Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through John 16:16-33, emphasizing the theme of "lasting joy" amidst sorrow. He explains that while believers will face difficulties, Jesus promises that their sorrow will be transformed into joy, much like a mother forgets her pain after childbirth. The sermon highlights the importance of prayer in refreshing joy and assures that true joy, rooted in a relationship with Christ, cannot be taken away by the world.
Housekeeping and Dismissals
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms.
If you have a child who wants to be dismissed at Children's Church, that's available for you now. I do want to thank Ms. Pat and Ms.
Vicki for all their hard work into the directory. The hard part of the directory is over, getting everyone lined up and scheduled to come in and take pictures. And so they have worked tirelessly over the last several weeks and months, and thank you for that.
The directory will be out probably near the end of the summer, once they get all the pictures processed and all that stuff, all the design and layouts.
And so thank you, ladies. Thank you for your time yesterday and Friday coming out and getting your picture made. I know that's a lot of work to get all the family together and figure out times with all of our busy schedules.
But we haven't done one in, I think, 13 or so years. And so it's good to get all those pictures realigned and new faces and old faces that have changed.
It's good to be able to see them updated in the way they are. And so thank you for that.
But if you have your Bibles, we're going to be in John chapter 16. We're continuing in our Abide series and what this looks like to abide in Christ, how we can grow closer to Christ by being connected to the vine as the branches. And we're continuing. We're finishing out chapter 16 today.
And as the Lord leads, we plan to do two sermons the next two weeks on the prayers that Jesus prays in the garden. They're in John chapter 17.
And then we'll see where the Lord leads after that. But looking at where we're at today, some of the most familiar verses in all of Scripture are mentioned today in John chapter 16.
Carrie, she just left for kids, but it's one of her life verses. It's the very last John 16, 33. But we will look at this. We'll read it. And let's stand out of the reading of God's Word. And then we'll jump into the message today. The Bible says,
In a little while, you will no longer see me. Again, in a little while, you will see me.
Then some of his disciples said to one another, What is he telling us? In a little while, we will not see me. And again, in a little while, you will see me. Because I am going to the Father.
They said, What is he saying in a little while? We do not know what he's talking about. Jesus knew they wanted to ask him.
So he said to them, Are you asking one another about what I said? In a little while, you will not see me.
Sorrow and Joy in Life
And again, in a little while, you will see me. Truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful, but your sorrow will be turned into joy.
When a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because the joy that she has been given, because joy that a person has been born into the world.
Verse 22, So you will also have sorrow now, but I will see you again.
Your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take that joy away from you. In that day, you will not ask of me anything. Truly, I tell you, anything you ask in the Father's name and in my name will be given to you. Until now, you have asked for nothing in my name.
Ask and you will receive so that your joy may be complete. Verse 25, I have spoken these things to you in figures of speech.
The time is coming when I will no longer speak in figures, but will tell you plainly about the Father.
On that day, you will ask in my name, and I am not telling you that you will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and belong and believe that I came from God.
I came from the Father and have come again to this world. Again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father. His disciples says, look now, you're speaking plainly, not using any figurative languages. Now we know that everything and that don't need anyone to question you.
By this, we believe that you came from God. Jesus responded to them, do you now believe?
Indeed, an hour is coming and has come when each of you will be scattered into his own home and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone because the Father is with me. Verse 33, I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace.
You will have suffering in this world, but be courageous. I have overcome or conquered the world.
Father, we love you. We thank you for the reading of your word. I pray that you'll give me wisdom today. Give me understanding and guidance as we preach your word. In your name we pray. Amen.
I struggled a little bit in that reading because on Wednesday, I got home and I scratched my eyeball and had to go to the doctor this past week. And I've got some medicine in my eyes, so my vision is just a little blurry as I was reading that.
So pray for me that I don't get too confused. Apparently, I couldn't remember the word father this morning in the open announcements. They told me that was the word I was seeking for. But we've had three kids, you know, all three of them, Brody, Jaden, Hudson.
Brody's birth I was not there for. I was in India and there were lots of complications. Allison almost died going through that birth and doing that childbirth.
But a couple of years ago, I was with a family. I try to, when a baby's been born, try to be at the hospital and be there for them. For multiple reasons.
We're done having babies. We've had three. The Lord, I almost killed Allison on all three of them. And so we're like, you know what, we're done. But by being at the hospital, I normally get to be one of the first people to hold the baby.
