"Your Sorrow Will Turn into Joy" John 16:16-24

[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agapic Baptist Church in George South Africa.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.

[SPEAKER_01]: I think we lost the mic here.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we're back.

[SPEAKER_01]: Good morning church.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's a joy to be here together with you.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you would, please turn to John chapter sixteen with me as we continue our study through the gospel according to John.

[SPEAKER_01]: We are given four gospels in our scriptures.

[SPEAKER_01]: And these four gospels are four different perspectives.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's the same story.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like looking at a diamond from different perspectives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And you're going to see different glints of its beauty, different angles of its beauty,

[SPEAKER_01]: One diamond, one beautiful story of the Christ, the Messiah, and all He accomplished.

[SPEAKER_02]: And John has given us a specific perspective on the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and all He has accomplished.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we have come to the point of chapter sixteen, and we've been for several weeks, we have slowed way down, and we are now looking at the final hours before the betrayal of Christ and His crucifixion.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're only hours away from that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Jesus is speaking now specifically to his eleven disciples that remain.

[SPEAKER_02]: One has fallen away.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is going to become the betrayer.

[SPEAKER_02]: Judas is scared.

[SPEAKER_02]: He has already left.

[SPEAKER_02]: He has fallen away.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the eleven are left here and they're sorrowful because of the words that Jesus is speaking to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: how he is saying he is going to leave them, he is spoken of betrayal, death, he is spoken about their, the difficulty that's coming upon them, their difficulty.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so Jesus is now speaking words to them that are supposed to steal them for the coming sorrows that they will face.

[SPEAKER_02]: So let's look at John's sixteen in the words of our Lord, beginning in verse sixteen.

[SPEAKER_02]: and I'll read through verse twenty four Jesus says 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 earlier he said because I'm going to the father

[SPEAKER_02]: for Satan.

[SPEAKER_02]: So they were saying, what does he mean by a little while?

[SPEAKER_02]: We do not know what he is talking about.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him.

[SPEAKER_02]: So he said to them, is this what you are asking yourselves?

[SPEAKER_02]: What I meant by saying a little while and you will not see me and again a little while and you will see me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Truly truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

[SPEAKER_02]: You will be sorrowful

[SPEAKER_02]: But your sorrow will turn into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come.

[SPEAKER_02]: 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.

[SPEAKER_02]: So also, you have sorrow now, but I will see you again.

[SPEAKER_02]: And your hearts will rejoice.

[SPEAKER_02]: And no one will take your joy from you.

[SPEAKER_02]: 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 one till there let's pray together heavenly father we thank you for your word that you have left for us we thank you

[SPEAKER_02]: that it is powerful and active sharper than any two-edged sword.

[SPEAKER_02]: We thank you Lord that it is the spirit of God that wields your word.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is not merely men who wield these words.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is men and women who faithfully read and show these words

[SPEAKER_02]: to others and to their own soul and it is the Spirit of God who wields it.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit of God is wielding the words of God in classrooms where teachers begin their day with prayer and the Word of God.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Spirit of God is wielding the sword in homes where mommy's read the Bible to their children and where daddy's

[SPEAKER_02]: tell their children that these are the words from God, and that they are dear words.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they are words that will produce life for them if they believe them and obey them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Lord, it is the Holy Spirit here today that will wield these words.

[SPEAKER_02]: If the Spirit is not among us, then the words I speak are empty and dead and will be fruitless.

[SPEAKER_02]: So Father, we ask,

[SPEAKER_02]: that the Spirit would do your work, and that He would cut into us, driving away hopelessness, driving away our unbelief, which causes us to dive headlong into sin, because we do not believe that you truly are beautiful and glorious and worthy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Please Lord, cut away our unbelief for in you there as life and joy and pleasure forever more in Jesus' name Amen.

[SPEAKER_02]: The disciples have been living under the shadow of sorrow for some time now.

[SPEAKER_02]: They can feel it coming nearer and growing stronger.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus' words are filled with impending betrayal, rejection, and death.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Jesus keeps saying on top of this that He is going away and that they cannot follow Him now.

[SPEAKER_02]: The disciples were right.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sorrow was approaching.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were going to weep and lament and they were going to beat their chest and sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: That which they loved most was going to be ripped out of their arms and taken away from them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the thing that they had given up their lives, their livelihoods, their occupations, some of them had given up family to pursue that thing that they had were seeking to attain, would come crumbling down around them.

