John 16:16-33 – The Gospel of John

The reading today is from John 16, verse 16 to 33.

John 16:16–33

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 am going to the Father.

So they were saying, What does this 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 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 I will tell you plainly about the Father.

In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.

His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech.

Now we know that you know all things, and do not need anyone to question you.

This is why we believe that you came from God.

Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?

Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered each to his own home, and will leave me alone.

Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

I have said these things to you, that in me you will have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

And so reads God's word.

You're particularly welcome.

If you're new or visiting, my name is Mark, uh, I'm one of the uh leaders here at City, and we're in a series in John's Gospel that is going to take us uh just beyond Easter time.

We're gonna be tracking very shortly uh with the with the Easter narrative, and uh we have been spending some time over these last weeks in uh what uh has been called the upper room discourse, so Jesus' final uh teaching section to his disciples on the night before his crucifixion.

John devotes uh several chapters to that.

This will be the last part of the teaching um uh that he's giving to his disciples.

And then next week we're gonna look at how Jesus prays uh for his disciples.

And indeed, uh by way of trailer, how he prays for you.

You know that in the next chapter of John, in John 17, Jesus prays for you.

Um uh what a wonderful thing uh to read and to look at together.

So do come back next week for that.

Um, please, if you would have John 16 up, either on your phone or on a Bible.

Uh, if you need a Bible, you can dash down uh as I'm vamping and grab one.

If you do not own a Bible and you would like a Bible in English to keep, you can take that with you.

That's uh our gift uh to you.

Uh I think sooner or later uh every follower of uh Jesus uh sits and asks themselves whether or not being a follower of Jesus is actually worth it.

Let's just be honest about that.

That there comes a time when you wonder uh whether or not you even want to keep going as a Christian.

Some people, sadly, answer no and they walk away from their faith because the cost is too much.

It's too difficult, it's too painful, the loss of uh friends or reputation, the ridicule or just the suffering that has befallen you, has befallen some people, causes them to say, no, it's not worth it.

And they walk away.

Maybe in fact, you're here this morning and you wouldn't describe yourself as a follower of the Lord Jesus, and you're wondering whether or not becoming a follower of the Lord Jesus is worth it.

Will you be able to take the plunge knowing that it would cost you, that it might cost you in terms of credibility, that there might be the snaring, or people just looking at you slightly strangely, like you've finally cracked.

Or perhaps you've been a follower of the Lord Jesus for some time, and the season that you find yourself in and that's brought you here this morning is particularly difficult.

And you're wondering whether or not you even want to keep going.

Jesus in this passage uses uh an analogy.

He uses the analogy of uh of labor, of giving birth, in order to help us understand what he's about to do, but also a dynamic within the Christian life.

The analogy is this the woman is in uh is in labor, and uh I've uh had the uh peculiar privilege of being in a labor room uh twice, um, and uh don't wish to go into it again, uh, nor into detail uh with you all here this morning.

Uh I'm sure Philippa would gladly talk to you all about it.

Um, but suffice to say, um there is pain, uh, there is toil, uh, there is hardship.

Uh I think that uh that any who have been in that room might describe it as the uh the hardest thing uh that uh that they have ever done.

And yet on the other side of it, when the newborn is in your arms, there's a deep part of you that looks down at that newborn and says, it was worth it.

It was worth it.

All that has gone on, all of the pain, all of the toil, all of the suffering, to have that new life there before you, it was worth it.

And Jesus says that that's what it's like to be a Christian, and that's what it's like, uh what how his ministry is.

Jesus is using that as an illustration to help us to understand what's about to happen to him.

He's about to go through pain, the pain of the cross, crucifixion, death, burial.

But in a little while, he will rise again.

The firstborn over the new creation, as Paul says.

The crucifixion, Jesus is saying, will be worth it.

Why?

Because resurrection glory lies on the other side.

And he's helping his disciples, he's helping us to grapple with that dynamic that's true in the Christian life, that there is joy that lies beyond pain.

Now, I want to press that slightly further because it's not just that there's a chronological order, though that is true.

It's not just that chronologically it's pain now and then joy later, though that is part of what's going on.

But if it's just that, then you would think of it like so.

