glory And for our good.

We can't always see it that way. So we have to trust. Trust that the Lord will transform. Because we can't emotionally Or spiritually mature If someone is constantly rescuing us.

If I go to my child And every time they break a toy I replace it and say Here's another toy. Okay, here's another toy. Okay, here's another toy. How is that child going to learn That sometimes toys just break?

And maybe we need to be a little softer With how we approach the toy. Maybe we need to be a little more careful Playing with the toy. How does the child ever learn these lessons If we keep replacing it?

And I think sometimes That's what the Lord does with us. He says, I love you. And I love you so much. We're going to walk through this together And get through this. And it's going to feel painful. And you may have to do without That broken toy for a little while.

But you'll see. Just wait. I'm going to transform your sorrow Into something wonderful. Just give me time. Ecclesiastes 3 verse 11 says He has made everything beautiful In its time.

We may not want Or we may want that To be a lot faster in our minds. We may want that beauty To come now. Lord, give us explanation now. Free us and rescue us From this sorrow now.

But there's a time And a place And in its time He makes all things beautiful. There have been situations That I've gone through And I know You're feeling the same way too.

You look back In the moment And you remember How painful Or how difficult it was. And you look back now And you realize God's love was present. He walked us through that.

He kept us alive And kept us emotionally safe. He kept us on point with Him. But it doesn't feel like in the moment.

But just a little while In just a little while He'll explain. God takes impossible situations Adds the miracle of His grace And transforms trial Into triumph And sorrow Into joy.

Joseph's brothers Sold him into slavery. It could seem like You know One of the most sad moments When I read that story And I hear about Him Sitting in the cistern Looking up Knowing He's not going to get out And just exactly What had happened to Him The betrayal and everything You can almost feel it And think This is so wrong Everything about this is wrong And you read the entire story And how He basically Was given the keys To rule Egypt That's very much bottom line But that's where It took that tragedy Transformed it into joy And you know what He ended up doing?

Being able to help The family that had betrayed Him Is that not a move Of God's glory Outside of the flesh And what natural Tendencies lead us toward?

King Saul's Murderous pursuit of David We can look at this And think The guy didn't do anything Like this to you He doesn't deserve this To be chased into the wilderness And hunted like an animal And yet through That sorrow and difficulty We read Psalms today That bring us comfort Bring us joy And hope And peace Knowing that the relationship With the Lord Is so dear and precious Because out of that pain That David went through He was able to sing And write And we have the benefit Of reading that today Thank you Lord The Lord took the cross Which was a symbol Of defeat And shame We don't even really Get into how much so We want to put Jesus On the cross Like He was clothed Or even partially clothed You have to think Even more degrading Than that It's for us to get close To the historical Accuracy of it It was a horrible thing Yet the Lord Turned that

Into a symbol Of victory For eternity He will take The sorrow In our lives Transform that Into victory And it will spill And overflow To those around us May God Receive the glory For all of it Verse 16 A little while And you will see me No longer And again a little while And you will see me Jesus was saying That in a little while They would not see him Then in a little while After they would see him It was confusing For the disciples But Jesus was talking About his return To the Father And the disciples Would see him again Briefly on earth But again in heaven One day Compared to eternity A little while Is a hiccup in time Do you remember Those moments In our past When everything Like I was talking About time How it just seems To slow down When anxiety And fear take over Because our minds Are hyper focused On overthinking

The worst possible scenarios And time just seems To go to a crawl This is kind of What that's like These guys are In this moment Thinking What are we going to do I don't even know What he's saying I don't understand What are we going to do As I said last week Remember also That standard Teaching time These guys only had A rabbi Trent I love that You broke that out For us That was perfect Because if you had The mentality of Jesus being a rabbi And you only had Three years That would be cut short The normal teaching time Was quite possibly Twice that Longer in any case So to be cut short Your teaching Felt like Well you're dropping us Off the side of the road here But if you had An eternal perspective You knew that The teaching was Just beginning The Holy Spirit Was going to take it The rest of the way To a mother Experiencing the birth pains Every minute May seem like an hour

Every moment Every push Every breath Romans 8.22 For we know That the whole creation Has been groaning together In the pains of childbirth Until now And this is what I mean That all of history Was rushing to a cliff's edge Until now Until the cross And now We're walking parallel With it Waiting for his return When it spills over And everything is changed And made right We're waiting We're caught In the in-between It's like You were due yesterday To give birth Right?

