Wednesday morning, November 9, 2016, I walked out of lodging on Tyndall AFB in Florida to go to coffee with an chaplain friend.
I said, “How you are doing?”
He said, “Terrible!”
He was clearly distressed…”What happened?”
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Trump won.” He said with anger and digust.
I had given up the night before on watching the election and had gone to sleep, and to be honest I had the long day ahead of me on my mind when I woke up…not the election results.
We got coffee and then went to our first meeting of the day.
He paused outside the office and said, “I’m not going in there.”
Again, confused, I said, “Why?”
I looked in the door and saw that the commander’s secretary had a trump victory sign above her desk…it was fine, he was soon to be commander in chief.
I patted him on the back, he was a very senior AF chaplain, and said, “We are chaplains for everyone my friend” and he grudgingly followed me in.
Feel what you feel about the election, but I will tell you how to think about it…or rather I’ll let Peter do that.
“Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.” 1 Peter 1:13
What is the, therefore…there for?
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
“Therefore, (because of all that)
Get your mind ready…set your hope fully
The election is important, and either way it goes…there will be consequences in the years to come.
But we must think correctly, and we must hope correctly about it and its outcomes…whatever you feel about those outcomes.
If you follow Christ…you have to watch where your hopes are set.
Today we are in John, Chapter 16…Jesus final instructions to his disciples on his last night before the cross.
Verse 1 “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. “
The “all these things” is what Jim preached last week…trouble is coming for them.
2 They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. 3 And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 4 But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you
Jesus did not clearly spell out all the coming dangers of persecution prior to this time because he was with them.
He could largely absorb and shield them from abuse.
Now he was going away, and they needed to be ready to stand up themselves.
5 But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’
This is confusing on the face of it because Peter and Thomas, that very night, had asked…”Where are you going?”
Frequently when I am hanging out with my four-year-old grandson (Jo) and it is time for me to leave he will say, and it happened last week…”Aw, where are you going?”
He doesn’t care where I am going, he is protesting my going…he wants me to stay.
This is what happened here.
The gospels demonstrate that the disciples had no idea what Jesus was actually up to all the way to the cross and beyond.
Jesus is saying here…you guys are not even asking the right questions; you are not going to be ready for what is about to happen.
6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
There it is…they are sad about his going…but confused about what is actually going on.
7 Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
It is not that the Spirit couldn’t minister while Jesus was present, but that the saving plan of God promised through the ages…was to be put into full effect when Jesus has died, risen, and returned to the glory he enjoyed before his incarnation.
There was to be no, “Remember the good old days when Jesus was walking around with us?”
And we can’t think, “If only I had been there and had seen Jesus myself…it would be easier to believe, or to be faithful.”
Nope, Jesus said…”The good old days are coming.”
The days when the Spirit comes, when millions come to saving faith in the Lord Jesus and are empowered to walk in his freedom in the kingdom of God.
And what will the Spirit do when he comes?
Three things all tied together in revealing the gospel.
8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; 11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
The Spirit will continue the work of Jesus but in more expansive ways.
- He will convict people of sin because they do not believe in Jesus…because if they did believe in him, they would believe his words about their guilt and turn to him.
It is his kindness that leads people to repentance from their sin.
Sorrow over sin is a grace gift…we must not run from, medicate, or deny our sin…we must be forgiven and freed from it.
- He will convict the world of righteousness because Jesus has gone to the Father.
Is 64:6, the prophet writes in graphic fashion “all the worlds righteousness are like a menstrual cloth.”
This is how much worth there is in human efforts to be made right with God.
All through John there has been the “righteousness of humans” in opposition to the Lord Jesus.
For instance, Jesus healed a man who was paralyzed for over 30 years, and they said that he had violated human rules of “righteousness”
Such is the upside-down world of human thinking.
What does it mean to be “right with God”.
It is through faith in Christ alone, and that faith will show up in love for others.
Jesus said, they will know you are mine when you love one another.
He is leaving and sending the Spirit.