The way I was thinking about it, or we were chatting about it in uh our staff meeting when we read the Bible passage together, is if you have a plate of food, uh, think of your think of your favorite food, right?

So just go so for me, steak, right?

So it's steaks there.

Sorry, any vegetarians or vegans.

So bear bear with me.

You can, I don't know, like a like a cauliflower steak, like one of those.

Uh whatever it is, right?

So you've got your favorite food there, but you've got all of the other stuff that your ma puts on your plate that he that she makes you eat, right?

You got the you got the vegetables, you got the Brussels sprouts and things like that.

And uh any any sane person uh eats those things really quickly in order to savor the stuff that's really nice.

So you get through the pin of the Brussels sprouts, right?

Uh in order to savor the joy of uh the beautifully uh perfectly medium rare uh bone-in ribeye, about sixteen ounces.

Sorry.

Uh right?

That's chronology.

Uh push through the pain, get to the joy.

But that's not just what's happening here.

It's not just chronological order.

No, what Jesus is saying is that the joy comes, I get this, because of the pain.

The joy comes because of the pain.

A mother only has the joy of the newborn in her arms because of the pain of labor.

Jesus will only be able to give resurrection joy to his disciples because of the pain of crucifixion.

The pain has a purposefulness in giving birth to the joy.

Joy comes through pain, not just after it.

What that means is that the pain isn't incidental.

It's purposeful.

It also means that it's real.

Jesus isn't saying, oh, the pain doesn't matter.

Just focus on the joy, the pain's real.

But it's not incidental.

It's not meaningless.

It's giving birth to something.

There's an old uh hymn uh called, O Love That Will Not Let Me Go.

And there's a wonderful verse uh in it that speaks of this.

Let me read, I think it's the final verse.

It says, O joy that seeketh me through pain, I lift my flickering torch to thee.

I trace the rainbow through the rain, and know the promise is not vain, that morn shall tearless be.

I trace the rainbow through the rain.

I know the promise is not vain, that mourn shall tearless be.

That even though it is raining, you're in suffering, there's a rainbow of promise that there's joy on the other side, and that we move through, not around, but through that rain, that suffering, in order to reach that joy.

And so the question then this morning is is the pain that you experience, or the things that you have sacrificed, or the friends that you have lost, are they worth it?

The answer, I hope that you'll see by the end of this passage, is that the answer is yes.

Yes, because Jesus is about to show his disciples what kind of joy lies for them on the other side of this pain.

Point number one.

It is indestructible joy.

It is indestructible joy.

The disciples at the start of the reading are confused.

Jesus is talking about a little while you'll see me no longer, and then in a little while you will see me.

And they're trying to work out what that means.

And perhaps even as you've read it, you have to kind of slow down over it because you're like, in a little while, he's uh when they come to the oh now you're speaking plainly, you kind of think, oh, is he?

I missed that bit.

I've got to go back and up and read it again, right?

Uh so what does he mean?

All of this little while stuff, and the disciples are are wrestling with it.

What does it mean that in a little while he's gonna be gone, but then in a little while he's gonna he's gonna come back again?

What does any of that mean?

No, here's what's going on the confusion that exists for the disciples is because the disciples had no category for a crucified Messiah, let alone any category for resurrection.

And we need to remember that because we've lived with 2,000 years of church history.

We know that Easter's coming, and even if you're not a Christian, you know what Christians believe about Easter, that Jesus rose from the dead.

But that's completely foreign to the to the first century Jewish mind.

They thought that the Messiah was going to be some great political leader who was going to come and kick some Roman butt and usher in this new messianic kingdom, a geopolitical force.

They had no category for a messiah who would go to a cross, who would die, be put in the ground, and then would come back to life again.

And so it makes, that's why they're wrestling, because in their mind, none of this makes sense.

And so for us, one of the things that we need to see is that this is precisely what Jesus is talking about.

He's saying that he will leave them in a little while, that he will be killed, that he'll be buried.

And at that point, the world will rejoice and gloat over the disciples as they weep.

That's what Jesus says.

But in a little while after that, i.e., three days' time, he will rise again, and their sorrow will turn to joy.