And so I get to go in and kiss the baby and be there with the mom.
And I always try to make it a point to take a picture of being the baby and send it to Allison to make her jealous because she loves little babies. And so this is the opportunity I get to be, some of the fun moments of pastoring, of being in the hospital with people.
A couple years ago, I was with a young teenage,
some teenagers of mine, they weren't teenagers at this time. But they were going in to give birth and it was a wonderful time and we were all excited. The pregnancy was coming to the close and the baby was about to be born.
And in this moment, all of a sudden, the room shifted from excitement in the waiting room to nervousness because the nurse came out and said,
there's some complications with mom and the baby and we're trying to figure out what's going on. And all of a sudden, the joy that happened in that moment began to turn to sorrow and everyone started praying, some out loud. Some were praying separately and quietly.
And as minutes turned into hours and hours began to span through the whole day, the waiting room began to be in complete array. I mean, tears of sadness of what's going on.
I don't know what's going on with my daughter. I don't know what's going on with my sister. Like, what's going to happen in this moment? And in this moment, in this time,
after a couple of hours had went by, the doctor came out. The doctor came to the waiting room and he wasn't as nervous as the nurse and he had a smile on his face. And in this moment, he said, the mom's okay.
The baby's okay. They're both healthy and everything's going to be fine. In that moment,
and you may have been in that situation before, but in that moment, the room began to change. The room flipped from tears of sadness to tears of joy, but the tears were not gone. They were replaced with something else.
And the heaviness didn't just all of a sudden disappear. It was still there, but it had been replaced with this joy of excitement that this wasn't just meaningless.
There's a new life and the mom is okay and everything is happy. Now, this is the illustration that Jesus gives.
And he says there in John chapter 16 that we're heading down a path that's going to cause sorrow and heartache, but I'm not going to leave you there. I'm going to come in and I'm going to give you this excitement that you're going to have.
Jesus' Teachings on Sorrow
And this is what he tells his disciples. You're going to, and you're about to walk through the darkest hours of your life. This is what Jesus tells his disciples. You're going to weep. You're going to mourn, but your sorrow is going to be turned into joy.
Now, this is an exciting thing for us because like, we don't like to think about difficulties. We don't like to think about mourning and weeping and, and all the difficult things.
But Jesus says, I'm not going to, I'm not going to avoid those things that are going to happen in life. You're going to go through them, but I'm going to replace that.
I'm not going to ignore it, but I'm going to sort of transform this sorrow into an overwhelming amount of joy that others are going to look and say that joy is outlasting anything this world has to offer.
And this is what Jesus is beginning to say here is this joy that we can walk through when sorrow comes.
And when we come out on the other side, we're stronger and better for the sake of God, for the glory of God, so that we can give him the glory for everything that's said and done in everything that
we do because he is the one, the author and the sustainer of everything that we go through.
And so Jesus lays out a couple of things here. I've titled the message lasting joy.
You could really say how to have lasting joy, but for simplicity, I just said lasting joy. What does it mean? And how does this happen? The first one is this joy is revealed in sorrow.
Oftentimes we think of this backwards, right? We think that sorrow comes after joy and all of a sudden we go through things and then the bad things happen afterwards.
But really when you think through the course of life, Jesus says here, you will weep and mourn, but your sorrow will turn into joy. The psalmist says like this,
that joy will come in the morning. The joy will come after the sorrow has happened overnight in the darkest moments of life. The joy is going to come when that new day comes, when we begin to go through the trials and tribulations of life. Jesus doesn't sugarcoat reality.
Oftentimes people can tell me I'm a little abrasive. I can say things a little hard.
It's the flaw that God has given me. I try to work on it. But even with my kids, I'll say things and Allison's like, hey, you probably could have said that a little easier. Like, did you have to say that as mean as you just said? I'm just like, it's the truth.
Like, I just want to lay it out. And this is Jesus. Jesus walks up.
He's walking with his disciples. Imagine they just left the upper room. He just washed their feet. He just did this massive teaching.
They're walking through the vine. They're about to come to the garden. Jesus knows I'm about to be betrayed. Judas is going to betray me. He looks at them and he says these words, you will weep.
You're going to mourn. You're going to go through hard times. Like, there is no sugar coating whatsoever. He says this, the Christian life is not absent of sorrows.
