John 16:25-33

Hey, everybody, thanks for joining us.

Grateful to have you with us as we continue through the Gospel of John.

Today we're picking up in the 16th chapter, 25th verse.

We'll read through the end of the chapter, come back and,

go through a little more slowly.

I've said these things to you in figures of speech.

The hour is coming.

When I will no longer speak to you in figures.

But I will tell you plainly of the father.

On that day you will ask in my name.

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 again.

I am leaving the world and going to the father.

His disciples said yes.

Now you are speaking plainly, not in any figure of speech.

Now we know that you know all things

and do not need to have anyone question you.

By this we believe that you came from God.

Jesus answered them.

Do you now believe the hour is coming?

Indeed, it has come when you will be scattered,

each one of you, to his own home, and you will leave me alone.

Yet I am

not alone, because the father is with me.

I have said this to you, so that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will face persecution.

But take courage.

I have overcome the world.

So as we move

into this part of the text, and again, a place where I would say, John

shows a tendency to kind of repeat himself or in Jesus.

The Jesus words in John are often repetitive here.

Jesus says, you know, I'll no longer speak.

I'm going to speak plainly to you.

That's coming.

Ironically enough, I don't find those words particularly plain.

But the disciples say yes.

Finally.

Now you're speaking in in plain words, not in a figure of speech.

Now we know what you're talking about.

And then, of course, Jesus says, well, you think you do.

But today, the time is coming where you're all going to sort of abandon me.

I've confessed this before, Michael.

These are the moments

I don't always know exactly what to do with the Gospel of John.

It seems to me that the takeaway here is twofold.

That just as we saw yesterday, that

a time of joy is coming.

So is a time of understanding.

So is a time of clarity, and that

the work of the spirit will continue

to work, to make Jesus plain

and to help translate and help followers of Jesus understand.

And later on, when we build Presbyterian

and Reformed theology, we are ancestors.

Those would be very important concepts to them that not only does

the spirit move us to know Christ, but it helps us discern

and understand what it means to know Christ and to follow him.

And I suppose some of that may be foreshadowed here.

So the reality is that if you were reading this

scripture outside of this study, that it's highly likely

that you get into this section late chapter 16, also some of 17,

where I do think that Jesus's words

and the lessons do become somewhat undulating,

but the image that comes to mind for me is like a wave, and it's like it

just kind of keeps coming up to a cross to then comes back down.

And I think it is very easy when reading John to get put on autopilot,

because Jesus starts saying things and those things start to sound

a little similar

to what you've heard before, but maybe it's a little different,

and then you just keep plowing through it, and before long you find yourselves

kind of reading really quickly and skipping things.

I think that this section, it would be very much subject to that as well.

This, this idea about speaking and figures of speech,

and then the disciples saying, hey, now you're not.

Oh, now we get it when the reality is that they,

Jesus, is going to follow up and say, you.

You may understand it in some way, but you clearly are not going to understand

fully because there's going to be this hour of persecution.

There's going to be a moment of you being scattered.

I think one way to engage a text like this and to recognize

what Jesus is doing

and how John is relaying that to us

is, for me, somewhat akin to like a children's sermon

in a worship service where you have the kids come up front

and someone might be teaching them a lesson, but simultaneously,

everyone in the congregation is listening to that.

They're they're listening in, they're overhearing that

conversation with the kids.

And so the thing that is being delivered ostensibly to these kids

is also being overheard and delivered to to the whole.

And I get the sense, Clint, that that John wants

these words of Jesus known by everyone.

Right.

Like this is very clearly being broadcast in the gospel itself.

So the idea that the disciples do or don't get

it seems to me to be less important than the fact that Jesus

is making explicitly clear that the hour is coming.

The scattering is yet to have happened, and ultimately, Jesus

is going to be made alone, that the church is going to experience persecution,

that there will need to be courage, taken up in the days to come.

This is then in that frame, if you're willing to look at it

in that way, that this text becomes

a kind of prophetic insight as to what will happen,

and a promise from Jesus that even when it happens, even

when you're surprised by the scattering and the persecution, take heart.

A be people of courage.

I've already conquered the world.

There's a kind of, I think, overhearing of what Jesus said that night,

so that the church later could understand its implications

for what is going to happen well beyond this night.

I think you can see that if you follow the text, Mark,

I mean, you just you walk through this as the reader, right?

That the hours coming.

I'm telling you, I'm from the father.

I want you to believe that there's a sense in which the reader could say, well,

I already believe that.

I know that I accept that this gospel has told me that

45 times already.

Right? Yeah.

And then the voice of the disciples say, yes, we get it.

