INTRODUCTION

Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says, "Life is hard and then you die"? That’s actually a pretty fair description of reality as far as I can see. I just talked to a good friend this week who is a missionary. He has been working at his assignment for the past 5 years. Though he saw people come to Christ and make progress in their faith in the first couple of years, currently, his ministry has fallen on hard times. His superiors are questioning his ability to do the work and worse, so is he. On top of this one of his children has cystic fibrosis. He feels like a failure and has no idea what he should do. He wonders how he will care for his family because being a missionary is all he knows. A couple of months ago I received a call from a man who I led to Christ when he was a student. I performed the wedding for he and his wife. They have three children. For the past couple of years he has had a hard time getting a job that would support his family. There are other troubles as well. He was calling me because his wife just told him she wants a divorce and he didn’t know what to do.

I know that my experience is a little different from yours because people tend to tell their problems to pastors. That just goes with the territory. However, I don’t think I’m wrong in drawing the conclusion that for all of us life is often confusing and painful. Life is not always sad but there is no one who escapes the disappointments and tragedies of life. I know that I am right in drawing this conclusion not only because of my own experience but because the Bible confirms this. Job 5:7 says, "Yet man is born to trouble as surely as sparks fly upward." Psalm 90: 10 says, "The length of our days is seventy years or eighty if we have the strength. Yet their span is but trouble and sorrow for they quickly pass and we fly away." Then here at the end of this passage Jesus himself says, "In the world you have trouble."

The particular trouble that his 11 disciples are facing is his betrayal, suffering and death and thus the end of all their hopes and dreams for the future. While there are unique things in their suffering, Jesus, in helping them helps us to live in a world that is full of trouble. I know that there are many in here who are currently having trouble and so I hope that you can hear Christ’s promises and be helped by them. I also know that there are some of us who are not experiencing much trouble at this time. However, you need to pay attention because it’s only a matter of time before you will need what Jesus says here.

MAIN POINT

As I have often reminded you these past few weeks, Jesus is talking to his 11 disciples just hours before he is arrested, tried and killed. He has spent most of his time describing what life will be like after the coming of the Holy Spirit, which happens 50 days after this conversation. But now, at the end of his conversation he turns his attention to what is immediately in front of him, his death and resurrection. He tells his disciples that in a little while they will not see him and then after a little while they will see him again. He is referring to the fact that in less than a day he will be dead and they won’t see him but then on the third day after his death he will rise from the dead and they will see him.

This makes no sense to them. Like employees trying to figure out what the newest mission statement from management means, they ask one another what this strange saying means. Jesus, observing their furtive conversations and knowing that they are puzzled talks to them. He doesn’t answer their question, "what does he mean by a ‘little while’?" but he does tell them what they need to know about what is going to happen. In verse 20 he tells them, "Truly, truly I say to you that you will weep and mourn but the world will rejoice. You will be sad but your sadness will turn into joy."

He then compares the experience they are about to go through with the experience of a woman giving birth. Read vv. 21-22. I have been intimately involved in the birth of all six of our children. What Jesus says here is true of the process of childbirth. From the moment that the contractions leading up to birth begin until the birth of the child, my wife experiences serious pain. There are not strong enough words to describe the intensity of the physical pain nor the potency of the emotional trauma she experiences in going through labor. Nor can I find words to describe the joy and the relief that sweep over her when the pain ends and she is holding that precious baby in her arms. The source of all the pain, the birth of the child, is also the source of all the joy.

Jesus tells these men that the experience they are about to go through is just like that. They are going to experience gut wrenching, mind numbing pain and grief as they watch him die and all their dreams with him. I would never think to tell my wife, while she is in the midst of labor, "Hey, snap out of it. It isn’t that bad. Besides, it will only last a little while longer." The suffering is real and it is intense. In the same way Jesus does not say to these men, "When this suffering comes to you just smile because you know it will soon be over. Don’t you cry or be sad in any way." However, while Jesus acknowledges that the pain is real, he does tell these men something to help them. And if we will hear what he says it will transform every experience of suffering that we will ever encounter.

What he tells them is that just as the pain is real, the joy will be even more real. Notice the difference between the pain and the joy. The pain is temporary but the joy is permanent. What is the source of this permanent joy? "I will see you again". The source of all their pain, the death of Jesus, is also going to become the source of all their joy when he sees them again in three days. The source of the joy is not simply that they will be in his physical presence again. If that were the source of the joy he could not say, "your joy will never be taken from you" because he knows that he is going to leave them for the rest of their lives in just 40 days. The reason their joy is going to be permanent is because Jesus is going to reveal himself to them as the Son of God who died in their place, for their sins, and rose in order to bring them into a relationship with the Father.

The permanent joy that Christ gives to his people, that cannot be taken away is the joy of salvation. I was having a conversation with some friends a few years ago. I don’t remember the context of the conversation but I do remember a question that one of my friends posed. She is a very devout Christian. Very involved in her church. If somebody needs help she’s the first one there. If there’s a need in the church, she’s the first one to volunteer. The question she asked was this, "What I want to know is, where is all the joy that I keep hearing pastors and other Christians talk about?" Do you ever wonder that? Where’s the joy? Jesus answers that question right here. Life is full of grief but he turns all the grief into joy when he reveals himself to us as the Son of God who died for our sins and rose in order to give us eternal life.