[SPEAKER_02]: They thought that they were in the entry way on the doorstep of the kingdom of heaven physically in Israel.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they thought.

[SPEAKER_02]: But that was going to come crumbling down around them because the King of Israel, the Promised Messiah, would be betrayed, abandoned, tried by men and executed on a cross.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was ahead of them.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was going to be the most sorrowful loss and worst personal failure, which the disciples would ever experience in their entire lifetimes.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for three days, they would be left in hopeless sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that hopeless sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: They would be left crushed feeling like abandoned orphans.

[SPEAKER_02]: We saw earlier.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they'd be filled with hopeless sorrow, experiencing hopeless sorrow, but Jesus tells us that the world

[SPEAKER_02]: and all the hosts of hell would be rejoicing because they had had the victory over that insufferable Jesus.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus says in verse nineteen 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

[SPEAKER_02]: This is not the first time that the people of God had faced a seemingly hopeless sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think of the hopeless sorrow of Adam and Eve all the way back in the beginning as they were cast out of the garden out under the threat of death.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think of Joe as he sat in the ash heat.

[SPEAKER_02]: with his broken piece of pottery scraping the boils that had broken out all over his skin.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think of the hopeless sorrow of David who soaked his bed with his tears because he knew there was no sacrifice he could make to wash away his sin of adultery and murder.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think of the prophet Jeremiah.

[SPEAKER_02]: who was abandoned, starving, and sinking in the mud at the bottom of a well, where the men of Judah had cast them, leaving him there to die.

[SPEAKER_02]: The shadow of hopeless sorrow has afflicted the people of God in the past, and it continues to pursue the people of God in this age, the one we're living in.

[SPEAKER_02]: James was executed by Heron,

[SPEAKER_02]: Several of the apostles were crucified, and Paul would be beaten, stoned, imprisoned, and then beheaded.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think of the sorrow of the Jewish women in the early church who were cast out of their homes and abandoned by their husbands to go sit and beg on the street corners because they confessed Jesus was the Messiah of the Jews.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Remember the sorrow of three hundred years of Roman persecution of Christians.

[SPEAKER_02]: Their land, homes, safety, family, and their very lives all under threat because they simply were unwilling to confess that the Emperor was God along with Jesus.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were fine if you said, yeah, you can have Jesus and

[SPEAKER_02]: You can add him to all of the other gods as long as you worship the Emperor.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were unwilling, and therefore they experienced sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Consider the cloud of sorrow that has settled over the hundreds of thousands of Christian parents who in this age have had to bury their children that has not

[SPEAKER_02]: It's something that Christians have not experienced hundreds, thousands, if not more, have sorrowed over their children.

[SPEAKER_02]: Recognize the hopelessness of poverty that strikes many in our day, of constantly living under the threat of losing your home, or not being able to feed your family.

[SPEAKER_02]: Consider the darkness that strikes at the heart of every family that hears the diagnosis cancer for the first time.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And moment, sorrow fills our hearts with a single word that we hear from a doctor.

[SPEAKER_02]: God's people are not preserved from the troubles in this world, which so often casts people into hopeless sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: But my friends, Jesus would not have any of His disciples sorrow hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus would not have any one of us who claim Him as our Lord.

[SPEAKER_02]: He would not have a single one of us sorrow hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: He would not have that for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Old Testament saints did not suffer hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're told in Hebrews eleven that although some were tortured because they refused to accept release,

[SPEAKER_02]: that they might rise again to a better life.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they were looking towards.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that others suffered mocking and flogging and even changed and imprisonment.

[SPEAKER_02]: It says they were stone, they were saw in two, they were killed with a sword, they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated of whom the world was not worthy, wondering about in deserts and mountains and in dins and caves of the earth.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was their story.

[SPEAKER_02]: This was their experience of sorrow, and these were real sorrows.

[SPEAKER_02]: Although that is true, Hebrews eleven also tells us that these saints of old did not sorrow hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Verse thirteen tells us, these all died in faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not having received the things promised.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not in this life.

[SPEAKER_02]: but having seen them and greeted them from afar.

