Welcome to our program. I'll
be preaching today from John chapter 16, and the title of
the message is Peace and Victory in Christ. Now, I've taken the
title from the last verse of this chapter as recorded in the
King James Version of the Bible. When the Lord is speaking to
his disciples in the upper room and instructing them concerning
the upcoming events of his death on the cross, his suffering unto
death for the sins of his people, and he's seeking to comfort them,
to calm them in the face of what not only he was going to face,
but what they were going to face. And he says in verse 33, he says,
These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have
peace. Now, peace is found only in Christ,
the Prince of Peace, the Giver of Peace. And we'll talk about
that. Then he says, in the world you
shall have tribulation. In other words, no peace with
or in the world. But he says, but be of good cheer,
I have overcome the world. That's victory in Christ. Peace
and victory. Now, I want us to go back and
look at a few verses in John 16 to lead up to this point. Last week I concluded with these
two verses, and I want you to see this. Verse 23, Christ said,
and in that day you shall ask me nothing. He said, Verily,
verily, I say unto you, whatsoever you shall ask the Father in my
name, he will give it to you. Hitherto, or up to this point,
have you asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive,
that your joy may be full. Now he's talking about the joy
that they would have after his death and when he was resurrected
from the dead and they would see him. Their joy would be full.
Their sorrow would be turned into joy. We saw that last week. But here what he's talking about
is the full blessedness that would come to them as believers
in the Lord Jesus Christ based upon his finishing his work on
the cross. to open the way of access unto
the Father by Him. The Bible teaches that Christ
by Himself opened that way of access unto the Father, unto
the throne of grace, by His substitutionary death on the cross to satisfy
God's law and justice. Up until that time, he says,
that you haven't asked anything in my name. In other words, their
prayers were not in the fullness of the blessedness of seeing
the full work of Christ. He said, in that day you shall
ask me nothing. In other words, they were asking
him to pray for them, but then they would have free access in
prayer themselves. The Bible teaches that as the
priesthood of the believer. What is the priesthood of the
believer? Well, some people say, well, that means you've got a
right to think how you want to think, and I've got a right to
think how I want to think. We can look at the Scriptures
and interpret them on our own. That's not what priesthood of
the believer means. First of all, if you think about
the priesthood under the Old Covenant, those priests were
not allowed to think and interpret things of their own initiative,
of their own natural way of thinking. They were told by God through
Moses every detail of their duties, of what they were to think, of
what they were to do. So it wasn't just individual
interpretation, individual dislikes or likes or whatever. Now the
priesthood of the believer under the New Covenant, under the New
Testament, is the believer's free access as he has been made
a priest unto God. He can go into the Holy of Holies,
not an earthly tabernacle or an earthly temple, but an eternal
one, the very presence of God, through Christ, who is the Great
High Priest. And that's what He's teaching
the disciples here. When He would finish His work,
they would not ask Him to pray for them in their own supplications. They would go to the Father themselves
through Him. Now that doesn't mean that Christ
doesn't pray for them. Doesn't mean that Christ doesn't
pray for us. He does. He's our continual intercessor. But what he's showing here, and
understand this, is that upon his death, his finished work,
his fulfilling all righteousness and going unto the Father, they
themselves personally would have free access into the throne of
God. Through Christ now. It's not
without a mediator. It's not without a high priest.
For we come unto God at His throne of grace through our great high
priest. Any sinner who attempts to come to God for anything,
based on anything other than the blood and righteousness of
Christ, the great high priest, is coming for nothing. In other
words, it's blasphemy, actually. So he says, and whatsoever you
shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it to you. Now,
verse 24 says, hitherto you have asked nothing in my name. Ask,
and you shall receive, that your joy may be full. Now, you know
what people do with verses like that when he says, ask, and it
shall be given to you. Many people say, well, see, all
you've got to do is ask for it, and God will give it. Or if you
believe it sincerely enough, or you can ask for anything,
that's not what he's talking about. It's asking in his name. In other words, it's asking according
to His will. Now, there are many areas we
don't know His specific will in our lives, and we plead our
supplications. But you see, it's not just getting
what you want. It's asking according to the
will of Christ. In other words, it's give it
to me because you want it. Christ wants it, or wants me
to have it. And if the answer is no, then we accept that as
God's will. And then some people ask for
things they don't need. Some people ask for things they
shouldn't ask for. They ask in opposition to God's
revealed will in the Bible. Some people ask for things just
out of selfishness, and that's not according to His will. Selfishness
is a sin. We ask for things according to
His will that will glorify Him and be for our good. And my friend,
many times we're like little children. We don't know what's
good for us, but God does. He's the Father. Now look at
verse 25 of John 16. He says, these things have I
spoken unto you in Proverbs. But the time cometh when I shall
no more speak unto you in Proverbs, but I shall show you plainly
of the Father. Now that word Proverbs, many
of you may have a Bible with a concordance in it, and in the
concordance it says parables. And that is a related word. Proverbs
and parables. You know what a proverb is. The
book of Proverbs in the Bible is short sayings that pack a
lot of meaning. And there are Proverbs throughout
the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, not just in the book of Proverbs.