None of this makes sense without the resurrection.

In fact, the entire gospel, the good news of Jesus, makes no sense without the resurrection.

You're here this morning and you're exploring what it means to be a follower of Jesus, and uh you're you're asking questions.

Come on in, guys, come on in.

And you're asking questions about uh about what it is that Christians believe and all of these things.

And you kind of think, well, is it is the core of Christianity, is it what we believe about creation?

Whether you're a uh a young earther or an old earther, what do you believe about the dinosaurs?

Did Satan put the bones there to confuse the scientists?

Shouldn't have said that.

Don't believe that.

Uh moving on.

Is that is that the core of what we need to be?

Is that what Christianity rises or falls on?

No, it's not actually.

What Christianity rises or falls on is whether or not the man, Jesus of Nazareth, was raised from the dead in history.

If that didn't happen, Christianity is done.

We don't believe, Christians don't believe that the resurrection is a metaphor.

You do not sit here and go, he was raised, he was raised in our hearts.

C.S.

Lewis said, uh, no nonsense about God is still nonsense.

And that's theological nonsense.

We actually believe that it literally happened in history and that there's good reasons for believing that.

The gospel makes no sense without the resurrection.

Because the resurrection is the great yes and amen that our uh that our sin, what is sin?

Sin is our addiction to me, myself, and my.

It is our own self-love.

The resurrection is the confirmation that our sin has been dealt with, that access to God is possible, that a new start for you is possible here and now, that forgiveness is possible, the resurrection is the yes and amen, the confirmation of all of that.

The resurrection may or the gospel makes no sense without the resurrection.

If you're here this morning and you're exploring Christianity and you're wondering where to focus your intellectual rigor and firepower, you aim it at the resurrection.

Did the resurrection happen?

Because if the resurrection happened, then Jesus is who he said he was.

And if he is who he said he was, then you work out the implications of that for your life.

The disciples had no category for the resurrection, and so all of this stuff of Jesus going away and then coming back seemed extraordinarily confusing.

But if you place the resurrection at the center of what Jesus is talking about here, then it all begins to click into place.

Jesus was indeed raised from the dead, and so he returns to them in a little while.

And what sort of joy does he give them?

Well, it's there in verse 22.

It says, So also you will have sorrow now, but I will see you again when I'm raised from the dead, and your hearts will rejoice.

And what will happen?

No one will take your joy from you.

Indestructible joy.

It's the purview, the inheritance, the new birth right of the Christian.

Indestructible joy.

You will either pursue circumstantial joy, or you will pursue eternal joy.

Circumstantial joy is the joy that comes from your world being right.

The relationship that uh that is that is in good order, the career that is working the way that it should, uh, the uh the comforts uh and material well-being of uh of enjoying the world, it's joy that comes from circumstance.

Those things are as they should be, and so I feel joy.

The problem with those is that at any moment, and we know this from you know, was it three years ago yesterday that they closed the schools?

Um, or is it today, Phil?

Today, three years ago, today, they closed the schools, and we were like, oh, you know, we'll all be back together by Easter.

You can see how quickly uh our our lives are turned upside down, and some of you found that your circumstantial joy was upended because the circumstances, the things that you were deriving joy from, shifted, suddenly became uncertain, or rather, you suddenly realized how uncertain they were.

We can either pursue circumstantial joy that is like sand that slips through our fingers.

Beautiful.

It is great when joy and happiness visit our house.

But to attach our heart to a circumstance is a precarious thing to do.

No, no, what Jesus offers is not a circumstantial joy, but an eternal one.

That is not based on an earthly circumstance, it is based on a person, on a resurrected person, on a person who will never die again, on a person who is Lord of all.

And that indestructible joy perseveres and preserves us through suffering.

It carries us home finally to heaven.

It makes following Jesus worth it through all of the ridicule, ridicule, through all of the loss, through all of the pain.

That despite that sorrow, Jesus offers by his resurrection indestructible joy.

Second, Jesus would have us see that this joy is the joy of the father.

The joy of the father.

Indestructible joy, the joy of the father.