He wants them to understand what they're truly signing up for. And then he sort of goes from, these are things going to happen, but I'm going to give you this preparation for the Lord that's going to come, the Holy Spirit that's going to come into your life and give
you this purpose to what life is all about. And he says it like this, he says it's turned to joy.
He doesn't say it's going to be replaced by joy, but it's this transformation that the sorrow, the mourning, the weeping, all these things are going to be transformed.
My kid, Hudson's not in here, but he loves Power Rangers right now. His birthday party was a Power Ranger birthday party. And the Power Rangers, right, they have these suits they can morph into something else.
And so they begin to be transformed into this animal or monkey or whatever it may be at the time in the moment. And all of a sudden it has been transformed into something else. It's been turned into something else.
And the joy, the sorrow that we have, I'm sorry, will be turned into this joy that God has given us. Jesus, he lays out this illustration of childbirth.
This idea of what happens. And I think everyone in this room can resonate and can remember this.
Maybe it's through your own child or a nephew or a niece that has went through this or a sister or a brother that they go through the pain. And we've got a young lady that we, at our last church, she's like two weeks from giving birth. And we ran into her.
She was just miserable looking. Like, they went to the beach as their last little getaway. And she was telling, they've got a four-year-old daughter.
And she was telling them how we're going to go to the beach. And she was telling her grandma, we're going to go to the beach.
And her grandma asked her and said, who's going to play with you on the sand? And she said, probably daddy, because mommy's too big to get down the sand.
And it's like the mouth of babes, they speak honesty. And so you see that and you hear that. But you can just see. Sometimes moms just begin to get miserable in this pain and in this process of having a baby. And then all of a sudden, the process comes. The epidural comes.
Everything that's involved by having a child comes. The process is painful. It's intense. But then on the backside of it, Jesus gives this beautiful illustration. He says, when the child comes, you forget about the pain. You're holding that baby. And it's like, holy Christ, this is awesome.
Like, I created this. This is part of me. This is a beautiful thing.
And God intentionally put this together for me to have, for me to be a parent. And all of a sudden, it is this beautiful picture that turns into the idea of God not wasting any type of sorrow in our life.
The Bible says it like this. If you look at Jesus' teaching, he says that the seed of a plant has to go into the ground and has to die in order for that plant to grow. And the same thing in our life.
There are sorrow and difficulty that Christ comes in and he begins to redeem that for his good and for his glory.
One commentator said it like this. The word turn to joy carries the idea of a divine reversal. God takes the sorrow that happens in the garden.
God takes the difficulties that man placed upon themselves by choosing to sin, by deciding that sin was going to enter the world. He takes that and a divine reversal comes in and he decides to reverse engineer the sorrow that is going to be turned into joy in our life.
And God begins to work through these things as he gives this illustration of a mother going through these situations.
He says that the momentary instant of pain and sorrow is now turned into this joy that is unspeakable, that is full of glory, that we just love and long for.
So the question I have for us, I want us to really think about in this moment is, am I trusting in God's process? God works in all of our lives. I believe that nothing happens for coincidence sakes. I believe there's no such thing as a coincidence.
I believe that everything that happens in life is God ordained.
I believe that when I have a thought that comes to my mind that says, hey, I haven't talked to that person or called that person in a while and I need to reach out to them. Or I run into someone at Walmart, the most God honoring place ever.
Right when we go there and we run into someone and we're like, why did I see that person?
I haven't seen that person in five years. Why did I just see them there? I believe that God ordains us to meet that person, to see that person, to understand the process. Maybe that was something that happened ultimately for this, to understand, God, what is the outcome of this?
God is working the process. On the other hand, are we looking at God and saying, God, this is what I want. I'm demanding it to happen.
Or are we saying, God, I understand this is what's going through in life. I understand the difficulties that I'm going through.
I understand the sorrow, the weeping, the difficulties, the pain. I'm going to honor that process and say, God, just continue to reveal your joy through the sorrow.
Because this is what Jesus is telling his disciples. There's going to be sorrow. There's going to be pain. But in that, I'm going to reveal some things that would not have happened unless you went through these things.
The Promise of Joy
Number two, in verse 22, he shows us the joy in life that we have is resistant to the attacks that are going to come. Look at what he says in verse 22. No one will take your joy away from you.
This is a beautiful promise as he lays out to us that the joy we have in Christ, nothing can be taken away.