And then we know what parables are. They are stories. Our Lord
told parables which were spiritual truths illustrated by physical
things. And they were physical stories
that taught a spiritual lesson. And He spoke in Proverbs. The
reason He spoke in parables was to hide the gospel from those
who who continued, insisted on rejecting it. But the force of
what he's saying here to his disciples is this. He's saying,
basically, I've spoken many things unto you, many things in short
sentences, many things that may sound to the ear mysterious,
and you have not yet grasped the full meaning of the things
that I've spoken unto you. But he said, the time coming
when I shall no more speak those things which are a mystery to
you, which you don't see the full impact of it, he says, for
I will show you plainly of the Father. Now he's talking about
his relationship to the Father. He's spoken many things. He said,
I and the Father are one. He said, I came forth from the
Father. They understood something of what he was saying, but they
didn't understand the full impact of it. And he says in verse 26,
at that day you shall ask him my name, and I say not unto you
that I will pray the Father for you, for the Father himself loveth
you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came
out from God. Now that may sound a little strange
to you, but here's what he's saying simply in this passage.
He said, I'm going to show you the fullness of all that I've
spoken. Back over in John chapter 16
and verse 12, he made this statement. He said, I have yet many things
to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. What he's saying
now over here and later is that those things which I couldn't
say because you couldn't bear them, he said, then I'm going
to say them. I'm going to show you the fullness of the glory
of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ. And he says, you've
seen some of it. They've seen some of it. They
knew the gospel. They knew how God saves sinners,
but they hadn't seen the fullness of it. You see, this is a matter
of degrees. And then he says in verse 13
of John 16, he says, "...howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth,
is come, he will guide you into all truth." He's going to show
you the whole truth. Somebody said the whole truth
and nothing but the truth. And he says, "...for he shall
not speak of himself, The Holy Spirit is not going to speak
of himself, he's going to speak of Christ. He says, but whatsoever
he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things
to come, he shall glorify me. Christ said, the Holy Spirit
will glorify me. My friend, if you want to know
if whatever's going on inside of you, in your mind, in your
heart, if it's of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to tell you how you
can know that for sure, without any doubt. The Holy Spirit will
always lead sinners to look unto Christ and to Him alone. He will
glorify Christ. He will not cause you to look
within except to see your sinfulness, but He won't leave you there.
If you're left there, then it's not the Holy Spirit. He will
cause you to look out unto Christ, the Crucified One, whose blood
and whose righteousness cleanses us from all sin and justifies
us before God. And it says, he will show you
things to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall
receive of mine, and shall show it unto you all things that the
Father hath of mine. Therefore said I, that he shall
take of mine, and shall show it unto you." Now that's what
he's saying in these verses here. He says, at that day you shall
ask in my name, and I say not unto the Father, that I will
pray the Father for you. In other words, it won't be just
a matter of Christ praying for them alone. It will be a matter
of them praying directly to the Father through the Son. Up until
this point, as I said last week, He had prayed for them. But now
they will have free access to God through the Son when Christ
finishes His work. There is a great, great act in
history That illustrated the very point that I'm trying to
make that may make it simpler for me and for you. You remember
when Christ was on the cross, he was doing his great work,
suffering under the burden of the sins of his people laid upon
him. And before he died and gave up
the ghost and said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,
he made this statement. It's recorded in John chapter
19, I believe verse 30. And he said, it is finished. He finished all that he came
to do. He put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. He established righteousness
right there on the cross and imputed it to his people. God
imputed, the Father imputed it to his people. And all that was
accomplished, you see, their justification before God right
there on the cross. And when he gave up the ghost,
it says the veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom. That's what he's talking about
in this language here. You see, that veil in the temple
and in the Old Testament tabernacle represented a barrier between
God and sinners. Back in the old covenant, only
the high priest could go in behind the veil into the holiest of
all. The holy of holies. He had to
be an appointed high priest. God appointed him. He had to
come with the blood of the Lamb. Not without blood, you see. Without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. And he
had to bring that, he had to come with the right uniform on,
that God prescribed, the priestly garments. bearing the names of
the twelve tribes of Israel on his breastplate and on his shoulder. And that's a great picture of
Christ, our great high priest, going into the very holiest of
all, not an earthly tabernacle or an earthly temple now, but
into the very presence of God in heaven, bearing the names
of his sheep, God's elect, his church on his breast the breast
of his love, and upon his shoulders, the shoulders of his power."