[SPEAKER_02]: And having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth in this world.

[SPEAKER_02]: For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out for us, that's the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: We've come out of the world unto God.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we were thinking about the world that we've left behind us, it says they would have had opportunity to return.

[SPEAKER_02]: If the world is constantly on your thoughts, you might just go back.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what you think about all the time.

[SPEAKER_02]: The same was true for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they had thought all the time about the world or what they were losing in this life, they may have just gone back to Egypt or to Err.

[SPEAKER_02]: Verse sixteen of Hebrews eleven tells us,

[SPEAKER_02]: But as it is, they desire a better country.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is a heavenly one.

[SPEAKER_02]: Therefore, because they were looking to the promises of God, therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God.

[SPEAKER_02]: For he has prepared for them a city.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is their joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: The Old Testament saints were able to face the sorrows of this life with hope because they received and believed the promises of God.

[SPEAKER_02]: Their faith in God's promises became so strong that the author of Hebrews tells us that they could see the fulfillment coming in the distance.

[SPEAKER_02]: They could see it.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they greeted the fulfillment from afar.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're looking at the promises in the distance that they know they'll be dead and their bones will be in the ground before it's ever fulfilled.

[SPEAKER_02]: But they, their faith was so strong.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like they were waving to it on the horizon in faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: In our passage this morning, Jesus calls his disciples to this kind of faith, which hopes in the coming fulfillment of his promises,

[SPEAKER_02]: even in the midst of their sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Their sorrow is real.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not denying the pain of the sorrow, but he is saying, though you are sorrowful and though you will experience even more sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: Look beyond the sorrow to the fulfillment of my promises.

[SPEAKER_02]: Hope in that verse twenty he says, truly, truly, I say to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: You will reap and lament, but the world will rejoice.

[SPEAKER_02]: You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus directs them to look beyond the sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: In fact, He says and He's going to explain further that the sorrow itself

[SPEAKER_02]: The sorrow itself is what will produce their everlasting joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's an incredible claim.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's an incredible claim.

[SPEAKER_02]: Let's look at how he explains this.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus compares the sorrow which the disciples are going through to the pain and fear of giving birth.

[SPEAKER_02]: Childbirth is not pointless suffering.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is suffering.

[SPEAKER_02]: It is real.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it is not pointless.

[SPEAKER_02]: Women face the trial of childbirth with the hope of bringing a new life into the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's why it's not pointless.

[SPEAKER_02]: It has a purpose.

[SPEAKER_02]: It has a goal.

[SPEAKER_02]: It has a reward at the end.

[SPEAKER_02]: And with that hope, they face the sorrow of pain.

[SPEAKER_02]: And once she has delivered the baby, the memory of her anguish is put into perspective by her baby's first cries of life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Her joy, that a little human being has been born into the world, floods her soul and lifts her out of the sorrow of pain.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the picture.

[SPEAKER_02]: The hope of new life, steeled her for the coming sorrow,

[SPEAKER_02]: the hope of new life strengthened her during the sorrow and the hope of new life realized or fulfilled like the baby being put into her arms that is what lifts her out of her sorrow Jesus says in verse twenty two so also you have sorrow now but I will see you again

[SPEAKER_02]: and your hearts will rejoice and no one will take your joy from you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus points the disciples eyes to three days later when they would see him again or rather he says when he would see them again he says I will see you again before he says you will not see me a little while and you're not going to see me but now he says I will see you again

[SPEAKER_02]: It's like the Father, God the Father, is going to return Jesus to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Almost like a nurse brings the little baby that's been born into the world and puts it back and puts it into the arms of its mother.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the kind of joy Jesus is promising them after the crucifixion

[SPEAKER_02]: After he's been in the grave for three days, but then at his resurrection is coming back to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And he says that that kind of joy is never going to be taken away from you.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's the joy of new life for a mommy, but it's the kind of joy that although the joy of a child can be ripped from you through many different ways.

[SPEAKER_02]: But the joy of Jesus coming back, He says, is an eternal kind of joy that will never take in away from them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is promising that He would come to them from the grave.

[SPEAKER_02]: Though they feel broken in soul now and only a little while, their hearts will rejoice with an everlasting kind of joy because Jesus would come back to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is resurrection joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: The joy that they're experiencing, that they would experience when Christ came back to them from the grave.