Uh every now and again, this probably tells you something about my uh my Facebook or my Instagram algorithm, but every uh every now and again uh I get a I get a video um that uh that is a um a stepdad uh giving uh giving signed adoption papers as a gift uh to to a son or a daughter, or sometimes it's Other way around that they that the kids have uh have gone through all of the proceedings and have gone to the father and said, I I want to legally uh be your son or daughter, I want you to legally be my dad.

That there is this uh uh this beautiful adoption moment and everybody's crying and I'm a goner.

Uh this is beautiful.

I don't know if you've uh if you've seen it, maybe you are as well.

Um or when we or when we sing, uh there's a song that we sing here at City called Rejoice, and the um the verse that always uh gets me or makes me uh stirs me the most uh is the uh is the verse that says that we are children of the promise, the beloved of the Lord, one with everlasting kindness, bought with sacrificial blood, bringing reconciliation to a world that longs to know the affections of a father who will never let them go.

One of the deepest joys of being a follower of Jesus, one of the joys that seeks us through pain, is the pain of knowing that, or is the joy of knowing that God is our father.

It is a joy that that seeks us, even as we, as some of us in the room have experienced, feel the uh the pain, the strain, or the estrangement from our earthly fathers.

Some of you have had wonderful, godly fathers.

Thank God for them.

Some of you carry wounds, and yet to come to God and know that He is your perfect Father, gracious, lavish, good, loving, available, is a source of deep joy.

And Jesus is saying that that is on offer to all who would follow him.

The death of Jesus signs our adoption papers, signs the adoption papers of all who would follow.

The resurrection has granted access for us all into the Father's presence.

So he says in verse uh verse 23, 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.

In that day, what day is Jesus talking about?

Well, it's today, it's the day of resurrection, and every day since that one of the things that has happened for us, because Jesus has died for our sin, has risen uh to give us new life, is he has granted us access into the Father's presence.

And so Jesus is saying in these verses, he's saying, You don't, you don't need me to ask for you.

You know, like a uh like a like a child kind of uh tugging at the uh tugging at the the leg of perhaps an older brother and say, would you would you ask dad?

He's turning around and saying, no, no, look, you ask him, you ask him.

He wants to hear you.

He loves you, he's for you.

You ask, you don't need me, you can go into his presence because he's not just my father, Jesus says, He's your father because of me.

That's why Jesus says, use my name.

Ask it in my name.

Why?

Because folks, our names mean nothing.

Our names are mud.

But his name His name's everything.

At his name the ears of the Father prick up.

At his name, the affections of the Father are aroused because he loves his son, and he loves all who would come to him in his name.

At his name, the hands and feet of the Father move for you.

Because he loves his son.

And look how generous he is.

Whatever you ask.

Whatever you ask in my name.

I'm not here going to belabor the point uh of needing to ask in accordance with uh with Jesus' heart.

We've already dealt with that in chapters 14 and 15.

Rather, what I want to impress upon you here is the lavish generosity of the Father.

There's a real abundance to the kingdom all the way through John's Gospel and indeed in all of the Gospels.

I mean, you think of uh Jesus all the way back in chapter 2, turning the water into wine.

Jesus doesn't just make a few bottles in order to get them by.

He makes 120 gallons of wine, he makes about a thousand bottles, standard bottles, of wine.

Why?

Because the kingdom of the Father is lavish, it is abundant, it is generous.

That is the disposition of the Father towards us.

He could not be more generous to us, because he gave that which was most precious to him.

So Jesus is saying, come and drink deep from the lavish generosity of the Father.

One of the things that we'll see uh next week, or you can read it uh in advance of Sunday.

Uh you read John 17 and uh and just note what it is the Father gives Jesus.

He gives Jesus glory, he gives Jesus a name, he gives Jesus words, he gives Jesus works to do, he gives Jesus his disciples, he gives Jesus believers.

You are a gift from the Father to the Son in eternity.

That's how lavishly generous the Father is.

Some of you wrongly think that the Father kind of begrudgingly lets you into his heaven.

He knows you trust Jesus and he knows you're there.

But he'd rather that you uh that you sat and were silent.

You don't speak until you're spoken to.

They say, okay, well, I suppose, I suppose they've trusted Jesus.

