John's Gospel, chapter 16 and
verse 25. The Lord Jesus Christ is speaking,
and this is what he says, speaking to his disciples. 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. At that day ye shall ask in my
name, and I say not unto you that I will pray the Father for
you. For the Father himself loveth
you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came
out from God. I came forth from the Father,
and am come into the world. Again I leave the world, and
go to the Father. 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. Jesus answered them, Do ye now
believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yea,
is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own,
and shall leave me alone. And yet I am not alone, because
the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto
you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall
have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world. Amen, may the Lord bless to us
this reading from his word. The things spoken by the Lord
Jesus Christ to his disciples in these last days before his
crucifixion were carefully chosen by our Saviour to minister directly
to their concerns. and to alleviate their fears
and comfort them during a time of great personal distress and
anxiety. The Lord spoke concerning the
disciple's personal interest in his death. He spoke about
his return to heaven. He told them he was returning
to his father He said in chapter 14 verse 27, peace I leave with
you, my peace I give unto you, not as the world giveth give
I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. He told them that he would send
the Holy Spirit to them, saying in verse 26 of chapter 14, but
the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send
in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things
to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. He spoke of their indwelling
by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of them having been
specifically chosen to evangelize and preach and gather the church
in Christ's name. In chapter 15 and verse 16, he
said to them, ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you and
ordained you that ye should go and bring forth fruit and that
your fruit should remain that whatsoever ye shall ask of the
Father in my name, he may give it you. So these things were
the things that the Lord Jesus Christ had spoken in chapters
14, 15, and 16 to his disciples with a view of helping them over
this period of distress that they were about to encounter. And I confess it seems hard Well,
to me anyway, to account for the slowness of the disciples
to understand what the Lord was saying and to believe the things
that the Lord spoke. Now, it is true that the Lord
sometimes spoke in parables and proverbs. For example, he spoke
about the mansions in his father's house. He spoke about the true
vine and the branches and how a woman's pain in childbirth
turns quickly to joy upon the birth of her child. And we might
say that that was proverbial. But such language does not seem
too difficult to grasp. And its meaning become fairly
straightforward and obvious. But as yet, the disciples seemed
not fully to comprehend what was being said to them. And despite
the Lord telling them, it is expedient that I go away, they
seemed confused about Christ not being seen, then being seen
and going to his Father. So the Lord laid it out again. We might say that the Lord laid
it out almost in single-syllable words. He said in chapter 16,
verse 28, It couldn't be any plainer. It is almost three chapters since
the Lord said, Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. And
Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest.
How can we know the way? Well, now at last, it seems as
though these men had finally grasped what the Lord was saying. And it may well be perhaps the
Lord did open their hearts and their minds a little to better
receive and believe his words. Nevertheless, as I thought about
this, we ought not to be too critical of the disciples' dullness
in these matters. And I'm sure that the Lord ordered
it so that we would be left without any excuse. In John chapter 20,
so that's on a few chapters from where we are, John writing at
the end of his gospel says, regarding his own gospel, these are written
that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God,
and that believing ye might have life through his name. So that
what we're being told by John here, that the things written
and the things spoken are intentionally for our spiritual peace and our
spiritual life and for our faith. How many beautiful explanations
we benefit from because the disciples laboured to grasp the Lord's
meaning at the first telling and therefore needed clarification. We actually have benefited from
some beautiful statements by the Lord because of the difficulty
that the disciples had in understanding. So we are the benefits. We are
the beneficiaries, sorry. We are the beneficiaries. We
would not, for example, have, I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No man cometh unto the Father
but by me. had Thomas not struggled to grasp
the Lord's meaning and ask his question back in John chapter
14. But there's something else here
too. The Lord acknowledges the disciples'
faith when they claimed at last to believe and understand what
it was he was telling them. However, his comment contains
we would say a mild rebuke. And it's a rebuke for their self-conceit
and their smugness. He says to them, do ye now believe? And I think probably that's the
way in which it was said. Do ye now believe? Almost with
a sense of incredulity. The point is, I think, The Lord
is saying that there is more to believing than just understanding
the words that are spoken. Now, I want us all to think about
that for a moment. What the Lord was saying to his
disciples was, do you now believe? You're professing faith, you're
saying you understand, you're telling me that you believe,
but do you now believe? Because there is more to believing
than just understanding the words that are spoken. Faith, true
faith, is practical. Faith affects our actions. It changes the way we think. It has consequences for the people
