Take your copy of the Scriptures now back in hand and turn to the New Testament. We’re reading, continue on, John 16, that we started last week. But we’re reading the same passage, the first half now and then the first half in a moment. First John, I’m sorry, not first John, John 16, the Gospel of John 16, starting at verse one, and I’ll be reading to verse 15. Please give your full attention once more. This is the word of our God, John 16, starting in verse one.

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues indeed. And the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes, you may remember all that I had told them to you. Remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you, but now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you asked me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer, and concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you. but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

The word of the Lord. Amen, you may be seated. We’re gonna continue this passage, but before we do, let’s ask the Lord’s blessing, as is our custom, on the preaching and the reception of this word preached. Let’s pray.

Our great Heavenly Father, we come once more before you, and once more we bask in the privilege of being before you in your presence as your people, as we worship together corporately You, dear Lord, and we thank you that you are just that holy and that you cleanse us, that you make us clean, that you take our befouled and darkened hearts, stained with the sin that we’re created, that we were born with, and also the sins that we pile up throughout all of our lives. We thank you that you cleanse from us all of those sins and that darkness and that befoulment, all that is unholy and unclean. And Lord, we praise you and thank you You are gracious and indeed able to deal with us in our sin and in the dirtiness of that sin. And Lord, we thank you that you are a God of mercy and that you are able to truly lift us up from the pit, the miry pit, in our weakness, in our frailty, and that you indeed are strong and good and true and gracious and holy. You’re a God who hears and a God who promises and a God who acts. And so, Lord, we pray as we turn to you once more, and we turn again to your word, as we listen to every word that comes forth from your mouth, that you would place that in our hearts, in our minds, in our wills, that it would change us, and that by your Spirit, we would grow to increasingly reflect our glorious Savior. Lord, we do pray that we would truly learn how to glorify you and to enjoy you forevermore. And so we come once more to your word, our Savior, Lord, and we ask, speak, for your servants are listening. We ask this in Christ’s name and all God’s people together said, amen. Amen.

John 16, starting in verse 16 now. Please continue in giving your attention to the word of the Lord.

A little while and you will see me no longer. And again, a little while and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, why is it that he says this to us? A little while and you will not see me and a little while again and you will see me. And because I go to the father. So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he’s talking about. And Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him. So he said to them, Is this what you are 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. 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. Until now, you have 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 is coming 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 did not say to you that you will ask the Father on your behalf. 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. His disciples said, ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figures of 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. And Jesus answered, 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. In the world you will have tribulation. Take heart, I have overcome. the world.

So for the reading of God’s word, may he add his blessing indeed upon it. If you remember last week, we began with a question about remembering, if you remember a time when something good was taking place and it came to an end. And we set the context for the passage there, this passage that speaks of Jesus going away, And the disciples will be full of sorrow as a result of his absence. But Jesus said what he said, do not be full of sorrow. I am sending the spirit to you to be your advocate, to be your helper. It’s good for you that I go away because of this. And we saw in the first half of this passage, the twofold ministry of the Holy Spirit, first the ministry to the world and then the ministry to the disciples. And then in our passage today, we move to the ministry of the Savior, verses 16 to 33, the ministry of the Savior. And like the ministry of the Spirit we read was a twofold ministry, we have here a twofold ministry of the Savior. And we see this in verses 16 to 24, we see his ministry of joy, his ministry of joy. And then in verses 25 to the end of the passage, Verse 23, I’m sorry, 25 to 33, his ministry of peace. So his ministry of joy and his ministry of peace. And we’ll take