The reason that Jesus revealing himself to us as a crucified and resurrected Savior does not produce joy in us is because we don’t think our biggest problem is our own sin and we don’t think our greatest need is to have an eternal relationship with God. We think our biggest problem is that our spouse doesn’t treat us right or our children don’t do what we want or our neighbors are jerks or we don’t make enough money or we don’t have any friends or we’re overweight or we have a lousy job. We think our greatest need is to make more money or find a true friend or have a spouse that treats us right or neighbors that respect our property lines or children that don’t embarrass us or more vacation time.

The only people who will rejoice when Jesus is revealed to them as a crucified and resurrected Savior are those who know that their biggest problem is their own sin and God’s just anger against their sin. Only those who long to know that God loves them and is pleased with them will rejoice when Jesus is revealed to them. Peter states it so well in his letter when he says to believers in the midst of great suffering, "Though you have not seen him, you love him. And even though you do not see him now you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls."

When my sin causes me more sorrow than my wife’s sin against me, then I’ll have joy when Jesus is revealed to me as a crucified and resurrected Savior. When I fear hell more than I fear losing my job, then Christ’s saving work will fill me with happiness. When I yearn to have God smile upon me more than I yearn for a promotion at work, then will I have a joy that cannot be taken from me. If you want joy, start by asking God to reveal to you the ugliness of your own sin and the terror of hell. Begin by asking him to impress you with how great and all-satisfying he is.

Read vv. 23-28. Notice that Jesus repeats the phrase, "in that day" two times in v. 23 and v. 26. In v.25 he refers to an hour that is coming when he will not speak figuratively but plainly about his Father. What day or hour is Jesus referring to? He is talking about that period of time begun by his death and resurrection that will continue until the time when he returns again to destroy all evil and make a new heavens and a new earth. The reason we know he is not simply talking about the day when he came back from the dead and revealed himself to his disciples is because of v. 28. Look at the second half, "Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father." "That day" is characterized by Jesus being out of the world and with the Father. So in these verses Jesus is describing what life will be like for his disciples during the time between his death/resurrection and his return in judgement and salvation. This is the time we are now living in.

So what does Jesus say will characterize our lives as Christians now while he is with the Father? First, he says we will no longer ask him any questions (NAS not the NIV. The verbs for "ask" in the first half and second half of v. 23 are different.). All the questions the disciples have asked in these chapters are due to the fact that they do not know who Jesus is nor what he has come to do. After Jesus dies and rises from the dead and sends his Holy Spirit, every Christian will know what none of his disciples knew. Jesus is God and he became a man and died for our sins and rose to give us life. No Christian needs to ask Jesus questions about these things, like the disciples are doing, we know who he is and what he has done because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

Second, now our relationship to God is like a child with her Father. We will ask the Father whatever we want in the name of Jesus and he will give it to us so that our joy will be full. What does it mean to ask in the name of Jesus? It means, first of all, that we approach God on the basis of Jesus’ death and resurrection, not on the basis of our own goodness. We know that the only reason God pays any attention to us is because Jesus has died to pay the penalty of our sins and given us all his righteousness. There is no reason in me as to why God should listen to my prayers. Second, to pray in the name of Jesus means to pray in accord with Jesus’ will. His chief ambition is that the Father’s greatness is seen and loved. Is that my motive in asking what I ask? He desires that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Is that what I pray for? He wants his people to know and experience the joy of living in his presence and experiencing his love as the chief happiness of their lives. Is that what I want and ask God to do? If your prayers are motivated by a desire for God to show how great he is and if you ask God to do what Jesus has clearly said he wants done, then he will give you all you ask him to do. If that isn’t security, then I don’t know what is. It’s like Jesus is saying to us, "You want to be happy don’t you? I died on the cross so that you could ask the Father to do what I’ve promised. When you ask in my name, He will get the credit for powerfully answering your prayers and you will get the joy. So ask whatever you want."

Third, In vv. 25-27 Jesus reveals something more about the nature of God’s relationship to us. In v. 25 Jesus tells us that his teaching while on earth was about the Father but it was in figurative or hard to understand language. However, now, after the resurrection he is speaking, plainly, through the Scriptures and by the Spirit about his Father. Here is just another confirmation that the entire work of Jesus is to get us to know and love and be satisfied with the Father. Life is about God, about knowing, loving and enjoying him. Joy eludes us because we don’t believe this and so we don’t organize our lives as if this were true.

What is it that we discover about the Father? We discover how lavish is his love for us. Here is the greatest news of all. The Father is not coerced into loving us by the son. No the Father loves all who love and believe Jesus. He is not a grumpy old man that has to be cajoled and nagged into loving us. He loves with an undying love all those who love Jesus. Listen to how John Piper expresses this in his book, "The Pleasures of God." (p. 192)

It is God’s love for us and his delight in doing good to all who belong to Christ that replaces the confusion of our lives with security. Again as Piper says it so well, "God does not turn away from doing you good. He doesn’t do good to his children sometimes and bad to them other times. He keeps on doing good and he never will stop doing good for ten thousand ages of ages. When things are going ‘bad’ that does not mean that God has stopped doing good. It means he is shifting things around to get them in place for more good."