Nothing, no one can come in and steal this joy. No one can come in and rob us of this joy. Your joy, it's almost like saying this, your joy will never be challenged.
You're going to have so much joy in the Lord that even when difficult times come,
my mind, as we were talking about Job just a couple of weeks ago, my mind goes to Job, even when everything is taken away from you, when all the worldly possessions is taken away from you, and the devil
thinks he can challenge your joy, your joy in the Lord will never be taken.
It's always going to be there, and the world cannot touch your comfort. I'm sorry, the world may touch your comfort and the things that you have in your world, but they'll never be able to touch Christ.
Christ is the sustainer of all of our joy, and Christ is the sustainer of all of our love and our life. And when we begin to be so anchored in Jesus,
and so anchored in his goodness, and so anchored in his resurrection, and what he has done for us, they will begin to see that there's something different.
The world's going to say, how did you go through that difficult time? How did you go through and still have a smile on your face? How did you go through and still have a sense of security, a sense of certainty, a sense of steadiness in your life?
And we get to look at them and say, my certainty is because of who Christ is.
And because the promise that Christ has given me, and the good things that God has given me, and the bad things that God has given me, all of those things are so certain on who Jesus is, that I am certain that my joy is there.
I'm secure because I'm not dependent on my circumstances. The little things in life don't determine my joy.
It's that God has been foreordained everything in my life, and I can be secure that if this trial is coming my way, God has ordained it for this purpose for me to grow into his glory.
And I can be steady through the storms because no matter what happens in my life, I know that my anchor still holds in the faith of Jesus Christ. This past week I was reminded of Charles Spurgeon's quote that the waves of adversity are met with the rock of God's grace.
They're going to come and they're going to beat upon that rock, but I'm so secure in the rock of God's grace that it doesn't matter about what comes on me, I'm going to be so secure in Christ. One commentator said like this, that our joy is resurrection grounded.
I thought this was one of the most fascinating statements. Resurrection grounded.
As we come out of Easter, as we come out of Resurrection Sunday, the permanence of our joy is tied to Christ's permanent victory over death, hell, and the grave. Death may sometimes come to us and cause sorrow.
It cause weeping. And I've seen many tears at funerals. I've been a part of many tears. I've cried at many funerals myself. I've been a part of those things. And it's difficult,
but yet it is tied to the permanence that Christ has overcome death. Christ has overcome the grave.
Christ has overcome Satan and his adversaries and has given us this victory that we can rest in who he is and what he has done.
Oftentimes, we can begin to have our sense of security on the things that we have.
And I think it's so important that we do know the story of Job because as we look at Job's life and as we understand, Job had everything you can ever imagine.
But yet, when everything that you can ever imagine was taken away, he looked and he responded by saying, blessed be the name of the Lord. It's like this.
You look at your bank account one day and you had X amount of money. Sometimes for us, it's like barely any money.
And all of a sudden, a bill comes out and your bank account goes down to like $1. And you're like, how am I going to live?
Right? You've been there before. But then you realize, oh, I've still got a couple of dollars in my pocket, so I'm not completely wiped out. I still have the ability to go buy gas, maybe only a gallon or two gallons.
I may have the ability to go buy a gallon of milk and some bread and some eggs, but not everything is lost when that digital bank account's gone.
And God says in the same way, when things happen, it's not that everything's wiped away.
You still have this permanence in Christ and his victory and what he has done so that we can continue to live in that joy. So I want to ask you this. What is still in your joy today?
What is it in your life that has been taking away your joy lately? And is it truly capable of doing that?
Is the adversary of life, is the things of life that come in and cause us to be angry and cause us to say things we shouldn't say and cause us to act a certain way, is it truly that
powerful that it can overtake the one who has overcome death, hell, and the grave?
Or are we so secure in Christ that it doesn't matter what comes in our life, our joy can't be taken away. Our joy is rooted in Christ and not on the outcomes of life. And we can be secure in who Christ has made us to be.
Jesus continues on in verses 23 and 24 by sort of telling us how we can refresh our joy. Because we're going to go through these things and he says our joy is refreshed through prayer. Look at what he tells his disciples.
He says, This is a beautiful statement in scripture as we walk through this together.
Because Jesus is saying, listen, you're going to go through problems. You're going to go through trials. You're going to go through adversaries. You're going to be worn out.
