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Would you open to the Gospel
of John, please? The Gospel of John, chapter 16. We'll be picking up in verse
16, and we will actually be going until verse 22. This is the reading of God's
word. 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, what is this 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. Jesus knew that they wanted to
ask him. So he said to them, is this what
you were 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." It's the reading of God's Word. So, coming back to the
gospel here. We say things like, nothing is
impossible for God. Right? All things are possible
in Christ. We say those things, and we really
like saying those things. They're easy to say, actually.
And even if you take it in the abstract, they're even pretty
easy to believe. Well, of course, if God's involved,
we can do anything. Of course, nothing can stop God.
When the rubber meets the road is when it gets taken out of
the abstract, and it gets put into your life. When you are
facing trials and tribulations, when the world is overwhelming
you, and you have no idea what the way out is, that's the moment
when you really see, do I really believe that nothing is impossible
for God? The world can throw things at
us that just seem inconceivable. We never even thought of them
before, that they could come in such intensity, in such severity. And we can be so overwhelmed
by these problems that we find that we start doubting what is
really possible. It turns out that in the back
of our minds somewhere, we had actually never really gotten
rid of the belief that there are such things as what is impossible
for God. We had been holding on to just
a seed of that belief somewhere deep down in our hearts. And so then these problems come.
Then our trials come. And that doubt grows up and we
concede, Lord, there are some problems that just cannot be
solved. This breakdown is a lot like
what the disciples are about to face. They're about to face
something very much like this. They're used to a life in which
Jesus walks with them. He explains things for them.
He protects them. He's always around. They can
tackle anything just so long as Jesus is around. And so they
can walk confidently after the Savior while he's there. What if Jesus isn't around? What if he dies? What then? In their minds, there is no solution
for their Savior dying. There is no remedy for that kind
of loss. What can God do about that? And Jesus starts to tell them.
Jesus starts to tell them what God can do about that. When you
pick up in verse 16, Jesus is announcing again his departure
and his return, right? And you see in verse 16, I mean,
it sounds a little bit like a riddle. It's understandable that the
disciples were not following this all the way through. The
disciples just sitting there, confused. One more time. We understand
things. Again, it's always good to remember
when you're reading these Gospels, we understand things they had
no idea about. Maybe they should have understood,
they didn't though. We understand things with such clarity, and
we take that for granted when we read these accounts. But the
disciples, I really... I understand. I understand why they're confused. They don't have a category to
possibly process what it means that Jesus Christ, their Messiah,
would die and rise from the grave. So maybe he said it, but there's
no category in their brains to understand it, and it makes no
sense. You know, just getting in the
shoes of the disciples, it's a reminder that we make this
massive mistake sometimes of making one-dimensional, lofty
religious figures out of the characters of the Bible. We think
that the people of the Bible are smarter, better, wiser. And it seems like a lot of the
time they're not. I mean, okay, yeah, you compare
us to David's fierceness, Solomon's wisdom, Okay, they're gonna beat
us on that. There are some good things in
the Bible. There are some good aspects of people in the Bible.
But, you know, if you ask me if I could stand in utter confusion
just like the disciples did, I can do that. It turns out I can see eye to
eye with these characters of the Bible. It makes total sense
to me to stand in front of Jesus and be like, can you explain
that again? I have no idea what you're talking about, Jesus.
Yes, they're apostles, and they're going on to bring the revelation
of God in just wondrous ways, right? But they're also just
saints, and they're a confused bunch of them, right now. So
the Savior, again, taking time that, this doesn't make sense
in a sovereignty sort of way, but in an earthly way, taking
time that he doesn't have, and clarifying one more time for
them, right? You're wondering what I meant.
We're getting to verse 19 here, right? You're wondering what
I meant when I said, a little while and you will not see me,
and again, a little while and you will see me. Before we move on, have you noticed
just how much repetition there was in this set of passages?
I mean, I have a writing background. I have an editing background.
I could chop two-thirds of the words out of this section and
convey a lot of the same things, you know. He says at once, a
little while and you'll see me no longer, and again a little
while and you will see me. Then I could just say, well, the disciple
said, we don't understand what you mean. And then he, Jesus
could say, oh, you don't understand what I mean. Right? Why the repetition? A little while. Not, without
looking down your Bible, guess how many times he says it. Seven. Just gotta keep your eye on the
scripture sometimes. Really, that was seven times,
huh? I'm watching you, right? Any time, though, that the scriptures
want to tell you something seven times in a row in a very short
passage, probably good reason to say, oh, I'm gonna pay attention
on this, okay? In a little while, he says. In a little while, God will blow
them away with a demonstration of what he is capable of. In
a little while, everything is going to change. So Jesus, getting
to verse 20, he starts explaining some, at least, of what he means.