[SPEAKER_02]: We were not there with the disciples, and we have not experienced the sorrow of hearing the Lord say to us that He is going to leave us, that one of us would betray Him.

[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't heard that.

[SPEAKER_02]: We haven't heard his words that he would be delivered over to the Jews and put to death before our eyes.

[SPEAKER_02]: We did not live through that experience.

[SPEAKER_02]: That sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: And because we did not experience that sorrow with them, it's hard for us sometimes to feel that pain.

[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it's hard for us to imagine or feel the joy they felt when the Lord Jesus rose from the grave and came back to them.

[SPEAKER_02]: We look back on those events and feelings with faith.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the stronger we grow and faith, the greater our joy in all that Christ has accomplished for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so we can experience the joy of the resurrection.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we do, the more we know about the resurrection, the more we understand.

[SPEAKER_02]: And the greater our faith and belief is in the promises that Christ purchased for us and accomplished for us through his death and resurrection.

[SPEAKER_02]: We will share in the apostles joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: But still, because of our human frailty, we still struggle sometimes to feel that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But something that we don't struggle feeling at all is the sorrow of our present lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: We do not struggle feeling sorrowful about the difficulties and sorrows of life today.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is natural.

[SPEAKER_02]: It comes to us without any bidding.

[SPEAKER_02]: We do not struggle at all to feel the clouds of hopeless sorrow when they come to the shores of our lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: Trouble, pain, and loss attempt to choke out all forms of hope.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes leaving a sorrowful beyond hope.

[SPEAKER_02]: But Jesus never intended for His disciples to face sorrow hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus never intended that for His for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, sorrows will come.

[SPEAKER_02]: But if you are a disciple of Jesus, then you can know for certain that your sorrow is never pointless.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is a massive claim.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I believe that is the claim of scripture that our God is so great and powerful.

[SPEAKER_02]: that not a single one of his children's sorrows that he plans to permit and bring about in our lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not a single one of them is pointless.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is the claim of Scripture.

[SPEAKER_02]: Each and every sorrow we face has a purpose, just like the illustration of childbirth.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is a true illustration of every trial we face in this life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our troubles are producing something beautiful and worthy and a value.

[SPEAKER_02]: One thing we know from scripture that our sorrows are producing is Christ likeness.

[SPEAKER_02]: Christ's likeness.

[SPEAKER_02]: in us through us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that Christ's likeness we're told is what glorifies God through our lives here on earth.

[SPEAKER_02]: And when we glorify the Lord through how we suffer in this life with hope, we are told and we are promised

[SPEAKER_02]: that our sorrows in Jesus' name will give us will grant us eternal kinds of joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Eternal joy, it's like Jesus said to the cycles, your joy, that joy that you will have, it will never be taken away from you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's why I used the word eternal, or everlasting, rather, when you have it,

[SPEAKER_02]: It will never be taken away from you.

[SPEAKER_02]: James says a chapter one verse two, counted all joy my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, that is a crazy sounding statement.

[SPEAKER_02]: We can just breeze through our vibrating and not even stop for a second to realize what he's saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's using a mathematical term that we, so math is something in the brain, esteem it, or reckon it.

[SPEAKER_02]: Count it all joy when you meet trials of various kinds.

[SPEAKER_02]: Four, here's the reason why.

[SPEAKER_02]: For you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness and let steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete lacking in nothing.

[SPEAKER_02]: We won't even be lacking in eternal kinds of joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: In the same way Jesus was forming his likeness in the eleven disciples through their sorrows.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then when Jesus came back to them their sorrow was turned into a kind of joy which Jesus said would never be taken away from them.

[SPEAKER_02]: And this resurrection joy

[SPEAKER_02]: It is producing that same kind of everlasting joy in Christians today if we come to the point that we understand and believe that the sorrow of the cross purchased everlasting life for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: As we recognize that Jesus is alive and is with us now through His Spirit to comfort and strengthen us.

[SPEAKER_02]: And it is producing joy for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: as we believe and long for the day when Jesus will come back to us again.

[SPEAKER_02]: So the resurrection of Jesus Christ is producing joy for you today as you understand what happened there.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's purpose, it's goal, what it accomplished.