these in turn. First, Christ’s ministry of joy, right? He says there in verse 16, a little while and you will see me no longer, and again, a little while and you will see me. This is what he has said at the end of chapter 13, you’ll recall. about his death and resurrection. And this made the disciples to wonder what all this meant. And in verse 17 and 18, he says, we read, what does he mean? What is he talking about? And knowing this, verse 19, as we just heard, Jesus says in response, and notice the juxtaposition that he’s sending out here between the world and you, you, my people, you, my disciples. Verse 19, truly, truly, amen, amen. I say to you, you will weep and lament because of my death, but the world will what? The world will rejoice. The world will rejoice in my death. You will lament and weep because of my death, but the world will rejoice in my death. It says you will be sorrowful because of my death, but your sorrow will turn into joy. of my resurrection,” in verse 20. And so Jesus explains this with an illustration that every mother knows full well. It’s an illustration that some of our mothers have known very recently, and some are about to know again full well, when he says, when a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come. That intense discomfort and pain and suffering It goes on, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that the human being has entered, has been born into the world. And then verse 22, he gives kind of the point of the parable. He says, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you. No one, what a promise. from the Lord. What a promise. The joy of seeing Him, the joy of being with Him. How remarkable this is, right? How wonderful this is. And the call to believe and to trust that it is true. And I wonder if you truly believe, if we truly believed that this was true, how much different our lives would look. How much different our response to the things of this life, how much different our response to our own failings in the reality of everything falling apart around us would be, this promise of seeing him and being with him again forever. How would that change our lives? So you want something to get excited about, right? This is it, brothers and sisters. And this message to the disciples is a message for us as well today. We have strife, we have sorrow, we lament, we have pain. Even for some of us, especially during this season that we’re just coming out of, this season culturally and year, it’s easy to be led into depression and loneliness amidst all the celebrations and all the pomp and all the outward festivities. And we’re submerged in it all, and it’s all around us, but in the quiet of our own souls, some of us, we hurt, right? We hurt. We hurt because we’ve lost someone, or we hurt because we’re losing someone, or we hurt because we’re struck by the facade of it all and the reality that we don’t have this idealistic, perfect, everything-is-just-right lives. And when all the wrapping paper and all the presents and all the family has gone home, we’re left with this reality. And sometimes we just want to be alone. We just want to get back to our normal routine where we’ve learned to drown it all out. Or pretend all this well, even though we know it’s not. And you and I, brothers and sisters, we need to be reminded. We need to be reminded to rejoice in the joy we have in Christ, in the promise that no one will take that joy away and that we will be with him again. And even along the way, he’s given us the advocate to be with us, to walk through us. He is with us. We need to be reminded and rejoice in this, and to believe afresh the spiritual truth, the spiritual realities and promises of it all, and to be lifted out of the coma of believing that this world is all there is, and that this is most real, and that this is all, because it most certainly is not. It most certainly is not all there is or most real. What is true of you, dear Christian? What is true? What is true? It’s not what the world and the enemy tells you, not what the devil tells you. It’s not what our own lying hearts tell us. No, what is true, what is mostly and most really and most truly true is what the Spirit tells us in his word. We must believe it, must trust it. We must ask the Lord for the faith to believe and trust it, to increase our faith, to believe and trust it, because it is true. I’ve shared with some of you these past couple of weeks in private conversations, as I’ve been meditating on these very truths these past weeks, and I’ve been reminded of Psalm 3. Psalm 3, you might want to turn there just very briefly. Psalm 3, of course, you know, it’s very interesting what’s going on there, and it has its context, and it has its the situation from which David brings us this psalm there in Psalm 3. And it’s glorious when we read this, this psalm that it’s not just for David and his situation. The Lord didn’t preserve this. The Lord didn’t see fit to inscripturate this psalm and preserve it down through the ages, just as a historical observation, right? There’s a general sense there in the psalm that is glorious if we’re mindful of it there. And it begins, and this has been the cry of my heart and