Asking in Jesus' Name
You're going to be in mourning and weeping. And he says this, When those things happen, because they're going to happen, come back to the Father and ask in the name of Jesus. And you will receive so that your joy may be complete.
You see, prayer, and I'm praying through, possibly doing a whole series on prayer here in just a couple of weeks. But prayer is not just a duty that we have as believers.
Prayer is the doorway for us to walk through and experience the joy that Christ has given us. When Jesus is walking on this earthly ministry, I want you to understand, Jesus is 100% God. He's 100% man.
And yet at the end of his day, most of the time in the morning, early in the morning, the disciples would wake up and they would say, Where did Jesus go?
There's one time where Jesus and his disciples are walking down the path, and they come across a village, and all of a sudden they're like,
We were just walking with Jesus and now he's not here. Where did he go? And it comes to find out that he had to remove himself from the situation, go into a private place or go into a place of prayer, because he had to refresh his own soul through prayer. He's giving out.
He's helping. He's healing. He's doing everything that God has called him to do. And yet he himself, in his humanity state, has to reconnect with the Father, because he understands that everything he's going through is taking away, and he's got to replenish that and refresh that with the connection to the Father.
And he says, this is the doorway that we have. And he says, the way we do this is in the name of Jesus.
And this isn't some, as I said a couple weeks ago, some magical statement, that if we just pray in the name of Jesus, that we get everything and anything we want.
He's saying that this is this idea or the thought of I am aligning my will with his will.
And because I'm aligning my will with his will, God begins to honor that and give us the things. And he says this, Your joy is going to begin to grow because you're dependent on the Father.
You're dependent on God of saying, God, I can't do this on my own. I've got to trust in you.
I've got to say, God, before I go out and I make this purchase, or before I go and I do this thing, or before I accept to go to this college, or before I go and accept this job,
I'm going to pray, I'm going to fast, I'm going to come to you because I'm dependent on you. I can't take another step without you in my life. We have access to the Father.
We have the ability to ask and invite our real needs that we have to go to the Father. And I love this. God gives us the abundance. He answers in a way that's going to ultimately fulfill our joy. He doesn't answer in a way that we often think.
But in the end, he looks at us and he says, I'm going to answer it this way because I know it's going to bring the fullest amount of joy in your life. I want you to imagine a child coming to you.
And a child coming to you and asking you for some crazy big thing.
And you're like, if I get that for you, you're not going to enjoy it. You're going to be miserable. You're not going to be able to put the thing together. And so you answer that request with another request to bring more joy to their life.
Right? And they want this. And so you give them this because this item over here is going to give them more joy and more satisfaction. We were at Stone Mountain just a couple of weeks ago.
And Hudson is just now beginning to learn how to ride on his training wheels. And we've got a little electric dirt bike that we've got at the house for him. A couple of months or years back, we went to Williams' house. And they had some dirt bikes. And we came home.
And apparently every kid needed a dirt bike then. And so we bought Hudson a little electric one. And we had just taken the training wheels off. And he can't ride without the training wheels. He's falling over. And he's hurting himself.
And we got to Stone Mountain. And there was a little boy about his age who had like an electric souped up extended little dirt bike.
And I mean, he's zooming all over the park. He's having so much fun. He goes, Dad, I need that.
I'm like, son, you can't ride the one you've got that goes two miles an hour without falling over. If I get you that, you're going to crash and you're going to hurt yourself. No, Dad, I need that. I can work.
And so since we've been home, this is what he's been doing. When he goes out, he gets on his electric one and he's riding it without training wheels because, Dad, look, I can do this. If you get me the fast one, I'll be okay. And still he's falling over.
The wisdom of the father says you don't get him that until he's mastered this.
And so we got him a regular bike that he can work on his pedals and he's working on things. And so the wisdom of the father says the child wants this, but I can't give you that because you're not ready for it.
God looks at us and says you're praying for things that you're not ready for, but I want to give you complete joy in your life. I want to give you something that's going to be filled. The idea of this complete joy has been filled to the brim.
It's me bringing my coffee cup up here and filling it up where I normally do. And then Allison's saying, you know what, you need more coffee.
I'm going to fill it all the way up to the brim so that when you go to pick it up, you're going to spill some because it's so full.