And you're like Come on buddy Come on You know One of the One of the worst things I think I saw Was actually A friend of ours Was really pregnant Days Days passed I think And the way That the road worked We lived down the road From them And you kind of Turn this curve Hang a left And you get down To the street Where we lived So they were right On the corner And they had a trampoline Out there And one day You know Driving by And what do we see?

She's bouncing Pregnant on this trampoline And I'm like Oh dude No You can get to that point Where you want to Force the baby out Right? It's time to go And we can get Impatient with God Lord the world is evil There's so much wrong This feels so sorrowful And difficult And we're like Let's go Jesus But in a little while He will make things right Hold on Just hold on Don't give up Don't give out Don't lose heart Take courage Be of good cheer Have joy Because in the morning The sun is going to burst You know what I cannot wait for Is that day When we're in heaven And we're like Hey You made it Right?

It's going to be like The greatest reunion Ever I have little to no doubt And I said this to a dear man Yesterday Will be received With arms open wide Well done Good and faithful servant Well done So while we wait Let's deal with our trials And hurts On the basis of Transformation And not substitution Verses 23 to 28 And in that day You will ask nothing of me Truly truly I say to you Whatever you ask Of the Father In my name He will give it to you And until now You have not asked Or you've asked nothing In my name Ask and you will receive That your joy may be full I have said these things to you In figures of speech The hour has come When I will no longer Speak to you In figures of speech But will tell you Plainly about the Father In that day You will ask in my name And I do not say To 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 came from God I came from the Father And have come into the world And now I am leaving the world And going to the Father So the original text Has asked In two different forms To ask a question And to make a request And they are actually Fairly different To the way that they are asked Alright To ask Can be broken down If you want to look at it this way Jesus is equal with God We are inferior We ask for his grace We ask for his forgiveness We ask for his mercy Because he is king And we have that access Because of Jesus Christ To come to him Jesus knew his disciples Wanted to ask him a question And there were to come a day Where they no longer Could ask him You imagine wandering around With Jesus for three years

Asking all of the questions You can imagine Some stupid Ignorant Thoughtful And otherwise Right And all of a sudden He says You are not going to be able To ask me these questions anymore Not this way But God loves you And you know what It can seem like this moment Of thinking Jesus you are leaving us You are abandoning us What are we going to do Without you We have relied on you For three years You have been our teacher You are our Messiah And now you are just Going to leave us The confusion and the sorrow Would have been there But he comforts them By saying No no no no no God loves you You are going to be able To talk directly To him The Holy Spirit Will come And be a counselor For you And in my name You can come And ask things In my name You can come Because I know Who you are God loves you What a comfort That should be to us The idea that the father

The master of all things The creator of the universe God loves you As an individual I've said it before But in Revelation 1 You can read That John says There's a throne in heaven And it's occupied That means something All authority All authority Is with Jesus All authority Is given To you and I In his name Not our name In his name There is a comfort Of being a part Of a family Like that Jesus talked about Prayer a lot There's a promise That we need to believe The father loves us We'll hear our requests And we'll meet our needs And the Holy Spirit Was coming To help him After he is gone He is our high priest He's making intercession For us even now The Lord is in heaven Praying for you and me Hallelujah That should mean