[SPEAKER_02]: And as you believe it and cling to it, it is producing everlasting kinds of joy in you today.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, the cross appeared to be hopelessly sorrow filled.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I do believe at that point Jesus is eleven disciples felt like they had nothing left to hope in.

[SPEAKER_02]: I really do think they didn't understand.

[SPEAKER_02]: They had not grasped the spirit not shown them yet the truth of his coming again.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think they had little if nothing that they were holding to anymore.

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, the cross appeared to be hopelessly sorrow filled.

[SPEAKER_02]: But as the disciples came to understand and believe the words of Jesus, the hopeless sorrow of the cross was transformed into, there ever lasting joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Does not the symbol of the cross, you know, whatever a Christian sees the cross, that symbol,

[SPEAKER_02]: Does not that symbol represent the Christians victory and joy in Christ Jesus are Lord?

[SPEAKER_02]: It never meant that before Christ.

[SPEAKER_02]: It was the symbol of death and shame and of being a curse for being hung on a tree.

[SPEAKER_02]: That was the symbol prior to the resurrection.

[SPEAKER_02]: but now the cross was transformed into their everlasting joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: What it represents.

[SPEAKER_02]: This fact is essential, this reversal of sorrow into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is essential for us to keep in our minds and hearts because our sorrows in our lives are part of the journey God has laid down for us to travel to the joys of His kingdom.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our sorrows are essential stepping stones along our path to the joys of heaven.

[SPEAKER_02]: Now we don't create for ourselves stepping stones of sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: We don't do that.

[SPEAKER_02]: The scriptures actually encourage us not to do anything that would bring needless sorrow into our lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: Needless

[SPEAKER_02]: But God is not like us.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is so far above us and exalted in wiser than us that He can carve a perfectly shaped stepping stone and place it before us knowing that it will produce in us both Christ's likeness and eternal joys.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is our God.

[SPEAKER_02]: And though we look at those stepping stones and when we step on it, we are like, Father, why have you abandoned me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Do you hate me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Why don't you love me enough to take this away from me?

[SPEAKER_02]: Though we might feel that way.

[SPEAKER_02]: The scripture shows us that not a single one of those stepping stones in our lives, that are filled with sorrow, not a single one of them is pointless.

[SPEAKER_02]: Not a single one of them is carved out of hatred, but instead is carved by a wise and loving Heavenly Father.

[SPEAKER_02]: So yes, we cannot reject these stepping stones.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our sorrows are essential stepping stones along our path to the joys of heaven.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we reject the stepping stones that God has placed ahead of in front of us and we reject God when he puts one in front of us, then we reject the destination for unwilling to walk the path in faith that God has laid for us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus says as much as Luke nine.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.

[SPEAKER_02]: He's not talking about us all becoming martyrs in the physical sense.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says, take up your cross daily.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's a way of lifting.

[SPEAKER_02]: He goes on to say, for whoever would save his life will lose it.

[SPEAKER_02]: But whoever loses his life from my sake will save it.

[SPEAKER_02]: It means giving your life to God and saying, Lord, do with my life as you will.

[SPEAKER_02]: And no matter what comes my way, whether sunshine or sorrow, I will hope in you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's what Christ is calling every disciple to.

[SPEAKER_02]: To follow Jesus is to daily embrace the sorrows of Jesus' cross, but we embrace those sorrows with hope, because not one of our sorrows is pointless or empty.

[SPEAKER_02]: Each and every one of our sorrows is producing something beautiful and worthy in a Christ's likeness, God's glory, and our eternal joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the testimony of Scripture.

[SPEAKER_02]: One of the forms of eternal joy that we long for is Christ's return.

[SPEAKER_02]: We're told that when our struggle with sorrow is over, and Christ's likeness has been formed in His church,

[SPEAKER_02]: Then Jesus has promised that He will come to us again, and all the tears of sorrow cried by the entire church of God.

[SPEAKER_02]: Through all the ages, it will be wiped away.

[SPEAKER_02]: Even the memory of our sorrows will fade, because our every sorrow faced in Jesus' name, every single one of them will be turned into our joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: When Jesus looks on them and says to us, well done, enter into the joy of your Lord.