probably the cry of your heart at one time or another. Oh Lord, how many are my foes? Many are rising against me. Many are saying of my soul, right, his foes, his enemies. Many are saying there is no salvation for him in God. And often the foes against us and around us are our own hearts, our own guilty hearts, for good reason. And oftentimes the enemies of the world and the devil and our own hearts say what? They say, no, there’s no salvation for him. God went and saved the likes of me. He knows what I’ve done. He knows who I am. God is not going to rescue me. But notice how it proceeds. And it tells us, but you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory. He is our protector. He is our glory. He is our all. He is what’s most valuable and weighty in our lives. And notice the tender language there next in verse 3. You are a shield about me, my glory. And then it says, right, listen, and the lifter of my head, right? like a father or a mother, right? And you fathers and mothers know this, and you children who’ve had fathers and mothers, I think that includes all of us. It’s like the parent going to the child that’s distraught or sad or broken and lifting their face, right, lifting the head from despondent and discouraged and damaged, lifting the head. You are the lifter of my head, Psalm 3 tells us. And he’s a God who hears. I cried to the Lord aloud, and he answered me from his holy hill. I cried to the Lord. He’s a God who hears our prayers. He answers those prayers. He’s a God who hears. He’s a God who sustains us. for the Lord sustained me, verse five. And then notice at the end of the psalm right there, there’s kind of brackets at the beginning and ending. Notice at the end, there’s this answer to what began with the enemy’s mocking, the enemy’s derision, this mocking declaration. There’s no salvation for him in God. And at the end of the psalm, it says this, verse seven, arise and save me, oh God, oh my God. And then he says in verse eight, salvation belongs, right, not to the enemies that mock me, not to my own lying heart that tells me otherwise. Salvation belongs to the Lord, to the Lord. He will defeat the enemies. He will defeat his and my enemies, even your own heart, your lying, doubting heart, your callous, stony heart. He conquers and he gives you a new heart. flesh that beats for him. And he tells you the truth of who you are. Yes, I will save you. I will save you, otherwise worthless individual, for nothing but my love that I set upon you. Salvation belongs to the Lord. He is real. He is there. He hears. He lifts the heads. He sustains. And he drives out fear. And he saves, saves. And when we remind ourselves of these truths, The lies of our enemies and our own hearts are put into perspective, and we have joy. We have joy. That’s Christ’s promise to his people. If that’s you, if you’re his, that’s his promise to you. And so we go back to John, and what does it say? Verse 22 of 16. says, I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice. And no one will take your joy from you. No one will take your joy from you. It is an irrevocable joy. And of course, he’s talking about, you will see me again, your hearts will rejoice. He’s talking about the resurrection. He’s also talking about his ascension. He’s going up into glory. And listen closely, he says next, truly, truly, amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. And so the time is coming when he’ll be gone. Jesus will be gone and they’ll not be able to ask anything of him in front of them for anything. But they’ll have access to the Father nevertheless in his name, in his name. Verse 23, “‘Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be full.'” Right? And so, brothers and sisters, ask him. Ask him for the joy that he’s promised amidst the pains of this life as you walk through this fallen world. Ask him for the joy that he’s promised as you walk through this fallen world amidst the pains, bearing the scars, both spiritually and physically, of this life that we have as fallen people in a fallen world. Ask Him for joy. Ask Him for the joy that He’s promised as you fail and as you fall and as you lament and as your heart breaks before Him and as His heart breaks for your failing before Him. Ask Him for the joy of that promise, the joy of His love that Romans tells us, 5.5, the joy of His love that’s been poured into your hearts by the Spirit. When we remember and believe and trust Him, no one will ultimately or finally take your joy from you. No one. We are not called, brothers and sisters, to be spiritual lepers or spiritual amnesiacs, right? We’re to remember who we are in Christ and we’re to remember the Christ of whom we are, whom we belong. We are to feel and have awareness and have life spiritually. You know, a leper is one who cannot feel. A leper is in great danger. He cannot feel when danger is happening upon him. So he’s damaged more and more and more. And the truth is, the more that we grow in the Christian life, in our Christian lives before him, and the more we are brought to life, the more we feel and the more we are sensitive to our sins. And with feeling comes what? Comes pain, right? We hurt. and we hurt and we have pain