that I'm reading from this morning. He says in verse 24, hitherto
you've asked nothing in my name, ask and you shall receive, that
your joy may be full. And here in John chapter 16 on
the night that the Lord Jesus Christ was betrayed and the night
that he will go to the garden in just a very short time and
shed his blood and then shed more of his blood at the halls
of Pilate and Herod and then shed his blood under the curse being made a curse on the cross
of Calvary. And here he is, he has thoughts
towards his people and he has thoughts toward us. And his thoughts
are that we would rejoice. Now Christian rejoicing is a
lot deeper and more significant than just happiness, isn't it?
It's rejoicing. It's a deep rejoicing in who
He is and the glory of being part of His family and being
gathered to Him. I want us to read these verses
and we want us to look at what it is for him to go to the Father
and what it is for him to depart the necessity of it, the heartbreaking
sorrow of it, because their love for him is expressed in the sorrow
that he promises that they will have. And then he says that they'll
have this sorrow turn to joy. And then the Lord, as only he
can, gives us a glorious illustration of union with him and the cause
of rejoicing. Let's read from verse 16 in John
chapter 16. A little while and you shall
not see me again, a little while and you shall see me because
I go to the Father. I love the fact that he keeps
saying he's going to the Father. Heaven is in the presence of
the Father. Heaven is a place. Heaven is
a community. Heaven is communion with God
Almighty. I go to the Father. Then said
some of his disciples among themselves, what is this that he saith unto
us? A little while and you shall
not see me, and again a little while and you shall see me, and
because I go to the Father. They said therefore, what is
this he saith a little while? We cannot tell what he saith. Now Jesus knew that they were
desirous to ask him, and he said unto them, Do ye inquire among
yourselves of what I said a little while, and ye shall not see me
again a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily,
I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament. but the world
shall rejoice. You shall be sorrowful, but your
sorrow shall be turned into joy. A woman when she's in travail
has sorrow because her hour has come, but as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembereth no more her anguish, for joy
that a man is born into the world. and you now therefore have sorrow,
but I will see you again, and your hearts shall rejoice, and
your joy no man taketh from you. In that day, you shall ask me
nothing. In this day, when your sorrows
turn to joy, you shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say
unto you, whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he
will give it you. Hitherto ye have asked nothing
in my name. Ask, and ye shall receive, that
your joy may be full. Of course, the going away is
the going to the cross and to go to the Father. He has to go
via the cross and via the tomb and they won't see him. In the
resurrection, they'll see him again. He's told them earlier
in verse seven of this same chapter, he says, it's expedient, it's
necessary that I go away. For if I go not away, the Comforter
will not come. But if I depart, I will send
him to you. These disciples. are just so instructive for us
and so comforting for me. Because they just appear so extraordinarily
ignorant of things that he had told them again and again and
again and again. I don't know about you, but I
love these guys and I find it very comforting that they are
just so profoundly human and so profoundly like us. All of the frailties and all
of the foolishness and all of the fickleness and all of the
ignorance that's in us was in them. And what a glorious Saviour. Don't you love that while we're
having our discussions and our debates and our inquiries like
these apostles have, he actually knows our thoughts. Don't you
find that comforting? There's not a single thing that's
ever come into my life and not a single thought that's ever
crossed my mind that he doesn't know about perfectly and intimately. I love that. If you love the
Gospel, if you love the Gospel, you'll love the fact that in the Lord Jesus Christ,
God finds us hidden in Him. And when He comes looking for
me, where does He find His people? He finds them in the Lord Jesus
Christ. He finds in the Lord Jesus Christ all of the all of his life. Verse 20, he in a sense answers their queries
and he answers and responds to the reality of what lies before
them. Verily, verily, amen, amen. I say unto you that you shall
weep That very evening, you will be
mourning. Peter went outside after the
Lord saw him betray him in front of those people. And Peter went
out and he wept bitterly. And all of the others had far
less courage than Peter. But no doubt hiding. Hiding as
they were from the thought of being taken captive and going
through what the Saviour went through. They wept and they lamented. But the world shall rejoice. You shall be sorrowful. You shall be sorrowful. You are
going to experience extraordinary sorrow. He says, in verse six,
he says, because I've said these things unto you, sorrow has filled
your heart. Sorrow upon sorrow. These men
loved him. They believed him. They had walked with him. He'd
been there to care for them, to comfort them. He had been
all to them, and they had left everything to follow him. They
had borne his reproach in this world, they had carried his message
to this world, and now he was going. But the world shall rejoice. Who rejoiced at the crucifixion
of the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, Pilate didn't rejoice.