And Jesus says, be careful,

because when you think you understand,

you're going to be tested, you're going to be scattered and

there's an almost sermon like

quality to this, a warning for the rest of us that we should exercise

extreme caution whenever

we think we get Jesus, whenever we think

we have Jesus figured out,

it is a very likely,

almost certainly

we find ourselves falling short of that.

And I, I think

that's not the way the text is presented.

But for those of us who come later knowing the whole story and read it,

I think it's one of the places it challenges us to make sure that

we understand that there's always

another aspect of Jesus that we haven't yet seen.

There's always another challenge to our faith.

There's always another step forward in our discipleship.

We've never arrived and as we hear in microcosm,

Jesus tell the disciples that I think that same word lands on each of us.

I do think and you mentioned this already, the reformed tradition,

which is where we're rooted,

is going to be particularly connected, I think, to this teaching

because of the way that it functions in the text.

I really do believe that there is a kind of gift here

that Jesus is teaching these disciples,

a very

difficult thing, which they want to understand, but clearly

they cannot grasp the whole, breadth of it.

There's a kind of honesty about the fact that humans are finite,

that humans, because of our lack of imagination

and because of our lack of faith and because of our guilt and sinfulness

and all these things that that we are at at our core,

not faithful interpreters of everything that we have been told.

And I think that this text, in a very real way, is honest about that.

Jesus, you know, goes out of his way to say,

even though you will be scattered, you will leave me alone.

I'm not alone because the father is with me.

There's a kind of grace in that.

There's a kind of forward looking forgiveness

right there, even though you all are going to leave me alone.

Don't worry.

I'm not alone. The father is with me.

And then what's going to follow here in chapter 17,

the next text immediately after this and this just flows one to the other,

is Jesus is going to advocate to the father on behalf of the disciples.

Jesus is literally going to pray

for these fallible, broken, don't always get it right.

Discip pulls and that matters, right?

Jesus both knows our frame.

He knows that were weak. He knows that we're human.

He's not ashamed of that.

He's not surprised by that.

He is just going to go to the father and pray.

He's going to send an advocate, each going to pray to the father on our behalf.

This is the kind of accommodation that Jesus is making for the disciples.

And I think this text, maybe, you know,

you may not say that in explicit sort of language,

but in terms of the way that it functions in the Gospel of John,

I think that's one meaning you could take from it.

I, I think this is related.

I so follow me here, Michael, you I think you're probably a little better

with the Gospel of John than I am, but I think this last verse here,

it gives us an insight into how it is that John

writes this book.

So he's just said, you'll leave me alone, you'll be scattered,

and you will leave me alone.

But I'm not alone because the father is with me.

And then the very next verse, as I've said this to you, so that you may have peace.

Well, I, I think you have to understand, John,

doesn't mean the thing Jesus just said.

John means this whole

two chapters we've been looking at, right, that that there's persecution

coming to love one another, to find

joy, really probably a better

I don't know

about translation, but maybe a better presentation would be

I have said these things to you in order

that you may have peace in the world.

You face persecution, but take courage.

I have conquered the world.

That is a beautiful verse and beautiful sentiment,

but it's out of step with the verse that immediately precedes it.

And I think that is one of the tricky part of John.

John is often

combining things and

and chunking things together in a way that you, you just have to be aware of.

Because if you read this and you think it's the thing

Jesus just said, it doesn't make sense.

You'll be scattered.

You're all going to leave me.

But I'm telling you that so you can have peace.

Well, that that's not at all what Jesus means.

We know that isn't what Jesus means from the broader context

that we've been working our way through.

And I, I just think it's the kind of thing that John does

that you need to be aware of.

If it to help even out

some of the rough spots of the way that he writes.

I well, there's also a really helpful tool in Bible study,

I think, is when the author goes out of their way to explicitly tell you

what the effect of these words should be, that that should not be pass by.

And here we have that in verse 33, I have said this to you, so that.

Right, that should jump off the page either.

So if you went on the autopilot at some point previous,

and now you get to the so that you should tune in here.

Right?

We should be razor focused so that in me

you can have peace in the world you're going to face persecution.

But take courage.

I've come to the world peace and courage.

These are the outcomes

that Jesus is saying is going to happen because of this teaching.

That becomes a very helpful North Star in the interpretive work of the text.

What Jesus is saying here is supposed to work within us peace and courage.

Well, what does I have to say about the context?