that we are. Faith is transformative. And if we truly have faith, it
will change and alter and transform the way we perceive the world
around us, the way we perceive ourselves, and the things that
happen to us, our circumstances. Faith is trusting in the Lord
Jesus Christ, but it is trusting in Him for who he is in his entirety,
not simply that he died on the cross, which of course is the
essence of our saving faith, but it is to accept and believe
all his dealings with us and to follow him trustingly and
have that effect and change the people we are and the way that
we live. The Lord was not denying the
presence of faith when he spoke to his disciples like this. He
was rather tempering their self-confidence. It's a reproof that is similar
to that given to Peter. Peter had claimed that he would
die for the Lord. And yet when it came to the testing
of his faith, he would go on to deny the Lord with curses. He cursed, he swore, he took
the Lord's name in vain to try and get him out of a difficult
situation where somebody was accusing him of being a follower
of Christ. And so too, all the disciples
professed to understand what the Lord was saying. And yet it was, as yet, just
head knowledge. It needed to be tested and it
needed to be proved. If they had true confidence in
what the Lord was telling them, then they would have had no fear. They would dwell in peace and
their hearts would rejoice that Christ was leaving them. In fact, within an hour, The
hour has now come, says the Lord. Within an hour, the whole group
would be scattered and Christ would be left on his own. Their
faith didn't pass muster. They said confidently that they
believed, but where their faith was sought, when their faith
was sought, it proved to be little and weak. It is one thing to
confess Christ when times are good and life is easy. It is
quite another to hold fast and trust the Lord's word in times
of trouble when everything is causing us anxiety and everything
is causing us fear. Furthermore, it takes times of
trouble to reveal this to us and give us the opportunity to
learn how to trust him better. And it's those times of trouble
that I think the Lord has in mind in what we have to say in
the remainder of our time together today. All this was known to
the Lord. and for the sake of his disciples
and for our sakes, yours and mine today, the Lord delivers
his final sentence of this final sermon before his death. And it's a very powerful, persuasive
and blessed statement. He says in verse 33, it's in
verse 33, he explains in verse 33, these things I have spoken
unto you. that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation,
but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. The Lord says these things. What is he talking about, these
things? Well, he's talking about all these things that he has
been talking about, about heaven and his Father and the Holy Spirit
coming. the things about their blessed
privileged state because of the love and the grace of God. He's
been speaking about these things, about the way Christ was the
way, the truth, and the life, of him being the true vine, and
out of great love laying down his life for theirs. laying down his life for his
friends. He's been speaking about these things, about sorrow turning
to joy. These things have I spoken unto
you, he says, that in me ye might have peace. Now let me just say as a little
aside, I know we have been applying this to the immediate needs of
the apostles and the anxieties that they would soon feel when
the Lord was arrested in the garden in the night, when he
was taken to judgment, when he was battered and beaten, when
he was taken and crucified, and the huge vacuum that was left
in their hearts and in their minds after that. And rightly
we have been applying these things from the Lord in anticipation
of this experience. But I think it's more than this. Because I think we can look at
this verse and see it as a delightful example of the whole of the gospel. God has spoken by his son Jesus
Christ in the gospel that we might have peace. Here's how
another of the apostles phrases this same sentiment. echoes the
Lord's words in this verse if you like. The writer to the Hebrews
says, God hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son,
whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made
the worlds. who being the brightness of His
glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding
all things by the word of His power, when He had Himself purged
our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. That I think is just an apostolic
representation of what the Lord Jesus Christ was saying here
to his disciples at the close of his ministry to them. And
let us not miss what is being said. God in grace has spoken
to sinful men and women and sent to us the word of salvation in
the person of his precious son, Jesus Christ. He has spoken words
of life and peace to us in the gospel. To sinners, guilty as
charged, under sentence of death and utterly helpless. So that
when the Lord Jesus Christ tells his disciples, these things I
have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. It is
the highest measure of divine truth. We have, in Christ, complete
reconciliation with God. We have, by the substitutionary
death of our Saviour, redemption by His blood. When the Son of God came into
the world, He told us why He had come. He told us what He
had come to do, and then He did it. He said, I am come into this
world that they which see not might see. I am come a light
into the world that whosoever believeth in me should not abide
in darkness. I am come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly. The gospel
is spoken to us that we might believe and have forgiveness
of sins and life and peace by the blood and righteousness of
our Lord Jesus Christ. And yet we have learned too,
in recent weeks, just how careful and gracious and tender the Lord
was in dealing with his disciples. How intimate and personal he
was in dealing with Thomas's question and Philip's question
and the evident struggle that these men had to comprehend what
he was saying to them. Dealing with them as little children.