He was fearful, isn't he? There's no evidence that the
soldiers rejoiced. Pilate's wife was deeply troubled. She'd had dreams about the Lord
Jesus Christ. The disciples were sorrowful,
as promised. The world here, specifically,
is the religious world. that those who thought they were
righteous in their own eyes, that those who could stand in
judgment of the Lord Jesus Christ. There's no doubt that the cross
reveals the fact that all of Adam's fallen race hates the
Lord Jesus Christ. If you want to see what your
sin is and you want to see what your actions towards God Almighty
when he's revealed in the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and truth,
you just go to the cross and go to that crowd at the cross.
And if you for one moment think that on that day you wouldn't
have joined with them, you don't know your own heart. I'm really
sorry. I'm really sorry. That's the
picture that the cross presents to us. But this specific hatred is the
hatred that these religious leaders had towards the Lord Jesus Christ. He told them that you are of
your father, you are from beneath, you are from this world, your
origin is from Satan and from this world. The greatest enemies
of the Lord Jesus Christ were the religious world. The greatest
enemies of the early church, if you read those books, it's
not the Romans with whom they had all sorts of problems for
hundreds of years, but the greatest enemies of the early church were
the religious people. Religious, zealous people who
called themselves Christians. They wore a cloak of Christianity
and underneath they were just Pharisees. and sisters, nothing has changed. Revelation 11 speaks of these
days that we live in in remarkable ways, isn't it? The dead bodies
of God's prophets. I don't have time to read it
all. The dead bodies of God's prophets lie in the street of
the great city, which is called Solomon, Egypt, where the Lord
was crucified. and they won't suffer their dead
bodies to be put in their graves. And they that dwell on the earth
shall rejoice over them and make merry and send gifts one to another
because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. Isn't that exactly a picture
of this world? This world rejoicing in the mockery
of Christianity. in a way that it doesn't do to
any other religion. The world's hatred is directed
to Christianity. This world's hatred is directed
to the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm not for one moment saying
that the religious world is faithfully representing him, but there is
a hatred of the Lord Jesus Christ. So thankful we ought to be that
our God says, surely the wrath of men shall praise thee, and
the remainder thou shalt restrain. We ought be in awe and wonder
and rejoicing over the fact that our God is restraining the evil
of this world in the most powerful, powerful, palpable ways. This world will hate the Lord
Jesus Christ. The world shall rejoice. The world shall rejoice. But! And you shall be sorrowful, and
our sorrow is going to be made more sorrowful in many ways by
the rejoicing of the religious world. at the death of the Lord
Jesus Christ. You shall be sorrowful. Verse
21, he gives this illustration which I want to come back to But your sorrow, he says in verse
20, he says, your sorrow shall be turned into joy. There's so much that we sorrow
over in this world, isn't it? There's sorrow over circumstances
that can be painful. There's sorrow for the children
of God over what they see in their families and what they
see around them. There's just many, many causes
for the children of God to be sorrowful, to spend much of their
time weeping and lamenting. But there, and there is a particular
sorrow that the children of God have, and that's a sorrow over
sin. But here, the sorrow he's speaking
about is the sorrow over his death, the sorrow over him going,
the pain, the ignominy of what they did to the one that they
loved. There's extraordinary sorrow. But he says, your sorrow shall be turned into joy. There is just a little while
for sorrow, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Sorrow turned into joy. And in verse 22, he says, you're
gonna have sorrow, but I will see you again and your heart
shall rejoice and your joy no man taketh from you. There is a joy that the Lord
Jesus Christ gives to his people in his resurrection visits to
them again and again and again. We, the children of God, have
the joy and peace of believing, Romans 15. He says, the kingdom
of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace. and joy in the Holy Ghost. Isn't it lovely the order that
God the Spirit has written out? Righteousness because I go to
the Father. All of our righteousness went
to the Father in the Lord Jesus Christ. Peace because He's made
peace with God for us by taking away our sin which separated
us from God. He's made peace by the blood
of His cross. and joy in the Holy Ghost. We rejoice. We rejoice. Has God brought the things of
Christ to your heart in such a way that you find joy in the
gospel? Christians are to be joyful people.