[SPEAKER_02]: Ponder that for just a moment.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think about that.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you see the reversal of fortunes?

[SPEAKER_02]: Are greatest sorrows in this life that we face in his name?

[SPEAKER_02]: will be turned into our greatest joys in the end.

[SPEAKER_02]: Because they will be what Jesus is looking at and praising most intently.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can you see the reversal in the end?

[SPEAKER_02]: Your sorrow's Christian will be turned into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: When Jesus comes,

[SPEAKER_02]: and looks on you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Your hope in Jesus will not be put to shame.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's the promise for every believer who faces sorrow in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: The promise is that your hope in Him will not be put to shame.

[SPEAKER_02]: It will you will not be disappointed.

[SPEAKER_02]: In conclusion,

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus wraps up his thought again with the promise of answered prayer.

[SPEAKER_02]: While studying to preach through the gospel according to John, I have been repeatedly surprised and convicted by Jesus' emphasis on the power of prayer, the necessity of prayer, the life-giving channel of prayer to God's people.

[SPEAKER_02]: The disciples had Jesus right there beside them and they had God used to simply running over to Jesus and asking Him for clarity about something or for advice or for help, maybe.

[SPEAKER_02]: But after the resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, Jesus says that this is what the relationship will be in verse twenty three.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says in that day, you will ask nothing of me.

[SPEAKER_02]: Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.

[SPEAKER_02]: Until now, you have asked nothing in my name.

[SPEAKER_02]: Ask and you will receive that your joy may be full.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus gives this promise in the context of their confusion.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's how this passage began.

[SPEAKER_02]: Confusion, the questioning,

[SPEAKER_02]: and their coming sorrows.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the context of this promise.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is not promising them that their prayers for better jobs, abundant crops, or even healthy children, is not promising that those will always be answered in the affirmative.

[SPEAKER_02]: They will always receive those requests.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's not what he's saying.

[SPEAKER_02]: Instead, Jesus is promising to grant the prayers which will fill his disciples with the eternal kinds of joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: He is promising to grant them understanding in the Word of God.

[SPEAKER_02]: To answer, He's promising to answer the questions which need to be answered for life and godliness.

[SPEAKER_02]: and he's promising to comfort and strengthen them through their sorrows.

[SPEAKER_02]: If they will come to God the Father, praying in Jesus' name, that's the context of this promise.

[SPEAKER_02]: Think with me of this new access, the Christian has to God the Father.

[SPEAKER_02]: Before, before the resurrection and the ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, before that,

[SPEAKER_02]: If a believer in the Creator God prayed, they would come before God with their sins temporarily covered in the blood of rams and goats and bulls.

[SPEAKER_02]: Dead animals.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's how they came.

[SPEAKER_02]: And they were always coming to the Holy God who caused mountains to shutter and could make lightning flash and thunder roll.

[SPEAKER_02]: They were coming to that God always hoping

[SPEAKER_02]: that they were clean enough.

[SPEAKER_02]: But after the resurrection, Christians now come to God in Jesus' name, which means washed completely clean by the blood of God's Son.

[SPEAKER_02]: And clothed in the righteousness of God's Son,

[SPEAKER_02]: With the Holy Spirit of God bringing our hopes and sorrows before the throne of Almighty God, God the Father will hear us because of that.

[SPEAKER_02]: He will hear us and answer us as we pray in accordance with Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's important in accordance with

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: It says repeatedly praying in Jesus' name, but we've seen already and that the letters in the New Testament explain to us clearly that praying in Jesus' name means praying in accordance with His will and His righteousness and His purposes and His desires

[SPEAKER_02]: You cannot say you are praying in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: If you are praying against Jesus' words or revealed will or, as James tells us, simply to satisfy our earthly passions.

[SPEAKER_02]: We should not say we're praying in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: If we're praying to satisfy our passions.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus is our king.

[SPEAKER_02]: And to come to God and Jesus as name is to beg God to accomplish Jesus' will in us and through us, which is Christ likeness.

[SPEAKER_02]: The glory of God the Father, the salvation of His people, the advancement of the gospel.

[SPEAKER_02]: So that when he comes, there will be people from every tribe, nation, town, language, people, group, fill in the blank, standing around him, worshiping him.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's why we pray in Jesus' name.

