True Joy in Jesus

Main Idea: You will face troubles, but Jesus will give you peace, and the Spirit Will Guide You.

Over this past week I helped my parents child proof our house and as you can see my siblings somehow got back inside

Did you hear about the coffee that filed the police report? poor thing got mugged

Bible Passage: John 16:23–33

ME: A story about when you had to rely on God through prayer.

Around 7 years ago i moved into a new town and the church had basically no one my age, mostly due to the fact i was put into the children’s church where a lot of the people where 4+ years younger then me. as a lot of you know i’m very social so that move was very hard on me because i dropped from a church with 10+ kids my age in the children’s church to one with no more then 3 and they all were in the youth or didn’t go to Sunday school. I ended up being sad for the first while of being there because i felt so alone with no one to talk to. I ended up staying up late into the night praying nearly every night that Jesus would end up giving me more friends or someone to talk to. eventually, i got that peace in that turmoil i was in. I was invited into the church’s Youth group when i turned 12 and it had easily 12+ people and despite most of them being older then me they all were so kind and caring. to this day i still consider many of the friends i made there family. My situation didn’t change over night, It took nearly a year and a half for that to happen, but God was there the entire time guiding me and he gave me that peace. He allowed relationships to come into my life and help build into my joy

While the Trouble and strife in your life might be a lot heavier then what i dealt with. such as barely scrapping by pay check to pay check; maybe you don’t know what bill to pay or food to buy to make you last till next week. maybe you have a sickness thats slowly eating at your health, that you just pray to be over or your health to be returned. or you could be watching a family member drift from the faith, just left wondering if they will see Jesus’s light again. even in these harder moments we can still look towards Jesus for peace. let us look at the scripture today and see what it says we should do in situations like these.

1. Prayerful Promises of Peace

john 16 23 says

John 16:23 ESV

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.

You may have heard preachers who preach the prosperity Gospel say this verse means you can pray that God would give you a million dollars and he would give you that. But this is not what this verse is saying. What this verse is really saying is pray for what lines up with jesus and his plan for you.

An example of this is how i am being called into ministry, how’ve i’ve been praying for stuff involving this, such as “God help me be able to get through school work so i can go to the college i wanna go to for youth pastoring,” or a second example is how i’ve prayed to God for help with getting the words to write this sermon. SO I am praying for things in line with God’s plan and purpose for my life.

as a second thing you can tell how important this message is because of the double truly that Jesus uses. He uses it to show the importance because one truly isn’t enough he is trying to get his disciples attention on how important what’s coming next is going to be. When you look at

John 16:24 (ESV)

24 Until now you have asked nothing in my name…

Jesus is telling his disciples they have yet to pray in His name. Up to this point they have prayed to God, but not invoked the name of Jesus. So now, Jesus is telling them, they need to pray through Him to get to the Father.

Sometimes, we are guilty of this. We get ourselves into a tight spot, or in a difficult situation and we try to do it all on our own. We face trouble and think, I’ve got this… but look at what Jesus says in the rest of the verse.

John 16:24 (ESV)

24 … Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.

This builds on what Jesus said in the first half of the verse, Jesus has just told us to ask in his name. He goes back to what we learned at the beginning of todays scripture and says if we ask, we will receive. You can see he has repeated this idea again, and this helps to show how important what he is saying is.

This verse also acts as encouragement, because Jesus is telling us if we ask in his name, not only will it bring us joy, but our joy will be made full.

Its important to notice, how he says Joy and not happiness, that is because joy comes from the Lord, and happiness comes from circumstances.

Circumstances can change, so that means your happiness can change.

For example, due to the season just passing. Christmas, is always a great time of happiness especially for kids. Because seeing a bunch of new gifts and toys will make children really easily happy but over weeks or months the kids might not play with the gifts as much slowly losing the happiness gained from the new gifts. just like last year, i gained concert tickets to my favorite band and it brought me great happiness all the way up to going to the concert, but after that, the happiness started to fade till now where im just yearning to go to another concert.

But because our Joy comes from the Lord, Joy doesn’t change because the Lord doesn’t change.

What that means, is even in face of trials and hardships you can be joyful, because Jesus gives us peace, and the Holy Spirit guides us.

This is why you see people who even going through the hardest times of their life they are still smiling and joyful because they have Jesus. And thats not always easy, but holding on to this joy in Jesus is what drives us through it.

The best example i have of this is my grandfather, despite his body slowly falling apart he still smiled, even when he could barely walk on his own anymore and needed help he still laughed and joke with us. Because he had Gods joy in him.