We're commanded to rejoice. For the joy set before him, the
Lord endured the cross, despising the shame. I will see you again. Don't you love the order of things?
We would think that our rejoicing was big because we see him again,
and certainly they did. They rejoiced that night of the
resurrection, didn't they? Those men on the road to Emmaus,
their hearts burned within them, and he opened up the scriptures
to them, and he revealed the scriptures concerning the Lord
Jesus Christ and him crucified, and they're rejoicing. What was
their immediate response to their rejoicing in seeing him for who
he was? They immediately, went all the
way back, I'm sure they walked to Emmaus and they ran home.
They wanted to go back and talk to the believers about how amazing
the Lord is. I don't know about you, I rejoice
in having conversations about how great and glorious our God
is. How he who fulfills all of the
scriptures fulfills this scripture. There's nothing in the scriptures
that can take away our joy in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. The glorious revelation of God,
the glorious accomplishments of our Saviour. The religious
world can lose its joy in us declaring what we rejoice in.
They find it offensive. We're rejoicing in a God who
saves. They're rejoicing in a God who
tries, and we tell them that their God is no God at all, and
we're rejoicing. We would love for them, like
the men on the Emmaus Road, to come back and rejoice with us.
We rejoice in God our Saviour. He goes You'll see him again in resurrection
glory and you'll see him again going to the Father. All the
righteousness I have, all the righteousness I need, all the
righteousness that God will and can accept is accepted in the
Lord Jesus Christ. And we read it earlier in Ephesians,
we're accepted in the Beloved. He's the Beloved. There's peace
that comes from this truth. He is our peace. All of it. The peace and joy. I want to be a rejoicing Christian. I want to be able to rejoice
in the glory of our Saviour and His amazing accomplishments.
I want to rejoice in the wonder of all of His character revealed. The righteousness and the holiness
of God. No sin will ever go unpunished. the wisdom of God in finding
a way in his majesty to exalt himself and to save sinners like
us, to cause his people to be at rest and at peace with him. to know that what he said he
was going to do, he actually does. He presents his people,
doesn't he? Every single one of them. As
a united church in him, he presents every single one of them wholly
spotless, unblameable, unapprovable, in the sight of God. There's
only one sight that matters. It's not what I see that matters,
it's what God sees that matters. in his sight. There's sorrow
for a moment but rejoicing in his life, in his death, in his
resurrection. rejoicing in his intercession,
rejoicing in his reign, rejoicing in his returning, rejoicing taking
us to be with him forever, rejoicing in the fact that our beloved
ones in the graves of this earth will come triumphantly from the
graves and we'll get to live with them forever in the very
presence of God Almighty. What a glorious future there
is that lies before us. There'll be sorrows in this world,
but there will be rejoicing. So let's look at the glorious
illustration that the Lord brings to us here. Verse 21, he says,
this is the cause for your rejoicing. A woman when she's in travail
has sorrow because her hour is come. But as soon as she is delivered
of the child, she remembers no more the anguish for joy that
a man is born into the world. Ye now therefore have sorrow,
but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and
your joy no man taketh from you. The pain of childbirth. Men shouldn't
talk about it at all. We know nothing of it at all.
Every time I think of the pain of childbirth I can't help but
think of our first child was born in the most extraordinary
circumstances. My Lisa was dilated and expecting
to have a baby and my Uncle Angus died in Geelong. in Victoria,
and I was really close to him. And the gynecologist obstetrician
said, you can go to the funeral, but you're not allowed to stay.
So I drove all the way down to Geelong to my uncle's funeral,
and then drove all the way back. and got to see my mother briefly
that afternoon, but I was exhausted. And that evening, a few hours
later, she was dead. A day later or so, another of
my uncles in Victoria that I was close to died as well. And Lisa's,
I don't know, in the providence of the Lord, she didn't have
Alan for another 10 days, which meant he had 10 days of 10 days
of growing and getting big, and she needed all sorts of interventions
after a long, long labor, and in the midst of lots and lots
of sorrow, when he was born and all was well, all was forgotten
for a while in the rejoicing. It is a glorious picture, isn't
it? This pain of childbirth is so
real, but the rejoicing in having a child born into the world,
and you just forget it. But it is a picture, as are so
many of the Lord's illustrations when he's speaking to his people,
it's a picture of glorious union with the Lord Jesus Christ. we are united to him. This is his hour that he says
is coming and it's an hour that he likens to the hour of childbirth,
the intensity of the pain and then the glory of the joy. In him all of his people suffered the infinite
wrath of God Almighty on that cross of Calvary, and he brought
forth and birthed a church. We know that that church was
his from eternity, but in the cross and the resurrection they
are birthed in the most remarkable way. We read it in Psalm 110,
he shall have the Jew of his youth. He will have all of his
family with him, he will have all of his children with him,
he'll have all of his bride with him and none will be missing
and he is the head and we are the body and the body is a perfect
body. None missing. None missing. We have life with Christ and
that's exactly what the illustration is. The baby has life with Christ.