This powerful work of demonstrating true righteousness will be primarily the work of the Spirit through the Church, God’s people.
The Spirit will convict the world of what this looks like, through your lives.
- Finally, the Spirit will convict of judgment because Satan stands judged.
Jesus said in chapter 7,
“Stop judging in mere outward appearances and make a right judgment.” (7:24)
Jesus’ judgement is right and true, and the world’s is perverse and upside down.
This perverse judgment comes from the father and inventor of lies, as Jesus called him, Satan. (8:42-487)
His defeat will begin on the cross and be finalized in the empty tomb…his lies will have been exposed and he will be judged by Christ’s victory.
We sit here on the other side of the resurrection and the coming of the Spirit and the giving of the finalized New Testament.
The disciples are walking with Jesus in the dark night of his betrayal, and it is about to get much darker.
What happens next would look like total defeat and the end of all that they had hoped for.
They will scatter like defeated cowards.
These are the ones Jesus has selected to build his church.
He knows it is about to get really bad, before it gets good.
Satan himself had to be surprised by what is coming.
How could this be? How could he not see what was coming, knowing who Jesus is?
Because evil and pride, makes you stupid…he is clearly an intelligent being…but evil refuses to see what is obviously true.
Ask Hitler as armies closed in on him from the east and the west and he sat in his dark bunker, mind twisted by drugs and sin…refusing to believe until the last moments what was true…he was judged.
Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe
Lewis paints a vivid picture of the victory of Christ over Satan…and Satan’s surprise.
Aslan is the Christ figure, and the Witch represents Satan.
“And now, who has won? (mocked the witch) Fool, did you think that by all this you would save the human traitor? Now I will kill you instead of him as our pact was and so the Deep Magic will be appeased. But when you are dead what will prevent me from killing him as well? And who will take him out of my hand then? Understand that you have given me Narnia forever, you have lost your own life, and you have not saved his. In that knowledge, despair and die.”
Of course, after Aslan is killed he is raised from the dead.
The children ask the resurrected Aslan what it all means.
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time…”
..then, the great beast flung himself upon the White Witch. Lucy saw her face lifted toward him for one second with an expression of terror and amazement.”
Remember this when you look around and see evil apparently prevailing…Jesus said, “The ruler of the world is judged.”
Satan is called for now, “ruler of the world” but his days of terror are numbered.
Christ has come, Christ will return…we live in the already/not yet kingdom.
All this was confusing to the disciples at that time…
But clarity was coming, and the Spirit would bring it…but their confusion would increase before the clarity came.
12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.
These words are spoken directly to the disciples and their situation at the time…please don’t try to over apply them to yourself.
The Spirit would continue, in the days to come, to unpack for them what Jesus had said and done.
We have the finished New Testament…if you go looking for the “Spirit to guide you” apart from the words of the Bible into all truth.
…you will be led by your own foolish desires and your own mind into heresy or just into doing something dumb.
I’ve seen it, over and over.
You can apply these words to yourself like this, “Spirit please guide me, help understand the truth of your written word.”
Read the Bible, not your circumstances to know God’s will for your life.
I have heard of people saying things like, “I turned around and didn’t go because I had four red lights in a row.”
Or “I got sick on the day before I was supposed to have surgery or an interview, it was a sign.”
What you know for sure is that you had four red lights and that you got sick.
Circumstances matter…but don’t try to read them like signs or like stars in some horoscope.
Read the Bible not circumstances to know the will and ways of God.
AND
Read the Bible not your own internal feelings to know God’s will for your life.
“I didn’t feel peace about it.”
Okay, what you know for sure is that you didn’t feel something.
“Should I ignore circumstances?” “Or my feelings of peace of lack thereof?”
No, that would be foolish…just give them the weight they are due.
They must not outweigh…wise counsel, plain old wisdom and then above all… What does Scripture say?
People have misapplied this verse and have gotten weird and have done harm…please don’t do that.
Verse 16 is confusing for them in the moment but in a few days it’s meaning will become clear.