At this point in the conversation the disciples say a very remarkable thing. "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God." They have been completely befuddled and confused up to this point, why do they make such a bold pronouncement now? First of all, notice the emphasis on now. They say that now Jesus is speaking clearly when in v. 25 Jesus says that the time when he will speak plainly is still coming. It is not now. They say that now Jesus does not need anyone to ask him questions. In v. 23 he said it will be "in that day" that no one will ask him questions, not now. In other words, they are claiming to get it, but they don’t really get it. They know that Jesus has come from God but they clearly don’t understand anything else. Especially they don’t understand what he means about returning to the Father.

So what prompted them to make this bold and confident statement? I don’t think we can identify what Jesus said that prompted this outburst. But we can discover something of their heart motivation based on what Jesus says to them next. Let me paraphrase what Jesus said to them in response to their self-confident assertion. "Now you believe. Is that right? Now you’re sure that I am God’s Messiah, here to set up God’s kingdom. Let me tell you something. In a few short hours each of you will flee from my side and run to your own homes to save your own skin. You will leave me, your Messiah, all alone in my hour of greatest need. But I am not alone, because my Father is with me." These men are displaying their own arrogance and self-confidence. They do not truly understand how weak and sinful they are. They presume to be able to understand God’s truth by their own native intelligence. They are not willing to accept the fact that they cannot know anything of God or of God’s salvation apart from the work of God. They are displaying that universal human pride that says "I can know God and love God and please God and choose God and be committed to God by own ability." They do not yet understand the greatness of their sin and their complete inability to know and love God apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. They have not yet grasped the truth of what Jesus said in John 15:16, "You did not choose me but I chose you." So Jesus attacks their arrogant presumption by telling them they will soon desert him and prove all their confident boasting to be empty and worthless.

But see how quickly Jesus turns from correction and admonishment to affirmation. They are soon to learn just how much trouble there is in this God-hating, God-rejecting world and so he finishes by assuring them of his love and power available to them in their time of need. There are four things that we need to understand in this final promise. What is the trouble Jesus is referring to? What is this peace that he gives his people? What does it mean that Jesus has overcome the world? How does his overcoming the world give us courage?

When Jesus says that in this world they have trouble (not "will have" as in the NIV) he is again referring to the world of men in rebellion to God, not to planet earth. The primary trouble he is referring to is the trouble that sinful human beings create for one another and for themselves. If you think about it, most of the trouble in your life and mine is because of how others sin against us and because of our own sin. Just think of all the difficulties in your life that would disappear if everyone around you never sinned and if you never sinned. Think about all the things you are worried about right now. How many of them would disappear if you and everyone else loved God perfectly and each other as they loved themselves? But that is not the world we live in. We are going to have trouble because of our own sin and the sins of others.

Jesus promises his peace to all those who trust in or remain in him. This peace is both objective and subjective. This primarily refers to Jesus’ bringing sinners and God into a state of reconciliation. God is the enemy of every human being in their natural condition. Jesus satisfies God’s anger against our sin and so frees the Father to love us and he gives us new hearts so that we do not hate God but love him. So Jesus makes peace between us and God which gives to us calmness in the midst of all the trouble that sin brings to our lives. We are at peace with God and so we do not fear his reproach towards our sin and we know that others cannot harm us. As Paul says, "If God is for us, who can be against us?"

What does Jesus mean when he says that he has overcome the world? He overcame the world by living among God ignorant, God hating people and he never once failed to do God’s will. He perfectly loved God and his neighbors. He was never turned aside by the world’s temptations to seek life outside of God. He never let their hatred of him dissuade him from doing what is right. But most importantly, when he died on the cross, when the world was rejoicing because they thought they had rid themselves of him and his holiness, he was actually conquering the world’s sin. In the cross he performed the work that would make it possible for some of those in the world to escape from the world and join themselves to God. He released God’s Spirit and word into the world to set captives free from the enslavement of sin and death by his death. In the salvation of every sinner, Christ has overcome all resistance to his rule in a human heart. Every person who embraces Christ has been set free and won over by his overcoming love and irresistible grace. He overcomes the world each time a sinner is converted from being a God-hater to being a God-lover.

How does Jesus’ overcoming the world give courage to his followers? When a person knows that Christ has worked on her behalf to pay the penalty of her sin and to give her a new heart so that she is assured that God loves her and is for her, then she is able to say with the psalmist, "The Lord is with me, I will not fear, what can man do to me?" Then she is able to say with the Apostle Paul, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."

Tell the story of John and Mary Paton from "The Pleasures of God", p. 269. The only way that any human being can live and die like Mary Paton is when Christ overcomes their sin and rebellion by the Spirit through the cross. Marry Paton was not like this because of who she was but because of who God made her to be. Peace like this and courage like this are experienced in the midst of a life of trouble because Jesus has overcome the world and so all who are in him overcome it as well.

© Copyright 2000 John Swanson.
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