He says, what's coming first is the hard part. What's coming
first is you will weep and you will lament But the world will
rejoice. And think how stark a difference
that is. You will weep and lament, but
they will rejoice. The world has a completely opposite
reaction of the followers of Christ. And as it turns out,
that just seems to be par for the course. Because really, sometimes
don't you look at the world and it just baffles you why we can
be at such polar extremes of just spectrums of perception
and morality and everything. How can you love the things you
love and hate the things you hate? Sometimes it makes no sense. And this, that is exactly what's
going on here. Weird or not, baffling or not,
this is just what we should expect. It's not that there's no such
thing as a common moral ground, but unfortunately it turns out
it's much less common than we wish it were. The world is going
to rejoice, but you, to the disciples, you, you will weep, you will
lament. Why? Again, we know something
more clearly than they do, because Jesus, your Savior and Messiah,
is going to die. He will fall into the ruthless
hands of the world and they will crush him, break him, and crucify
him. And you will weep and you will
lament because your world is falling apart. Think of all they have invested
in this relationship. Think of all that they have built
together. Just in the most basic ways,
think of the friendship. Think of the affection. They've
walked together with Jesus for years now. They've talked together. They've shared light conversations
and deep ones. They've laughed together. They've
been bound together by suffering. All of these personal touches
that cause us to mourn when we lose someone, that's what they're
gonna have. But on top of that, there's theological implications. There are religious implications
here. They thought that he was the Son of God, the Messiah himself,
here to rescue them. They thought, this man, this
rabbi, you have the words of life! Him dying just seems to scatter
all of that, to undermine all of that. Part of the sorrow that's
going to come their way, part of the weeping and the lamenting,
it's going to be disappointment. Profound disappointment. You
see in Luke's gospel, after the resurrection, Jesus finds some
of his disciples on the road to Emmaus, right? And before
they recognize him, they're telling him about what's been going on.
And there's this telling comment when they say, we had hoped he
was the one. As in, we had hoped he was the
one, but apparently we were wrong. This is so human. We understand
these disciples perhaps better than you think sometimes. They
are just being human here. They are going to be so broken
and disappointed over this. And haven't we done this? I thought
this job was the one. I thought this person was the
one. I thought this opportunity was
the one. The disciples here, they thought
we had found the one worth devoting our lives to. But I guess we were wrong. and
then as they go on to live their everyday lives after Jesus is
crucified, before he's come back, there's going to be that question
of what do we do now? What do we do now? What do you
do the day after a tragedy, right? You have to go on living, but
why? For what? What keeps you going? What if your central reason for
living is gone? That's what the disciples would
be experiencing. And to make matters worse, as
they are mourning, as they are grieving over the greatest loss
they've ever experienced, the world would be throwing a party.
They would be rejoicing because they hated Jesus. The world,
this band of rebels, they were united against their master.
And they are going to achieve that wretched goal that they've
been grasping after, striving for. They would kill the Savior. They would kill this false Messiah. how bitter it would be to have
the world celebrating your greatest loss. You know, in American culture,
one of the weirdly and widely accepted reasons for a man to
openly cry is losing a sports game. It's just the way apparently
things work, right? If anyone catches you crying during like
an emotional movie or something like that, just expect mockery,
right? Breakdown weeping after you lost
the championship game? Totally acceptable. Baseball
players particularly like to do this. But, in the end, in the end,
no matter how, and I think I've probably been one of those grieving
athletes before, so, you know. In the end, though, we recognize
that what we have lost is a game. No matter how much it's symbolically
come to mean to us, it is a game, and the other team, people like
us. They just came out on the winning side of it. How much harder would it be that
the world would be rejoicing in the successful murder of the
Son of God? The indignity of that, the anger,
your blood would boil having to witness that. And on the other side, on the
other side, it would simply feel like Well, we lost. Having your leader die in battle
is losing. When the dust settles, here we
are, they won, we lost. How low and how broken down they
would feel. And this is where they would
run into their belief of what is possible and what is impossible. You see, they would be certain
that there is nothing that can undo this sorrow. That is why
they will mourn like they will mourn. If they just had a crystal
clear picture on it, oh, just wait three days. We'll see them
soon. They would have behaved differently. Weeping and lamenting,
it's because they think nothing can undo this sorrow. But then
Jesus says, everything will be reversed. Jesus says, yes, you
will have sorrow, but it will be transformed into joy. Your sorrow will become joy. How are these things possible?
How are these things possible? How could it possibly go from
something so opposite to something so joyous? Jesus says, you've seen it before.
You've seen it with mothers. You've seen what a mother goes
through giving birth to their children. The agony, the anguish
that they go through It is transformed on the arrival of their baby. And keep in mind, too, he's talking
about a time that has a lot less ability to reduce pain during
birth. Mothers, how many of you reflect
on the actual childbirth time as a pleasant experience? Raise
your hand. No one. No one. Okay. How many of you
even just think it was a neutral experience? No one. This is, on many people's
scale, the worst thing they've ever gone through before. Just
terrible. Anguish is absolutely the right
word. But then that baby arrives. then that little person arrives
on the scene and everything changes. The anguish and the sorrow are
transformed. With that kind of joy of that
little person, the sorrow is replaced by joy. Jesus says,
you've seen this. You will have sorrow, Jesus says.
There's no denying that. But I will see you again. Yes,
I am leaving, but I will see you again. And the joy that you
will have, it will be permanent. The world can't take that, however
hard they try. Most things that we love, most
things that we cherish, They are things that the world can
take away. They are. The world can take away families. The world can take away churches.