In other words, Christ going into the holiest of all. Now,
back in the Old Covenant, that veil barred the way into the
holiest for sinners, only the high priest. But when Christ
finished his work, the veil was rent from top to bottom. And
that was God in history, intervening in history by his power. See,
the veil wasn't torn from bottom to top, but from top to bottom.
It was an act of God. And what he's showing here is
that now in Christ, based upon his finished work, his blood
and his righteousness imputed, sinners who know him and trust
him and believe in him have free access to God, the holiest of
all, the very presence of God, through Christ and his blood. And that's what he's teaching
these disciples here. He said, I'll show you plainly
of the Father. You will see the Father in the
face of the Son. You will see the glory of God
in the face of Jesus Christ. And you will pray to the Father,
but you'll pray through the Son. And he says in verse 27, For
the Father himself loveth you, because you've loved me, and
have believed that I came out from God. Now what he's saying
here is that the evidence that the Father loves you is your
love of the Son. It's not that the Father loves
you based upon your loving the Son. The Bible teaches plainly
that God's love to his people is not based on their love or
called by their love to him. If that were the case, God would
love none of us. You see, God loves freely and
unconditionally. The Bible says in 1 John 4, verse
10, herein is love, not that we love God, but that He loved
us and gave His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. And I'll tell you something,
that's a good parallel verse to this verse right here when
He says, "...for the Father Himself loved with you, because you loved
Me, and have believed that I came out from God." Now what does
that mean, He came out from God? Well, we've talked about the
Trinity, And that is certainly a concept that is so difficult
for us to grasp and understand, not only difficult, we'd say
impossible. We know it's true because the
Bible reveals it. God reveals himself as one God
who subsists in three distinct persons, God the Father, God
the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that each
person of the God is not three gods now, it's one God. Because
each person of the Godhead, they are co-equal in every attribute
of deity. They are one God, three distinct
persons. The Bible tells us that each
person of the Godhead is actively involved in the salvation of
a sinner. God the Father represents the
sovereignty, the authority of the Godhead. He's the one who
chose a people before the foundation of the world elected them and
gave them to Christ. God the Son, the Eternal Son,
without beginning, without end, agreed to become the surety,
the Savior, the Redeemer, the Mediator of those people whom
the Father had given Him. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will
in no wise cast out. He agreed because of his love
for the Father and his love for the people. to come and redeem
them from their sins, to establish the righteousness based upon
which the Father could be just and justify the ungodly. And
he died the just for the unjust, and Christ redeemed them from
their sins. And then God the Holy Spirit
comes out as sent from the Father and the Son to apply all that
the Father purposed and all that the Son purchased in the new
birth. He is the sovereign agent whereby
they are brought under the preaching of the gospel and given life.
Now, that's what the Bible says. Now, the Son came out from the
Father. What's that referring to? That's
referring to the reason He was sent into the world. Now, what
was that for? To redeem His people from their
sins. The Bible says the fullness of
the time God sent forth His Son made of a woman, that's his humanity,
his incarnation, made under the law, that's his responsibility
to fulfill the law for his people, to redeem them that were under
the law. So when he says, I came out from
the Father, I came out from God, he's referring to his redemptive
work on the cross. And that's what he's saying.
The Father himself loveth you. And the evidence is that you
love me and have believed that I came up from God. You believe
that I was sent from the Father to redeem you from your sins.
Now, he says in verse 28, I came forth from the Father and am
coming to the world. Again, I leave the world and
go to the Father. Well, what's that talking about?