This is the idea that Jesus says when you're asking, I'm going to give it to you, not impartial, not lacking, but I'm going to give it to the way that it's going to be so full that you're going to say, God, I can't handle any more joy.
God, the joy that you're giving me is so much. I thank you for it, but I don't know if I can physically handle it. Even when the sorrows come,
even when the morning comes, your joy is so full that you can't handle it anymore.
And God is saying, this is the kind of joy that I want to give you. And this is the kind of joy that the world doesn't understand.
The world looks at us and they say, how can you have joy in the face of persecution? How can you have joy in the face of the things that you're going through? And all we can simply say is because we are so connected to Jesus.
Could your lack of joy be connected to our lack of asking?
Jesus said that he had to get away. He has to go seek the Father. Moses, when he got the Ten Commandments, could not get enough of the presence of Jesus.
If you look and you read through Exodus, it's like every chance Moses got, he said, I've got to go be back connected with Jesus. I've got to go back to the mountain. The people are scared. The people are like, you're glowing. You're looking weird.
Like, we don't want to be around you. Put this veil over your face. But Moses says, I've got to be more. I need more of that.
I want to be more surrounded with Jesus. And the Bible says that when Moses died, he died on a mountain in communion with God. And it's almost like God just took him away and said, it's time for you to be done. Because when he experienced that presence of Jesus,
he said, that's all I need in life. And I almost want to say we've gotten away from that in our current social theology because we've gotten to the point where our joy can be a dopamine hit from a social media like or a post or something
that someone says about us. And all of a sudden, our joy is there and it's temporary.
And Jesus is saying, listen, I've got this joy that you're going to have so much that you're going to stop asking for anything the world gives and you're just going to want to be connected to me. But we have replaced this joy with something else.
And Jesus says, if you'll just come and you'll just ask, your joy can be complete.
The last thing we look at is in verse 33, we'll skip down and we'll look at our joy being rooted in the relationship that we have. He says here, you will have suffering in this world.
It is this command that Jesus looks at his disciples and he says very plainly, very clearly, I've been talking in parables. It's time to get down to the root issue. You are going to have suffering.
But with this warning, he gives a promise. Jesus always, when he gives warning, he gives promise. We give warning, we give promise. We give a situation, we're going to give a solution. Okay, this is how Jesus worked. And he says this, trouble is certain.
You live in this world. There's sin in this world. You live in a fallen world. We make mistakes.
We sin. I am number one in making mistakes. My wife tells me all the time that I'm number one in making mistakes, right? We are going to make mistakes in life. Trouble is going to happen. But victory is already settled.
Jesus says that our joy is not rooted in ease, but our joy is rooted in the relationship that we have with him. You will have suffering in this world. But be courageous. I have overcome this world. And now because I have overcome this world,
you now are to be connected to the author of peace and comfort and joy.
And all of this peace, comfort, and joy is going to flow from the Father into us because we are connected to him. Where is our peace found at? Our peace is found in Christ.
Our peace is not found in the circumstances that we are in, the places that we go, the people that we see. Our peace is found in Jesus.
And he says, when you begin to have this presence already in me, and we spend time with him, this is where our joy comes from. And now we have courage because we have overcome this world because Christ has already won.
I don't ever bring up a lot of Greek. I study the Greek every once in a while. But this phrase here, conquered the world, in the Greek it is the perfect present tense.
Victory Through Christ
Tense. Which simply means the victory is already accomplished with ongoing results. Right? A war happens.
Victory is done. And now we get the benefits of all the ongoing results of the war that's already been finished. This is what he's saying here. The war has already been taken care of. I have already overcome the world. And now you get the benefits of the war being won.
You don't ever have to fight in the war. You don't ever have to sacrifice for the war. But now you get the overflowing benefits of what someone else has already done.
This is the idea that we get to be living in this peace that he has given. The courage that he has given us. Because he overcame the world. And now we get to live in that. I'm a football guy. You know this. You know I'm a Dolphins fan.
The other day me and my brothers were talking about the perfect season. The greatest team that's ever existed. The 1972 Dolphins.
And I had mentioned. I said you know. I can't find a lot of. I said I've not really seen a lot of documentaries on it. And all of a sudden my brother and John. He's like sends me like five different videos and documentaries.
About the entire season and how great it was. And so me. I'm like okay I'll watch these things. I already know they're perfect.
I already know they've won every game they played. And yet I'm sitting there watching the games that happened in 1972. And I'm like they're losing.