because we’re alive. Praise God. But in our pain and our hurt, we are to know what the Lord has provided for us. We don’t end in the pain. We pursue him in the pain. We plead with him in the pain. And yes, as we grow, we also praise him in the pain. We rejoice in our sufferings, Paul says. Inexplicable, impossible, Not a thing in our flesh to rejoice in our sufferings. But that’s what Paul says, rejoice in your sufferings. Because we know that we have life and that we belong to him and that he is accomplishing through our pains his plans that are, by the way, we’re told, for our good. and for his glory. And that’s awesome indeed, dear Christians. Let’s be deeper people. Let’s be people that contemplate these things and to comprehend these things in our lives as we grow and reflect upon the truths that we’re told. Let us grow into spiritual maturity. And now, none of that will take place in a dead man. None of that will take place in a spiritual leper. Praise him, brothers and sisters. for life and for the promise of joy that attends our union with Jesus, our Savior. So that’s the ministry of his joy, of Christ giving joy, but then we also have the ministry of our Savior, peace, peace. He says, I have said these things to you. What things? Things like being a branch, being a vine, and you being the branches, like a woman’s labor pain and joy, right? I said these things to you in figures of speech, but the hour is coming, Christ says, when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. The hour is coming, he’s saying, when he will be raised and his disciples will grow so that he can speak to them more plainly. Verse 26, and that day you will ask the Father in my name. And I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. Why not? Because they can go to the Father directly. They can go directly to the Father through Jesus because He’s our mediator. We’re united to Him. And He explains in verse 27, for the Father Himself loves you. The Father Himself loves you. because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. It’s incredible. These are the kind of things that we do ourselves damage if we let these things grow dim in our hearts and minds and we don’t reflect upon them or we’re not so jacked up by them that they drive us through the pains and the strains. These are the reflexive things that we should Remember, when we’re going through those things, and then the disciples say, now you’re speaking plainly and not using figures of 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. And see how Jesus responds to their response. He says, 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. And when does this happen? Happens at the cross, right? And listen, brothers and sisters, for all you who’ve ever thought that you were ever really truly alone, listen to what he says, right? I was coming, you’ll be scattered. You will leave me alone. Then he says, Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. The Father is with me. In that there is comfort and there’s peace. You’re not alone. And in verse 33, Jesus brings all of the good things about the Spirit’s ministry in the world and to the disciples and about his ministry of delivering joy and delivering peace. And he said, 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. In the world there is tribulation and anger and chaos and all the rest, but in Jesus there is peace. There’s peace, the likes of which the world cannot provide and does not know. Ephesians 2, I think 14 says, he himself is our peace. Jesus is our peace. And oh, the glorious peace from our union with this Christ, sealed by the Spirit. And I pray that you know this peace and it’s ever real reality, present reality, the forefront of your thinking in all of your lives. Brothers and sisters, excited about this new year as the culture marks them off, and I’m exhilarated about what’s to come and the realities again of the Spirit working through his word in the lives of his people, corporately and individually. What is to come for us as individuals and as a church? We have a mighty God And as we move into this year, I want you to be exhilarated also. I want you to share in the glory and the passion of the truths of these things, of who you are, right? Your faith, your identity as a Christian, as a follower of Christ, as one who belongs to him, is not one more thing added to your life, right? You have your job and you have your station, your family, and then also, oh yeah, I’m also a Christian. No, this is the thing that identifies who you are. Your faith is that which permeates all of your lives. And I pray that you will remember that anew and afresh. And I pray that we all will live our lives more in accords to that reality. There’s no part of us that is not affected or touched or identified by who we are in Jesus. And I pray that you’re exhilarated as I am about this. And though we will continue to have many things, even in this year, Many things in this world about which to be disappointed and discouraged and worried and upset about, we must remember amidst all of those very real things and those very real pains, we must remember that there’s something far, far greater than this world that drives