Exactly the same thing. He says, I came forth from the
Father. God the Father sent God the Son into the world. As I
said, I quoted there from Galatians chapter 4. God sent forth His
Son, made of a woman, made under the law. And then He says, "...and
am come into the world." That's His incarnation. He walked among
sinners. The perfect God-man, who knew
no sin, and who was made sin, walked among sinners. and went
to the cross, and then he says, I leave the world and go to the
Father. What does that mean? That means
he's going to die. He's going to suffer, bleed, and die for
the sins of his people, and because he established on that cross
an everlasting righteousness of infinite value whereby God
could be just and justify the ungodly, he would ascend unto
the Father. He'd be raised from the dead
the third day. And he would ascend unto the
Father, and be seated at the right hand of the Father, ever
living, to make intercession for his people. And by his power,
by his love, based on his finished work, he is able to save to the
uttermost them that come unto God by him. What a joy that is. I tell you, that's peace now.
That's peace in Christ. But he says in verse 29, now
look at this, it says, His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest
thou plainly, and speakest no proverb. Now are we sure that
thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should
ask thee. By this we believe that thou
camest forth from God. Now this is real interesting
because you see, we know the history of it, we know what God
recorded of it. But here's the disciples. They're
beginning to understand more. And in their minds and in their
hearts, they're beginning to see more of His glory. And so
they say, well, now, now you're speaking plainly. Now we understand
exactly, exactly what you're saying. We understand what's
going on. In verse 31, and they said, now
we understand that you came forth from God. We understand why you're
doing what you're doing. And they did to a point. But
you know what? It's like all of us by nature,
men, you know, we think we know more than we know. We think we
understand more than we understand. And Christ said to them in verse
31, he answered them, do you now believe? Now he's not asking
for a response from them here. He's not asking a question for
information. He's making a point. Do you really believe? Are you
really sure yet? Well, look at what he says to
them in verse 32. Behold, the hour cometh, yea,
is now come, and you shall be scattered, every man to his own,
that is, to his own home, and shall leave me alone. You're
going to run. That's what he's saying. You're
going to run in fear, go back to your homes. You're going to
leave me on my own. Well, that had to be. Because
Christ, listen, Christ walked the winepress of God's wrath
alone, the scripture says. It is He alone who is the Savior
of His people. It wasn't Christ and the Apostle
Peter. It wasn't Christ and the Apostle
Peter and the Apostle John that saved us, that saved His people,
rather. It was Christ and Him alone. It is by His suffering unto death
alone. It is by his shed blood alone,
it is by his righteousness alone that sinners are forgiven and
justified before a holy God. And when the Holy Spirit births
you again, you will see your salvation in Christ alone. But he says, and yet I am not
alone, because the Father is with me. Are you really sure? Well, he says in verse 33, These
things I have spoken unto you." Now listen to this. These things
have I spoken unto you, that in me you might have peace. Not in the world, not in yourself,
but in me. You see, their peace, peace with
God, was in Christ. Christ is the Prince of Peace.
He established the ground of peace. There is no peace without
Him. And even the peace of mind and
heart that God's people have comes only from assurance and
hope and rest in Christ. My friend, you're not going to
have peace in this world. There's only peace in Christ.
And he says, in the world you shall have tribulation, nothing
but trouble, persecution, opposition, but be of good cheer. Now here's
the reason we have peace and we can be of good cheer if we
know Christ. He says, I have overcome the world. You see,
without Christ, first of all, without Christ, we are of the
world. Over in John 17 that I'm going to deal with in the coming
weeks, he prays for his disciples. He said, I've brought them out
of the world. I've called them out of the world. They are in
the world. They're walking around in this world, but they're not
of the world. Back over in John chapter 15,
he said, if you were of the world, the world would love its own.
You'd get along with the world, but you're not of the world.
And then without him, the world would overtake us and overcome
us. You see, the reason the church
cannot be destroyed and cannot be utterly cast down is because
Christ is the rock of the church. Christ is the center of the church. Christ is the head of the church.
Christ is the redeemer of the church. Christ is the preserver
of the church. And when he comes again, he will
be the gatherer of the church. And in him the church will be
glorified, and by him. You see, the gates of hell will
not prevail against because we're at peace with God. All who know
Christ are at peace with God. God's been reconciled to them
through his Son, and they've been reconciled to God through
his Son. And his Son has already won the
victory. He won the victory at Calvary
when he put the devil in his place. He removed all of the
grounds of condemnation and justified his people. And all that's being
accomplished is because of peace and victory in him. I hope this
message has been helpful to your understanding of the scriptures.
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