Something for us He gives us grace He restores us All he does for us Even now in heaven Makes what we do On earth for him Possible Through the power Of the Holy Spirit The Lord has your back And when the enemy Accuses you Of all manner Of awful things The Lord is your advocate And your defense Hallelujah There's joy in prayer There's joy in understanding The beauty of transformation But there's also joy in victory And that's where I want To leave off Verses 29 to 33 His disciples said Ah now you're speaking plainly And not using figurative speech Now we know That you know all things And do not need anyone To question you This is why we believe That you came from God Jesus answered them Do you now believe Behold the hour is coming Indeed it has come When you will be scattered Each to his own home And will leave me alone Yet I am not alone

For the Father is with me I have said these things to you That in me you may have peace And the world you will have tribulation But take heart I have overcome the world See the guys started to get it They started to figure things out And Jesus knew That they were still Going to be troubled by it He knew their weaknesses But he was very quick To approve their growing faith Yes you're getting it It's still going to be rough You guys are going to be scattered Some of you will deny me But Father in heaven loves you And you'll see me again Unless we practice this faith Apply that understanding Rest on that assurance Will fall in times of testing When sorrow comes You know one of the most Difficult passages for me To read personally sometimes Is in the garden of Gethsemane When Jesus is praying Right before he's arrested Some of the guys fell asleep Now I know they had long days

I know that their business hours Were long and difficult And trying and peopley I get it But isn't there a part of you That just thinks I would want To stay awake And you know the reality is That these are normal people They're normal men They're normal people Just like you and me And we'd be tired And we might fall asleep But Jesus took comfort And told them that it doesn't matter Because he knows he's never alone Because of God Have you ever gone through something A sorrowful chapter Where you felt like you were alone The reality is You weren't You are not now God is with you And he loves you Individually He loves you He is never going to leave you He is never going to forsake you So reach out Receive that love Receive that comfort And that assurance in him Matthew 28 20

And behold I am with you always To the end of the age In Jesus there is peace In the world there's trouble You know I saw a funny ad The other day For a new Apple phone You know the one that folds And stuff like this And the ad was just simply this Apple read the room We're all exhausted We don't need another product Okay Just read the room We're tired And you feel that sometimes That exhaustion It's like I don't need another thing That's going to make me feel Like I need something else That somehow I'm inferior Or this whatever Even though they all do The same thing You feel that sense Of being breathless Because you're exhausted That's what the world Will give you In Jesus there is peace We have all the resources We need in him We have choices To make each day Are we overcome Or are we overcomers Are we overtaken Or are we overcomers The world wants to overcome us This is why Satan

Used the world To persecute And pressure us Because it always wants The world always wants us To conform Become less like Jesus Read his Bible less This is what the world Wants us to do So we're going to go In the opposite direction Lord make us more like you Let us rely on your word More Let us pray Through the word And pray Through our times of sorrow Transform them into joy More Lord Let us keep our eyes Fixed on you Pursuing your kingdom first Above all else in the world Help us Father Even when it feels impossible Be of good cheer Take heart Your translations are going to Say different things It all means the same thing Be courageous Be courageous Have courageous joy In this time of frustration And depression And waiting When you're waiting For that tape Just to turn over a little bit So you can hear the music again

Just wait Take courage There's good cheer In his grace and mercy His power And his presence Good cheer In his victory Over the world We have victory In Jesus Let's walk in that Knowing full well That he loves us And he's taking care of us And praying for us God transforms sorrow Into joy God has given us prayer To talk with him As we walk By the power of the Holy Spirit We can overcome In his name Because there is joy When we allow God To transform Our sorrow There is joy When God answers prayer Sometimes We have to wait And sometimes Our answer Isn't what we expect But with a little time And a little while We see His will Is always better Than our own And there is joy When we overcome The world So Let's not try And take Monday Just yet Let's overcome today Let's be overcomers today

And then wake up Afresh tomorrow And say Lord This day is yours Use my hands and feet To bless those around me Father I want you to transform Whatever I'm going through Into joy Let's pray