16 “A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.”
Jesus is referring to his soon coming death and resurrection…but they don’t get it.
17 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’?” 18 So they were saying, “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about.”
For us they might seem dense, but they had no category to make sense of a Messiah who would be killed and rise from the dead and send the Spirit.
Jesus knows they won’t fully understand yet, but he casts a vision for joy beyond the coming darkness.
19 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’? 20 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.
This is exactly what happened in the terrible days after the crucifixion (sorry)…then on the wonderful day of the resurrection(sorrow turned to joy).
Truly, truly…means pay attention fellas!
He then gives then an everyday parable to describe the sorrow and joy they will experience.
21 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. 22 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.
If some mother out there says, Jesus is wrong “I remember the anguish” she is missing the Lord’s bigger point.
What is most often true is that as terrible as the pain of childbirth can be, even greater is the joy of the birth of the child.
Jesus is giving them a mental hook…both for the next few days and then on to the end of their lives.
There is the double meaning of the already/not yet embedded in this story.
They will have pain turned to joy in the days to come…as Jesus is killed and then raised from the dead.
They will also have pain turned to joy over the course of their lives and into death…as they experience persecution and trouble in the days following the resurrection up until the end of their lives.
We too must remember this parable as we experience the troubles of this life,
Troubles that Paul says are “light and momentary” compared to the eternal weight of glory that is coming after them.
We rejoice, already in the resurrection.
We still have sorrow because of ongoing sin in the world and in our own lives.
We rejoice in our future hope, the Lord’s return and all things made right.
Let’s go on…
23 In that day you will ask nothing of me. (This means that he will be gone from them in physical presence, ) Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you. 24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
“That day” is all the time between his resurrection and return.
Now, Jesus is not going to be physically present to ask him for and about things…but we can go to the Father in Jesus name.
This is not a sort of magic incantation…you don’t have to literally say it after every prayer.
But every prayer must be prayed for Jesus’ sake…in his name.
This is not just about asking “for” things it is also asking “about” things.
The words used here can go either way.
The disciples had frequently asked Jesus “about things”…”Why, when, how?”
The answers to many of their questions were going to be answered in the days to come…things would finally begin to make sense…though some things would take years to unfold.
They had also asked Jesus “for things” but now they would ask the Father “in Jesus’ name.”
This is new…something is changing now that Jesus is returning to the father.
Now the one who had suffered in every way just as we have…has returned to his place of glory with the Father.
We can pray in Jesus’ name, for Jesus’ sake, in full confidence that God’s glory in our lives is God’s will for our lives.
This is a concise reiteration of chapter 15.
“We ask for Jesus’ sake and as we live surrendered lives, wanting what God wants for our lives, we will live in Jesus’ joy.”
Verse 25
“I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech. A time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but I will tell you plainly about the Father. On that day you will ask in my name, and I am not telling 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.”
Here the what the Lord is saying,
“I’m not setting up some formal chain of command where from now on you can’t go directly to the big guy, it has to come through my office.”
Jesus is the mediator; that means he provides the way for us to have relationship with God.
But we can go directly to the Father ourselves.
The Triune God is in view here…our relationship is with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is amazing, a great privilege.
I had a question from upstairs last week, “What did God do before he made the world?”
Insightful question…it probably came from the mind of young man who knows what it means to be bored.
We are contingent beings…we depend on things outside of ourselves in order to survive and thrive.
God is the only fully independent being that exists…since he is Triune…three persons in one being, he didn’t need others in order to experience and express his love and personhood.
He doesn’t need someone or something to keep in alive…or to give him purpose, or joy.
What did he “do”…he enjoyed being God, he thrived in community, he expressed his love, creativity and power in ways we can’t imagine.
Maybe he made another cosmos…I don’t know…but he wasn’t bored or lonely.
He didn’t NEED to make the cosmos…he was forever a loving, joyful, perfect Trinity.
We are invited into relationship with the Triune God…we are invited into his joy.