[SPEAKER_02]: Come to the Father.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can we pray for him to help us through illness?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Can we pray and beg him that our children would grow up strong and healthy?

[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we can.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I think we all need to realize that these are the lesser prayers in God's sight.

[SPEAKER_02]: God is far more interested in your prayers, for you're begging Him.

[SPEAKER_02]: Oh dear God, may my children love you and live for you all their days, for your glory and their eternal joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: And though they die at thirty-five on some random mission field in Africa, I don't care father, your will be done, but may they love you and live for you.

[SPEAKER_02]: That should be more the focus of our prayers.

[SPEAKER_02]: Though we still raise to Him our every sorrow, every sorrow raised to Him, yes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Jesus promises us that He will answer our prayers, that follow in the footsteps of His will, that according to His purposes,

[SPEAKER_02]: And as we pray that way, He will fill us with joy and turn our sorrows into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a mighty promise of spiritual understanding, of comfort and joy, even in the midst of the many and varied sorrows of life.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is a promise which drives us to hope in God our Savior, no matter the trial we may be facing in this life.

[SPEAKER_02]: In Romans five, we hear how Paul's sorrows are put into perspective by this kind of hope in God.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says, his sorrows are put into perspective by his hope of rejoicing in the glory of God, which is being revealed and will be revealed to us.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is his hope, even though he's sorrowful.

[SPEAKER_02]: And Paul was a man who was filled with many sorrows.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sarah was like a traveling companion for Paul.

[SPEAKER_02]: It followed him and went with him everywhere.

[SPEAKER_02]: But these are his words inspired by the Holy Spirit in Romans five.

[SPEAKER_02]: This is his perspective on sorrow.

[SPEAKER_02]: He says, therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[SPEAKER_02]: Through him, we also obtained access by faith into his grace in which we stand.

[SPEAKER_02]: And we rejoice in hope of the glory of God, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings.

[SPEAKER_02]: Knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope.

[SPEAKER_02]: and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

[SPEAKER_02]: Our hope in the resurrection and the future coming of our Lord will not put us to shame.

[SPEAKER_02]: We will not be disappointed when he comes.

[SPEAKER_02]: Instead, our hope in the resurrection and all it accomplished for us and the coming of our Lord, which it will bring us, the joy it will bring us, that hope.

[SPEAKER_02]: It turns our sorrows in this life into joy.

[SPEAKER_02]: It begins to turn it even now.

[SPEAKER_02]: We begin to taste it even now.

[SPEAKER_02]: The joys of heaven, the eternal kinds of joy, and when we see Jesus, our every sorrow will fully be turned into joy when He looks on us, and when He says, well done, enter into my joy, the joy of your master.

[SPEAKER_02]: That's pretty good.

[SPEAKER_02]: Heavenly Father, thank you for your Word.

[SPEAKER_02]: How it comforts us, encourages us, rebukes us, and then picks us up and puts us back together.

[SPEAKER_02]: Lord, I pray that no one would leave here this morning without renewing their heart's desire

[SPEAKER_02]: and their goal of life of honoring you, whether by life or by death.

[SPEAKER_02]: And if we are living for your glory, Lord, then the sorrows of our lives will be put into perspective, though they are painful, though they rise up like a hurricane in our lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: I truly believe that your spirit within us is greater than any

[SPEAKER_02]: trial we face in this life.

[SPEAKER_02]: Though we will sorrow and lament and weep and beat our chest in sorrow, we need not sorrow hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: So I ask Lord for that joy for each one here this morning and that you would do a mighty work in our church and that

[SPEAKER_02]: Our transformed lives, our Christ's likeness, our joy in the midst of sorrow and our hope that He would overflow into the community around us.

[SPEAKER_02]: That is sorrowing hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: We are so rounded, fathered by broken families, broken husbands, broken wives, broken children,

[SPEAKER_02]: They, if they are not in you, they are sorrowing hopelessly.

[SPEAKER_02]: Please, Lord, for your glory, for the advancement of your kingdom.

[SPEAKER_02]: And for our joy, would you use us to overflow into our communities with hope and joy and may many Lord be saved for you, for the glory of Christ Jesus, our Lord and our King.

[SPEAKER_02]: It's in his name we pray.

[SPEAKER_02]: Amen.