We have life with Christ in his eternal union. We have life with
God in his life. We have one with him in his death.
We're one with him in his resurrection. We're one with him in the new
birth in believing the gospel. We're one with him in the new
creation. we're one with him in heaven right now god almighty
says that we're seated together with him in heavenly places what
a creative act earth is into being, to be seen and to
live and to commune and to love. The Lord's saying the very thing
that will bring you great sorrow will bring you great joy. We have fullness of joy in the
Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious picture of union
with Him. A mother is with her child. Where the mother goes, the child
goes. Where the Lord Jesus Christ goes,
everyone in him goes. They feed together. What she
eats, he eats. He eats and she eats together.
They have life together. The life of the baby is intimately
linked to the life of the mother, the life of one There's a bond of love in conception,
in caring, in birthing, and the life together, which follows. Before this life is revealed,
it's not known to the earthly mother and father. Life begins
at conception, hidden away. So our life began, hidden away
from the people of this world. And each creation, each new creation
is unique. Unique and unique existence in Him. And when we see the mother, we
see the baby in Him. What a glorious picture of union
with the Lord Jesus Christ. When he goes to the Father, we
go to the Father. When he lives, we live in resurrection
glory. Where are we found? Where do
you want to be found? If you're like the Apostle Paul,
Philippians 3 says, Oh that I might win Christ and be found in him
as a baby in a mother. Christ in you, the hope of glory,
one of the glories of the Gospel is there is a mutual indwelling.
He lives in us and we live in him. We are united. to him, which is why there is
such rejoicing in the cross, isn't it? Everyone that he shed
his life's blood for is perfectly set free from sin. And the response of new life,
and Lord willing we'll look again at that next week, the response
of this new life, what's the baby's first response? It's a
cry. What's the first response of
your life in the child of God? You'll cry. You will ask again
and again. If you take your concordance
and read these last few chapters before the Lord goes to the cross
and prays, and before he prays his highest priest before you,
it's so much about asking. It's so much about asking. when you become aware of the
union between you and the Lord Jesus Christ, that eternal union,
John 14 20 says that in that day you will know Listen to what
it, read it with me. In that day you shall know, this
is something that believers according to God know, and something that
believers according to God rejoice in. In that day you shall know
that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you. Isn't that glorious? Is that something that causes
you to rejoice? Oh, may the Lord give us hearts
that rejoice in Him. And ask, ask, ask the Father
in my name. The older I get, the longer I
live, the more I'm asking. more i'm asking for myself and
the more i'm asking for you i'm asking for mercy i'm asking for
righteousness. I'm asking to live my life in
these short days that are left for his glory. I'm asking that
he might cause me to wait on him. I'm asking that he might
cause me to love the brethren. I'm asking that he might cause
there to be a door of utterance given. I'm asking that the gospel
might go forth amongst us and from us. I'm asking that we might
be found faithful to the end. might create and nurture and
bring love amongst us, that we might rejoice in each other company,
that he keep us faithful. I'm asking that we would see
his blood as precious and rejoice in Christ the hope of glory. Paul rejoiced. In Galatians 2.20,
he says these amazing words. He says, I am crucified with
Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh. I live by the faith, the faithfulness
of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Don't you want to enter into
that joy? Let's pray. Our Heavenly Father, we praise
you that we have a gospel which creates joy in the midst of a
sorrowing and wilderness world. And we pray, our Father, that
you'd cause us to Have our eyes fixed upon your Lord Jesus, your
dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and him crucified,
him resurrected, him glorified, him seated, him reigning, him
coming, that you might make him and his company precious to us. Heavenly Father, may we be found
in him. May we find ourselves washed
in his blood and robed in his righteousness, presented before
you because of everything that he has done. Heavenly Father,
use the short lives that we have for your glory, for the proclamation
of this gospel to each other that we might rejoice together. So we pray in his name and for
his glory.