I joy that needs nothing else but God.
I joy that is not contingent…it is independent of all circumstances.
We won’t fully get to this kind of joy this side of heaven…but we should be increasingly growing in it.
29 His disciples said, “Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech! 30 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.” 31
Verse 29 is a little pathetic.
They say, “Oh, I get it now.”
No, you don’t, and you won’t, not yet.
And they reveal just how limited their understanding has been and still is.
“Now we believe that you came from God.”
Just now? Really?
No, they really didn’t understand, and they really don’t believe yet what he has come to do.
Some translations have “You believe at last!” as if Jesus is saying, “Hooray, you finally get it.”
The better translations show that this is exasperation not congratulation.
Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 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.
Peter has already been warned of his coming failure, now they are all told that they will fail.
No, you don’t really understand or believe…you will all scatter.
What are we to do with, “I am not alone, for the Father is with me.” in light of Jesus cry recorded by Mark (15:34) “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Some have argued that Jesus felt abandoned but wasn’t actually abandoned by his Father.
It’s a mistake to attempt to psychoanalyze the Lord and attribute the agony of his bearing our sin on the cross to a mere feeling.
Two different things are going on:
-Here… John is contrasting the fickleness of Jesus’ followers with the faithfulness of his Father.
God the Son and God the Father, enjoyed an eternally close relationship.
Jesus was confident of that eternal relationship.
-On the cross, Paul wrote, God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 cor. 5:21)
This is not a feeling, Jesus in fact, bore our sins, and experienced separation.
But when Jesus cried out on the cross he isn’t saying, “Why have you left me forever.”
He knew he was going to Father, look back at verse 10 in this chapter.
He knew he would rise again, look back at 2:19
And it was for the “joy set before him” that Jesus endured the cross…Hebrews tells us.
He cried, “My God why have you forsaken me”…as a quote from Psalm 22
It was not a real question; he knew he had come to die for our sins…he knew “why” (Mark 10:45).
In Psalm 22, the forsaken one was eventually rescued and the cry of desolation turned into a cry of praise…read it sometime.
Jesus knew this Psalm and its context and intentionally used it for this time.
It was a cry of real anguish in bearing the sins of the world and a confident faith in God who will ultimately deliver him.
With that in mind…listen to the Lord’s words of comfort to his confused and soon to be more confused friends.
I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
Jesus knows their failure is coming but he also sees past that to their restoration.
He is casting a vision for them that they will hear on that dark night but only eventually understand on Easter morning and beyond.
“These things” refers to all he has taught them on this long night.
Here again…is the two worlds we live in… the “already/not yet”
In the world you will have tribulation (trouble)
Take heart (do not let your heart be troubled) …I have overcome the world.
The overcoming here is “his” not “ours”.
He has, conquered the world (and its prince) in opposition to God and God’s people.
Now…choose to take heart…as you do, you can live in his peace.
They would be overcome; they would fail to take heart…but they would then receive the Spirit and become men who would live and die for the truth.
In the world you will have trouble…do not let your hearts be troubled…I have overcome the world.
Feel what you feel…believe what it is real.
If you are tempted to be overjoyed by the election returns this week…that’s fine…but remember where you are to fully set your hope.
If you are tempted to be overly dismayed by the election returns…remember where you are to fully set your hope.
This is true for reports of cancer or all clear.
A good friend, another chaplain, retired from the army…received a terrible cancer diagnosis and underwent difficult surgery this past Thursday.
He had hoped for a better diagnosis…but as we have communicated back and forth this much is clear…he has set his ultimate hopes on the Lord Jesus…not a good physical diagnosis.
This is true for all kinds of troubles and joys in our lives…these things matter and of course we hope and grieve and rejoice in all the outcomes…this is our lives, this is the live of people we love.
The Lord rejoiced and grieved…but it was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross.
We must make sure we remember where our hope and ultimate joy is to be fully and finally set.
To live otherwise won’t keep us from suffering…it just means that we will suffer without hope and probably without any real joy.