us and that motivates us and that enlivens us. And it’s not the pseudo peace or the lying promises of this world. Our hearts cannot be tethered and controlled by the things of this fallen world. They must not be. The Lord has come. How do we know the kingdom has come? Because the king has come. The Lord has come. He lived. He died. He is risen indeed from the grave. And I pray for all of us as God’s colony of heaven here in this city in Fort Wayne. I pray for us that we would be excited, that we would be focused, and that we would be fervent in prayer. for the church universal, yes, around the world, and even in this city, and for Providence here in Fort Wayne, that we would be used of the Lord and be effective for the work of the kingdom that he’s called us to, and that our great God and our powerful Savior would indeed work powerfully to change us and to comfort us and to sanctify us, and that he would pour out his spirit upon this area and fill His faithful churches with many, many, many souls, new, growing, thriving people for His glory, for their good, for their lives. Because, you know, the very thing that the world does not have, again, though it pretends to, through many avenues and venues to provide, the thing that it does not have, the very thing that it doesn’t provide or have is peace, is true peace. The reality of the matter is That’s the very opposite of that, opposite effect, if you’re honest in your hearts, right? The opposite of peace. It brings chaos and worry and concern and being overwhelmed with the stress and all those things. And so I charge you, brothers and sisters, I charge you in Christ’s name to trust in Jesus. Trust in him. Trust him for eternal life, yes, but also trust him for every moment of this current life, right? And remember that every day, every second, is the time of trusting, is the time of believing, is the time of giving yourself over to the Lord Jesus Christ. With Him there is peace. Let us keep in focus the promised peace, that very promised peace, and let us keep a watch out for those to whom we can share this peace with this year. Let us tell them of the Savior and tell them of the Spirit and the joy and peace that comes from union to the Savior alone and the filling of the Spirit. You want peace, you want joy, Well, how do you do that? How do you get these things? You believe the gospel. You believe the gospel. You believe it again, and you believe it again, and you trust it, and you believe it’s true. You bet your life on it. You believe the gospel that this Jesus lived and died and rose again so that those who believe in him would live forever with him in glory before the face of the Father. Do you believe that this morning? Do you believe that very thing, the gospel? If you haven’t, I pray that you would do so right now. Now is the day of salvation. And if you have, if you have given your life over to Christ, brothers and sisters, rejoice. He is the lifter of your head. He is your glory. He is your protector, and he hears. And in him and him alone there is peace. Rejoice and have peace and praise him. And may you ever look to him for grace and freedom when you fail and when you fall. Not if, you will fail and fall. And when you do, flee to him again and again and again. You cannot out sin his grace or out sin his love for you. For he promised to change you, to cleanse you, to refresh your soul when you do. And may this glorious encouragement drive you to live for him and to the sharing of the truth and peace of the gospel, bringing others to hear his word and be among his people and be with him and be confronted with the truths of the gospel and his love and the decision that must be made. And in the doing of all of it, may he be glorified. May he be glorified in all that you do. as we seek to walk in his ways and live the lives that he loves for us. He is our great God and Savior. He is the peace provider, and he gives you the power to trust and believe. May we ask for it, afresh and again and always, this day and this year going forward. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we love you. We thank you for the lives you’ve given us. We thank you that though we feel so darkened from the very real sins that we commit and they cling so closely and that we battle against and wage war on our souls, Lord, we thank you that you’ve promised that you are the victor of even all those things. And though we have a real justified sense of guilt and sorrow in our hearts, Lord, we thank you that your love is greater than our sins. We thank you that nevertheless, we have been forgiven of those sins. And that even as our hearts are crushed from them, that you will restore our souls, that you will lift our heads, and that you’ll remind us of who we are, that we’ve been made clean, and it’s not for us to dirty ourselves again. And even when we do, Lord, that you will once again pour out upon us the cleansing waters of your love in the gospel, and we will trust you, and we will once again follow you with all of our hearts, Lord, for the gratitude and thankfulness of this life that you’ve given us. Be with us, we pray. Help us to believe what we have heard. We ask this all in Christ’s name, amen.