Probably that the disciples would tend towards fear instead of peace

and that they would have a moment in which their courage would flag,

when they might actually feel like they wouldn't have the courage

for the moment, that that is a critical component

of understanding the larger thing that John is relaying

to us through these teachings of Jesus, that at the end of the day,

this should inspire within us the awareness

that no matter the tumult or the trial, or no matter how weak we might feel

at this moment, peace and courage are with us because of Jesus Christ,

because he's provided that for us, that,

you know, he's given us this teaching.

We have belief.

I you know, and that's the thing that John does that I find so interesting

as an interpreter, when when we have this, you're now speaking plainly.

We know that you know all things.

We don't need anyone to come with any more questions.

Well, the John is saying that.

And yet we know that that because of the way John's told this story,

the disciples don't have all of their questions answered.

They would love to come to Jesus with more questions.

I think that brings with it its own form of anxiety.

Not knowing the fact that Jesus is completely always subverting

the expectations.

The disciples think that that they should be able to have

is not going to lead them naturally to courage.

What? What is Jesus say?

I am telling you, even when you're scattered, I am not alone.

God the Father is with me.

The great good news is that I've told you this,

so that when it happens,

you will have peace, so that you know, even in the face of persecution,

you will have courage.

You know there is an outcome that is being led here.

All right. Sorry.

That's not a good way to say that there's an outcome that John is leading us

to through the path that Jesus is taking the disciples.

And I think if you can see where the outcome is, it

helps shed light on the path that came before.

Right?

And that is anchored in Jesus victory.

I have conquered the world.

And because that is true, Jesus implies

that that's where the disciples will find peace.

Courage.

If we read back into yesterday's text, they will find joy.

It is in the work of Jesus.

It is not in the world.

And John is very adamant about that, that

what we find in Christ, we cannot find in the world.

The world is against the things of Christ.

That's how John uses the term world here.

John is not anti people.

He's not anti humanity.

But when he uses the word world, he has in mind

those parts of human experience and those parts of humanity

that are opposed to what God is doing in Jesus Christ.

But for those of us who understand, for those of us

who might even be bold enough to say with the disciples, we get it now.

Yeah, the result is because Jesus has conquered.

We find the courage and the peace and the joy to live our life,

even when life is difficult and the world pushes back on the faith.

And, that that's a wonderful series of connections that John helps us make.

I'm not going to steal.

I'll save this for tomorrow.

But it's important when you see a text transitioning

like this, I've conquered the world.

And then after he says this, then he begins the prayer.

I think it's really important that we really make this connection here,

that ultimately that this is all one thing,

that Jesus has conquered the world

and the hour is coming, which is what we're going to transition to tomorrow,

that Jesus is setting into motion the end of all things.

Clinton, I you've said this so many times throughout this study

that Jesus isn't surprised by the events in this book,

and Jesus institutes the hours within this book.

This is even the theme of light and darkness is connected to that idea.

And so it's important that we recognize here when Jesus says,

I've conquered the world, he he is leading us into a cosmic secret.

He's showing us cosmic revelation of what God is doing in him.

And then there's this awareness that Jesus then, having

said, this, is now going to institute the turning of the time.

He's going to begin the process of his glorification.

He's going to institute the scattering because of his actions in some ways.

And I think there's a kind of there's a kind of accommodation to go back

to that word that we started with today of our human inability to see the whole.

Jesus accommodates that by looking ahead and telling us what will be the case,

so that when that comes, the witness that we have

will be deeply rooted in him and not the world will.

We will have his understanding of what this all means,

as opposed to what the world is going to interpret it to be, which is,

you know, in the case of persecution, these Christians are backwards.

These Christians are worshiping, foreign God.

They're doing these horrible rituals, which is the things levied

against the first generation of Christians.

No, Jesus predicts the persecution.

And he says, even when I look alone, I'm never alone.

I've conquered the world.

So I there's a lot happening here.

And, you know, I don't want to go further than that.

Yeah.

I just maybe leave one word here in verse 33.

I've said this to you so that in me you will have peace.

And I think that's a vital word for Christians.

Peace, as we understand it in

the gospel, is not found in the world.

It's not found in military, it's not found in money

or security or possessions or job.

Peace, biblically speaking, is found in Christ and in his work.

And it there may be other moments of peacefulness,

but as we understand peace as disciples,

it is found at really alone

in Jesus, in Christ alone.

That is the place that we look for peace,

and the only place that we would truly find it.

That we may be closing out. Chapter 16.

But we have, no belief

that we've in any way comprehensively covered this chapter.

If this study,

this section has been meaningful for you, certainly give this video a like,

certainly go down to the comments

and let us know if you have thoughts or questions.

But friends, you subscribe because we will continue.

Tomorrow we'll turn the page to chapter 17.

We'll continue this study through John together

and look forward to seeing you then. Thanks, everybody.