And Jesus continues in verse 25 and says

John 16:25 ESV

25 “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 will tell you plainly about the Father.

The concept in this verse is simple it is Jesus just stating clearly how he will stop speaking in parables and start speaking directly.

The need for him to say this is important because, from the prospective of the disciples every lesson he’s taught them thus far has been through a parable or story.

Such as the parable of the sower where you have to dig to see he is saying Gods word is the seeds and that mans heart is the dirt and that some hearts wont accept his message just like some of the ground didn’t take the seeds

or in the parable of the weeds where jesus talks about a man sowing his wheat seeds but an enemy places weeds in his crop that will get sorted out at the time of harvest. you have to dig and do some thinking to figure out that the wheat is the true believers of Christ while the weeds are everyone else.

But now he wants them to know, what he’s saying is so important that he doesn’t want to obscure the meaning by mixing it into some riddle.

we continue the narrative in 26 through 27

2. Presence of Divine Love

John 16:26–27 ESV

26 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; 27 for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

In these two verses Jesus tells his disciples two things:

1. First, he says in the day you will ask for stuff in his name, it won’t just be asking Jesus, but it will be speaking directly to the father,

2 Secondly, he says, the father loves them because they have loved Jesus. This feels powerful to me because the Lord is an infinite being. One without start or end and the same is true for his love, it has no start or end. It is an everlasting love.

Do you know how reassuring it is to have someone who loves you that much? That kind of love is what gives us the peace we need in the middle of our troubles.

The reason we have a hard time seeing this kind of love is this is love a human is not capable of. Often, our love can go back and forth based on circumstances and we cannot love in the same way.

Jesus continues in 28.

John 16:28 ESV

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

So, Jesus has just told them he would speak clearly to them, and now he says clear as day where he has came from and where he is going.

He is telling them he came from the father and that soon he will be returning to the father. This would’ve been a hard thing for the disciples to hear because he was going to leave them. While they still didn’t fully understand what that meant, they knew soon he would be gone. Somehow this started get through to the disciples and they said, in the next two verses.

3. Perception of His Sovereignty

John 16:29–30 ESV

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.”

Jesus replies

John 16:31 ESV

31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

This is a form of rebuke due to his disciples lack of faith.

now onto 32

4. Peace Through His Victory

John 16:32 ESV

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.

Jesus says, Behold which is an attention grabbing word, again making sure his disciples are paying attention. He then tells them his hour has come, and remember all through out the Book of John we see this language used when Jesus is referring to his death. He tells them when it comes they will all be scattered away from him.

This also would’ve been hurtful to his disciples, because in their minds they would never leave him, they would stand firm until the end. However, we can see the truth of Jesus’ words as you continue the narrative in John.

You can also see this as Peter denies Jesus three times before his death.

But Jesus wants them to know, even though they will leave him, he will never be alone because the Father is with him.

This is the same thing he would tell you today, even if all the people of the world walk away from you during the hard times, he is with you because in the middle of trials he will give you peace.

And he continues.

John 16:33 ESV

33 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 is telling them that the troubles of the world are coming. He doesn’t leave any question IF there will be trouble, he says there will be trouble. But, he wants you to know he already knows about it so when it comes you can have peace in Him. He says you, me, all of us who are his followers have nothing to worry about because he has already overcome the world.

He would tell you the same thing this morning. No matter what trouble you find yourself in, don’t worry, he has overcome the world and he is your peace.

YOU

i look to jesus in my time of trial via prayer, sometimes the peace isn’t instant like when i fully grasped the severity of what my grandpa was going through, God gave me as much peace as he gave him because as i saw my grandpa slowly get closer to his time yet gain more and more peace and joy i gained that peace also. even at his funeral i felt the peace knowing all the trouble and pain he went through the past year was finally over, and that he could now be with God. Gods peace is powerful even in those moment of turmoil.

THE WORSHIP TEAM MAY COME UP

We all should be looking for that peace in God, that overwhelming peace because even if your living pay check to pay check, sick and slowly falling apart like my grandpa, or your watching that family member drift even further from Gods light. that peace will help and fill your life with the joy needed to get through it. maybe it will be a few extra canned goods you forgot about so you don’t have to buy food that week and can save a bit of that paycheck. maybe its how it was in my grandfather where he knew God was with him so life couldn’t get worse. maybe its that family member looking back at Gods light for even a little bit every now and then so theres still hope. in all these situations Jesus will be there with us to help fill us with Joy and peace as the holy spirit guides us through the turmoil of this world.