Are they going to win? I know they're going to win. They were perfect. Like I'm on the edge of my seat watching Bob Greasy get hurt. I'm like oh my goodness are they going to win this game?
And I'm forgetting the game was played 50, 60 years ago. The victory's already happened.
This is how we are in life right? We know what's going to happen. We know Jesus is going to overcome the world. We know we're going to go and be with him one day. And yet situations happen and we're like.
God am I going to be able to make it out of this? I don't know how I'm going to do this. How am I going to be able to make it through this? And all of a sudden we have to remind ourselves. He's already overcome the world.
He's already given us the victory. We just get to live in that victory. We just get to experience the goodness of his victory. Is our peace. I want to drive this question home. Is our peace. Connected to our circumstances. Or is our peace connected to Christ.
The more we get our life connected with Christ. The more the joy.
That begins to happen in our life. Because we're connected to the source. Of life. As Terry comes and plays. I want to sort of wrap this up. And bring it back into full circle for a moment. For the next couple of minutes. Sorrow is real.
Don't hear what I'm not saying church. You are going to have problems. We live in a fallen world. I am number one. At telling you there are going to be problems in this world. I have experienced problems. Our family has experienced problems. My family as a child growing up. We experience problems.
We experience problems on an everyday basis. We live in a fallen world. Sadly we live in this fallen world. But our sorrow is not final. Our sorrow that we happen. Is connected to the joy that Christ has given us.
Overcoming Attacks and Doubts
When attacks come. And they will come. Attacks from the people around us. Attacks from the world. Attacks from family members. When they come. Remember.
They're not going to win. Our victory is settled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we can live in that resurrection. We say we're living in the gospel. This is literally what it means. We are living in the good news. Of Jesus Christ.
Death, burial, and resurrection. That's what the gospel means. The gospel of Jesus. The gospel is just simply a good news announcement. Okay. Like a newspaper. Saying that I'm going to give you some good news. Back in the first century of Christianity. When Tiberius was ruler over the region of Tiberius.
He would send out a gospel of Tiberius. All that was was a newspaper that went all throughout the region. That said this is the gospel of Tiberius.
This is the good news of Tiberius. That's all this means. And so when we say we're living in the gospel. We're living in the victory of what Jesus has given us.
And so we get to experience life in that moment. The attacks are going to come. But we get to live in the gospel. Prayer is our only available connection to the Father.
And you want to have full joy. You want to have lasting joy that the world can't take away. That your job can't take away. That the government can't take away. That nothing in and of this world can take away. Be connected to Jesus through prayer.
And your joy will be full. It's like a battery being plugged into it. Your phone being plugged into an outlet. And it's slowly creeping up 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100%. And now your phone is completely full.
Because it's connected to the power source. Our power source is the lifeline connected to Jesus through prayer.
And when our joy is lacking, we need to be reconnected to Jesus and say, God, fill me back up. I'm weak in this moment. I need you to help me in this moment. And Christ has overcome everything so that we can stand and stand for him.
My final statement is this. The world may write sorrow into your story.
When Adam and Eve was in the garden in a perfect, beautiful environment, walking and talking with God, walking around this garden,
experienced the fellowship of Jesus and the fellowship of God and fellowship of the Holy Spirit in perfect harmony with the world, with God. Everything was imperfect. All of a sudden, Satan and the world came in and wrote sorrow into their story. Jesus didn't look down and say,
God's Promise in Our Story
well, humanity, you messed up. I'm going to go ahead and kick you to the curb. No, he wrote himself into our story.
And he says, I'm going to rewrite the ending of what's going to happen. And now we get to say, am I going to be connected to that joy? Or am I going to be connected to the world?
Am I going to be connected to what he has given me and allow the joy of this resurrection of Jesus happen in my life? Or am I going to continue going around the world saying, God, I just don't know what's going on. Where are you at?
And how do you need the Lord this morning? Father, we love you. We thank you for what you've done. We thank you for who you are. We thank you for your goodness. Lord, I'm thankful that you don't hide things from us.
There are times you give us mysteries in the Bible. But as you're speaking to your disciples here, you tell them very plainly, you will have sorrows. But thankful to God, I have overcome those sorrows.
And I have given you victory and victory the more. Lord, help us to live in that victory. Help us to live in who you are and what you've done for us. In your name we pray. Amen.
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