Biggest fear, or greatest joy?

Introduction

I love flying, I love airplanes, I wanted to fly them but never pursued it - mostly because I have literally zero depth-perception, which apparently isn’t a great qualifying attribute for a pilot.

Nonetheless, I know that many people fear it. I remember hearing of one particular flight, a poor woman was terrified of flying.

Of course as the plane reached cruising altitude, they hit some nasty turbulence.

If you’ve flown - you know what that’s like! She was absolutely terrified, white-knuckle gripping the seat, eyes closed.

The flight attendant tried to assure the passenger, but nothing was working.

Then, after checking with the flight deck, the flight attendant returned to the frightened passenger.

She said, “Ma’am, I’d like to show you something. Come with me.”

The flight attendant walked the worried passenger up to the cockpit where one pilot was writing notes and the other was deep into a crossword puzzle.

When the fearful passenger saw that the people who knew the most, who had the best perspective of the plane in the turbulence were completely unphased, she immediately realized that everything was OK.

In this passage we are going to see Jesus’ disciples in a moment of despair, but Jesus is going to reassure them and tell them more about the Holy Spirit.

The last time Jesus taught about the Holy Spirit, He mentioned how the Spirit would give us power to live our Christian life.

Today we will see how The Spirit corrects our perspective, convicts the world, and confirms the truth.

Corrects Our Perspective

John 16:1–7 ““These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service. And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me. But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. “And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 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 depart, I will send Him to you.”

Remember at the end of chapter 15, Jesus was warning his disciples of the rejection and persecution to come.

Here he doubles-down and elaborates that they will be cast out of the religious community they’ve grown up in, and they would even lose their lives.

Jesus reminds them, and is a good reminder for us, that these things happen because people reject and hate Jesus, not you.

Notice though Jesus says that he is only telling him these things because Jesus is leaving, and encourages them to remember these things.

When you come under attack for your faith, you must rely on God’s already revealed Word for comfort and encouragement.

The biggest point here is this: Jesus said, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’”

The disciples had the wrong perspective! They were too worried about what would happen to them, and didn’t even ask where Jesus was going?

Earlier in chapter 13, Jesus made a similar remark about going to the Father, and Peter asked where He was going. He was focused on Jesus.

Here, no one asks that because their hearts are overwhelmed, they lost focus of Jesus, and started thinking about themselves.

Their focus was all on them. What will happen? Who is going to abandon us? Who is going to hurt us? How bad is it going to be? How am I going to make it?

Meanwhile, God in the flesh was trying to tell them that He was going back to where he came from - Heaven.

So often too we have the wrong perspective on so many things. The wrong perspective leads to asking the wrong questions and when you ask the wrong question, you often get the wrong answers.

Why can’t everyone just go to Heaven? Should be, why can anyone go to heaven?

Why is Jesus the only way? Why is there a way at all?

Why is this happening to me? How can God be glorified through this?

What if they hate me? What if they get saved?

Convicts The World

John 16:7–12 “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 depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

Confirms The Truth

John 16:13–15 “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”