The world can take away friends. The world can certainly take
away jobs and possessions. The world cannot take the joy
that Jesus gives. There is no way to steal away
the truth that Christ won. And our God lives. That is a joy that cannot be
taken. A little while and you will see me, he says. And a little
while and you will see me turns out to be our Savior's M.O. To
these first disciples, he said this. A little while and you
will see me. He said, death won't stop me. Though the world trumpets
its victory, it has not won. Why? Because I will see you again. Death itself cannot stop me,
he says. A little while and you will see
me. But then, I mean, think about
how this kept going. He came back and then what? He came back and they have 40
days. of just this amazing experience
where the Savior is back on the other side of the trial. It must
have been incredible. Just incredible. The disciples
emerged from this darkness of this terrible trial, but with
a new perspective. They went through the thing that
they never understood before, namely that their Savior had
to die. They could never understand it before, and then they came
out, and it must have just been so stunningly clear. I have really
pretty lousy eyes, right? And I remember the first pair
of glasses I ever got. And if you have a similar experience,
I bet you remember. Because what it means, before
you get glasses, there's a very gradual decline, where you just
don't even notice that you live in a fuzzy world that everyone
else thinks is clear. And I remember the eye doctor
giving me my first pair of glasses, and I put them on and I was taken
aback. I said, you look like that? There's trees on the mountains,
who knew? It was stunning to see how clear
the world was after I got that first pair of glasses. And I
think that's how it was for them. I think those 40 days, whatever
amount of time Jesus spent with them, I think they were better
than any of the old days. Not only were they back with
their master again after going through all of that, but they
understood so much more. I bet you there were these times
where they said, Jesus, Jesus, I remember when you said such
and such, right? Did you mean that? I bet you
it was just time after time after time of, that's what he meant!
All the consternation we witness in the Gospels clarified. It
would have been so cool. I bet that time was permanently
seared into their hearts in the best of ways, into their hearts
and in their memories. 40 days of bliss and understanding. But 40 days comes to an end at
some point, doesn't it? There's the 41st day to deal
with. Then what? Well, Jesus ascends into heaven,
leaving them again. Leaving them forever? I will see you again. He orders
them to stay in Jerusalem and await the coming of the Holy
Spirit, right? And then the Holy Spirit comes
with this jaw-dropping power poured out on them, ushering
in this new era. And in this new era, the Holy
Spirit would do all the things Jesus has been telling them He
would do. He would bear witness to Jesus Christ. He would bring
to their memories all the things that he had taught. He would
guide them into the depths of Christ. By the Holy Spirit's
indwelling of the Holy Spirit, or indwelling of the disciples,
you also get this kind of included package that the Son and the
Father also indwell them through the Holy Spirit. And he would
inspire these scriptures that unmistakably point to Jesus Christ. The coming of the Holy Spirit
would mean that the disciples would know Jesus even better
in his absence than they had in his presence. A little while
and I will see you again. And then there's the second coming.
You look at the world, and there is so much to grieve over. There
is so much sorrow. Our lives, just our own lives,
even if you don't even read the news for a while, our own lives
bear so many scars of our mistakes, of our sins. And you look around
at the world with its polar opposite values, and it just seems undefeatable. and the emptiness and the depravity
just seem to be so pervasive. They're everywhere you look.
But Christ tells us that it is His joy that is permanent, not
our sorrow. You could ask, how could any
situation so miserable and sorrowful as this world, as the state of
this world, how could that ever be reversed? It seemed unthinkable
for the disciples too. Wasn't a dead Savior insurmountable? Wasn't that a problem that even
Jesus, God, His Father, anyone, wasn't it beyond any of them
to handle? It turns out it wasn't. The Savior promises us a reversal
that is at least as stunning as His resurrection. He will
return. Reclaiming and recreating the
entirety of this fallen world. Where He will create a world
where sin and sorrow cease. Where there is no more pain.
Where there is no more mourning. Where every tear is wiped away. We cannot imagine a remedy to
the sorrow of this world, to the sorrow of death and sickness
and injustice, but Christ can. Christ can. As we grieve over the state of
this world, and this world should grieve you, as we grieve over
the state of this world, we hear those words echoing, I will see
you again. That is why we long for the second
coming. We long for it because there
is so much that needs our Savior's attention. So many things that
are out of line with God's goodness. So much that needs fixing. But this world, this sorrow,
it is not forever. This is only a fleeting hour,
as you would have it, because Christ is coming again. And no
one, no one can take that joy from us. Let's pray. Lord, we long for the joy that
you intend for us to have. We long for the faith to trust
you. When we live broken lives and we have broken families and
we're in a broken world, may we have the faith to trust that
you are truly the God of the impossible. That there is nothing
beyond your power. We long to see our Savior again. We long for the new heavens and
the new earth. Would you hold us firm in that
faith and in that joy until that day comes? It's in Christ's name
we pray. Amen.
Sorrow Turned to Joy
Series Sermons in John
| Sermon ID | 41314185587 |
| Duration | 29:17 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - PM |
| Bible Text | John 16:16-22 |
| Language | English |
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