Sermon Tone Analysis

Jesus the Overcomer:

Jesus is here speaking with those who have been closest to Him.

Those who had walked with Him, who had lived with Him, who had seen the many miracles that He had done, and yet He says to them “you will leave me.”

John 16:16-33 there is a stark contrast between the feebleness of the disciples’ faith and the faithfulness of God.

The disciples will soon abandon Jesus (v.32) but in the same sentence that the Lord reveals this to them He can also say “Yet I am not alone, the Father is with me.”

In the previous chapter (15),

Jesus has urged these same disciples to stay abiding in Him, the true Vine, and not to try to live apart.

He has also shared that the world will most certainly hate them and feel it is even doing a good thing in rejecting and persecuting them.

Jesus’ mission on earth and the lead into His Passion as we walk towards the Crucifixion and Resurrection - His coming from and returning to the Father and how this initial sorrow turns into great, inalienable joy (What Jesus has given can never be taken away from us) of knowing and being with Jesus eternally and true joy for all Jesus has accomplished in saving us and reconciling us to the Father.

Jesus came for the Cross- Without the sorrow of calvary there would be no joy for eternity.

Jesus uses childbirth to show what the cross would be like:

Christ is speaking of the Cross.

The pain that he would endure would be worth the joy that would come.

- Less than 24 hour after this conversation Jesus would be dead

A little while and you will see me no longer- Christ would go to the Cross- showing His faithfulness to God and to man.

Revealing God hearts by Offering a sacrifice once and for all so that we could find forgiveness of sins.-

His body broken for us.

Jesus tells that there will be great sorrow.

Jesus says “I tell you the truth” There will be tears and Lamenting.

Jesus was pointing to the Cross.

Sorrow that would take place as He died hanging on the cross.

They were going to experience loss and a sense of defeat.

and again Jesus Says, “again a little while, and you will see me.”-

We have the promise of eternal life with Christ.

Because of the pain of the cross we have the joy of salvation.

Christ also promises that “your hearts will rejoice.”

R.C. Sproul: “For a little while”- That little phrase is used often in Scripture to describe the interval of pain, sorrow, and grief we’re called to endure in this life.

Still, it may not seem like a little while when we are enduring something difficult.

Ten minutes in an ice cream parlor is a little while; ten minutes in a dentist’s chair is an eternity.

So these little whiles can seem quite long when we are enduring them.

But even in the midst of sorrow, pain, struggle, depression, and hurt we have a joy that can never be taken from us.

nothing can take away the Work of Christ- WE have this assurance that nothing can separate us from the love of God

Even to the point that God has put His holy Spirit in us.

We are His and He is ours because of the cross of Jesus Christ

There are great trials that bring great pain.

Our savior shows that God is faithful to us in the midst of trials.

Even in our wandering away and questioning God is still faithful:

Jesus Says this verse right after they make there confession “this is why we believe that you came from God.”

“You may be full of belief and trust now, but it isn’t going to last.

You all are going to leave.

When you see the guards coming through the Garden of Gethsemane, led by Judas, when you see the swords of the Roman soldiers being brandished in the moonlight, you’re going to run for your lives, and you’re going to leave Me alone.”

The easy thing is to confess the hardest part is to live it out- But those who do chose to confess with there mouths and believe with their hearts and live that life out Jesus Promises

In the first year I was a Christian, I attended a weekly prayer meeting, and we sang a number of old hymns.

One of them was “Where He Leads Me,” and the first stanza and refrain went like this:

I can hear my Savior calling,

I can hear my Savior calling,

I can hear my Savior calling,

“Take thy cross and follow, follow Me.”

Where He leads me I will follow,

Where He leads me I will follow,

Where He leads me I will follow;

I’ll go with Him, with Him, all the way.

When I sang that hymn, my soul was filled with joy and I thought: “Yes, Lord.

I’m yours.

Wherever You want me to go, I’ll go.”

I look back on the zeal that filled my heart in those days and I can’t help but think of all the places He has gone that I didn’t go, all the times that He beckoned me to follow and I went the other direction and left Him alone.

Jesus said this was what His closest friends were about to do to Him—leave Him alone.

Yet, He said, “I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (v.

32b).

The one who overcomes gets the promise to spend eternity with Christ.

This world is full of momentary trouble, trials, hardships, seasons of pain, times of depression

But Christ has overcome this sinful world and we can take heart because of the Cross

I once talked with a dear Christian woman and ministered to her just days before her death after a ten-year battle with cancer.

She looked at me with tears running down her cheeks and said, “R.

C., I just can’t take it anymore.”

Have you been there?

It’s one thing to hurt for a day, but when the pain lasts for a month or a year, and then that year turns into ten years, all of a person’s reserves of strength seem to drain away.

This woman had trusted God through that whole time, and she finally said, “I can’t take it anymore.”

Within a few days, the Lord took her home, took her away from the pain and the lament to unspeakable joy.

Jesus said, “I have overcome the world.”

In other words, Jesus said: “I have overcome the world.

I have taken everything it could throw at Me, and I have come forth victorious.”

He crushed His enemies under His feet by His blood.

The world threatens to crush you and me every minute of our lives.

It hurls insults, tribulations, pain, death—all sorts of things that take away the joy that should be ours in Christ.

But Jesus overcame the world.

That’s why the apostle Paul could say we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us (Rom.

8:37).

It isn’t because we have the power to beat the world.

We don’t.

It is because He overcame the world for us.