Well, they better all come in, but they better not make a mess of the place.

Some of you approach your heavenly father like that, like he kind of begrudgingly has you in his heaven.

My hope is that you see how wrong-headed that is.

The father is lavish.

In fact, Jesus pushes it even further.

Verse 27.

I'll pick it up from verse 26.

In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say that I will ask the Father on your behalf.

Why?

For the Father Himself loves you.

Because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

If you're sitting here this morning and you think, well, yes, I'm a follower of Jesus, but I don't think that God likes me very much.

Look at verse 27.

For the Father Himself loves you.

The Father Himself loves you.

The Father loves you.

The Father Himself loves you.

Why?

Not because of anything that you have done or are doing or will do, but because you have believed that Jesus is who he says he is.

And so the Father has set his love upon you.

What is the Father's heart to you, weak and weary Christian?

He loves you.

You are his.

He longs to be generous towards you.

He is lavish and abundant in his goodness.

Not by this is not this does not mean that his lavish generosity is the mere showering of material blessings on you.

That's not what any of this is about.

Until now you have asked nothing in my name.

Ask and you will receive.

Why?

That your joy may be full.

Because you know what?

If your joy is full, you'll go to the Father more, you'll go to the Father more willingly, you'll go to the Father for increased joy over and against those circumstantial joys, those quick fixes.

The Father Himself loves you.

When you are weak and burdened and full of sorrow, do you not think that your Father runs to comfort you?

When you are weighed down with sin and shame, do you not think that even in his heart he longs to restore and strengthen?

When your flesh is weak, and you again fall asleep praying?

Do you not think that he looks down at you like a father would look at any infant asleep on his lap with love Sons?

You sons of the Father here this morning.

Your father is not displeased with you in Jesus' name.

His heart is open to you.

He longs to make you strong and courageous.

Daughters, the Father's heart is open to you in the name of Jesus.

You are precious in his sight because of his son.

His opinion of you is secure and unchanging.

His love for you is immovable.

Is following Jesus through pain worth it for this Father's love for you?

Finally.

It is indestructible joy.

It is the joy of access to a Father who lavishes love and joy upon you.

And then finally, it is joy despite frailty.

Jesus tells his disciples that the time has uh come.

He tells them plainly that he has come from the Father and that he is returning to the Father by the way of cross and resurrection.

And his disciples uh respond, Ah, now we believe.

Got it.

And Jesus responds to them in a, I guess, uh, I don't know whether it's kind of tongue-in-cheek or kind of kind of gentle, loving rebuke, he said, he says to them.

Uh where uh where is it?

I didn't write down the thing.

Uh he says, um, verse 31, Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?

Behold, the hour is coming.

Indeed, it has come, when you will be scattered each to his own home and you will leave me alone.

Jesus responds here in a similar way, you might remember it.

So how he responds to uh to Peter back at the end of chapter 13.

Do you remember that?

Uh that's just after the foot washing.

And Peter says, I will never I will follow you to the end.

I will lay down my life for you.

And Jesus says, Will you lay down your life for me?

Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow until you have denied me three times.

He again points out their frailty.

They're about to abandon Jesus.

They're about to be scattered.

Why does he do this?

He's just being slightly cruel.

Well, in part it's because he's again proving his authority over all of these circumstances.

One of the things that you need to grapple with is the fact that nothing is happening here that is outside of Jesus' control.

The crucifixion is not the sorry, petty end of a promising career.

Jesus is in full authority, and he's expressing that by predicting what's about to happen in about two hours' time.

But there's something else going on.

Jesus has just promised them indestructible joy, a joy that comes from knowing the love of the Father for them, that with every answered prayer their joy will increase until it is full.

He has made these promises to them, even though he knew that they would forsake him in a few hours' time.

Jesus makes this promise to disciples who he knows are fickle and frail, and whose faith is about to falter.

How much more is that not going to be true of you, weak and weary Christian, beset with that habitual sin, and you think, how could I have done that again?

Surely these promises cannot be true of me.

The disciples are about to, well, one of them is about to betray him.

Another is about to deny him, and all the rest are going to run away.

And yet he still says to the eleven, I'm going to give you indestructible joy.

I'm going to give you access to the Father.

The Father loves you.

Is that not astounding?

This is the gospel of grace.

This is what grace is.

Grace, we define grace often as undeserved kindness.

But it's not quite that.

It's ill-deserved kindness.

You know what the difference is?

The difference is that if uh Floren there, uh who's listening intently, if I because he's because he's been listening so well all the way through, if I went up and uh got out my wallet and gave to what have I got here?

I've got I've got a 20.

You take a 20, right?

You got a 20.

That would be undeserved kindness because let me assure you, Florine has done nothing to deserve it.

But if Florine got up and smacked me across the face and uh got my coffee and threw it in my wife's face, and I still got out my wallet, and I said, Here's the twenty Florine.

That would be ill-deserved kindness, right?

Because he deserves the opposite.

The disciples have just are about to abandon Jesus.

One will deny him three times, and yet Jesus shows them grace.

It's not just undeserved, it's ill-deserved.

This is the gospel of grace.

Joy for the deserter, love for the fickle, a home forever for those who run and hide in fear.

The psalmist says that God knows our frame.

Says he knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust.

What strength or resolve is there in dust?

We would all run.

You would run, and I would run.

We would all leave him.

We would all stand by that fire with Peter and deny him.

We would all cower in fear.

And it is grace that restores us, grace that brings us home, grace that grants us joy and access to the Father.

Is it worth it?

If it was down to your strength, you might well answer no.

But if it's grace, if it's his unmerited, ill-deserved kindness to you that you are relying on, which is sustaining you, don't give up.

Don't conclude that it is not worth it.

So Jesus finishes with a final exhortation and encouragement.

The exhortation is this He says, In this world you will have trouble.

Verse 33.

I have said these things to you that in me you have peace.

In the world you will have trouble, tribulation.

He's looking at the disciples saying, the pain's real.

He's also looking at them and saying, get ready.

You're about to go into labor.

The labor pains are coming.

We're about to go outside, and it's all going to kick off.

It's all about to happen in a little while.

You'll see me no longer.

In this life, you will have trouble.

The pain is real.

The labor pains are here.

Creation groans, we're told in Romans 8.

Suffering breaks like waves again and again over the bow of our little boats.

And you cannot escape it.

It is wrong to think that the Christian life is only one of temporal, material victory, that it is only one of health and material prosperity.

Some Christians live lives of utter poverty, get cancer, and die, and then enter into indestructible joy.

And they enter into it and they say that it was worth it.

That's why Paul would say in Romans 8 that I do not consider the sufferings of this world worthy to be compared with the glory that awaits us.

You must set your suffering in the context of eternity.

You must set your pain in the context of what God is doing.

And that ten billion billion years in the future, somebody will come to you and say, didn't that happen to you in the old earth?

And you look and go, oh yeah.

I'd forgotten that.

Suffering now.

It's real, but it's time bound.

But it's also giving birth to something greater.

In this world you will have trouble.

But take heart.

I have overcome the world.

What a thing.

What a thing that the glorious Lord Jesus might say.

I have overcome the world.

That is what Jesus' death achieved.

He's saying it now in the past tense because it's so certain that it's going to happen.

He's about to go to the cross, but he said, I've overcome the world.

I have overcome it.

That is what his death achieves.

The world, because of its sin, is rotten and riddled with suffering and death.

But Jesus' death for sin triumphs over that old order and it will pass away.

And he will make all things new.

So, Christian, weary, Christian, don't give up.

Don't say that it's not worth it.

Take heart.

Jesus has overcome the world for you.

For us.

The labor pains are real.

But they are purposeful.

They are giving birth to an indestructible joy.

Run to the Father.

Know his love.

Experience the joy of having your prayers heard and according to his wise and good pleasure answered.

Run to him.

And know a joy that no amount of suffering can take away from you.

Let's just take a moment of silence.

In the silence and seatedness, my invitation to you is while you're seated, to run.

While you're sitting here in the quiet, call out to the Father in your heart.

Know his love.

Ask him to fill you with that indestructible joy.

Come to him.

Bring to him your pain.

And ask him to comfort and to assure you of his love for you.

In Jesus' name.

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