Little children preoccupied with their own interests and failing
to hear and failing to comprehend the words that the Savior spoke
to them. So here, in this final statement,
this final verse, here he gathers all the lessons that he had taught
them in preparation for his going away and he says, These things
I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In
the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have
overcome the world. It was true the disciples would
know much tribulation in the coming days as the Lord was taken
from them and crucified. And we've thought a lot about
that in recent weeks. But the Lord's words would serve
to encourage and comfort these men going forward as their own
apostolic calling and ministry unfolded. They'd be questioned
by the authorities and beaten. they would be imprisoned and
beaten some more. They would be scourged, they
would be stoned, they would be beheaded, they would be crucified. And yet, says Christ, be of good
cheer. And what was true for the disciples
will be true for all the Lord's people. It is the Lord Jesus
Christ himself who tells us, in the world you shall have tribulation. That's almost the last thing
the Lord said to these men before he went to the cross. In the
world you shall have tribulation. There's no getting away from
the trials and the problems that will afflict the Lord's followers
in this earthly life. It has been the experience of
the church in all ages. And tribulation will dog us in
the flesh until our last breath on our last day on this earth. And it is something that we should
all expect. And I want you to know this,
and I want you to understand this as well. A believer's tribulation
is not for punishment of sin. Remember what we were talking
about when the Lord said, do you believe? A believer's tribulation is not
for punishment of sin. It's for proving, testing, our
faith. It is to show it genuine. It is to improve it and better
it. It is to make it strong when
it is weak. It is to make it grow when it
is little. And harsh as they feel, trials
teach us and they bring about temporal, spiritual and eternal
good for the people of God. We could say, don't knock your
tribulations. They will do you good. Now your
tribulation may not be of the same kind or nature as the apostles
or indeed other individuals of church history, the heroes and
heroines of the faith, as they're sometimes called. I don't know
whether that's legitimate or not. I guess some people have
been called to bear greater burdens than others. But the nature of
the trial is not as important as the necessity of the trial. We are all in the schoolroom
of the Lord. We all have to learn Christ. and then put our learning into
action. We learn the simplicity that
is in Christ. We learn the truth of the gospel. We learn what the Lord Jesus
Christ has done and accomplished for our salvation. We learn humility. We learn how weak we are, how
dependent on the Lord we are. We learn because of the tribulations? How fierce are our opponents
and the deceitfulness of our own hearts and flesh? And the
question is, how shall we react when our faith is tested? We might not be beheaded, but
we might have to live with migraines. year after year after year. We might not be scourged with
whips, but we might be lashed with people's tongues and our
character ruined. We might be diagnosed with cancer.
We might not be put in prison, but we might have to live under
the shadow of loneliness and depression, which are prisons
of a different kind. How will it be in the furnace?
How will it be in the storm? How will it be in the wilderness
or among the wild beasts? How will it be when the waters
of Jordan rise? How hard will it be to be of
good cheer? Well, it will be easier if we
understand this. The Lord says to his disciples,
and he says to us, in the world, you shall have tribulation, but
be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. So let me just ask in closing,
what does that mean? How has Christ overcome the world? Our Savior has overcome the world. by defeating and removing every
obstacle in the world in order to bring His church to God and
fit us for His presence. Our Saviour came into the world
to save His people from their sins and to deliver them from
captivity. And He did not fail. He came
into the world to save His people from their sins and to deliver
them from captivity, and He did not fail. To do so, He must overcome the
powers of this world that bound His people captive. He must defeat
Satan, the God and Prince of this world. with all his principalities
and with all his powers. He must defeat death, which is
the price of our disobedience. He must defeat sin, the damning
power that holds all men and women, boys and girls captive
in the natural realm. He must break open the prison
house of the grave. and this Christ has done. He
did it on the cross and He did it when He rose from the dead.
He lived a perfect life, free from all the lust and filth and
corruption of this world. He lived in full compliance and
obedience to His Father in the world. He overcame the might
of men and He endured the worst evil. that they could do to him. He has shown himself to be ruler
of this world with all its powers subject to him. He raised the
dead and worked miracles. He demonstrated how even the
forces of nature were subject to his will. The winds and the
waves obey Him. The sun was darkened for three
hours. Even gravity was subject to His
will. Nothing in this world can withstand
the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And every attempt to do so has
proved futile and unsuccessful. Christ has the victory. The victory is already won. We
who believe in him share in that victory. We who believe in him
are on the victor's side. We are on the winning team. And because this is so, the Lord
calls his people to be of good cheer. So that's no People say to us,
don't worry, it'll be alright. Well, when the Lord says be of
good cheer, that's no platitude. It isn't an empty cliche. It's true because He has overcome
the world. It's true because our sins are
forgiven, our spirits are free, God's love is towards us, His
grace and His mercy are our constant comfort. We have the Holy Spirit
living within us, in our hearts. We have the Father, the Son and
the Holy Ghost making their abode. in Christ's church, making Christ's
people their dwelling place? And we are dearly loved as the
body of our risen glorious head. Everything that God does, he
does for the sake of the God-man Jesus Christ. for the love that
he has to him, his beloved son in whom he is well pleased, head
and body. So when the Lord Jesus Christ
says, be of good cheer, lift up your heads, your redemption
draweth nigh. We have firm hopes of glory. We have mansions laid up for
us in heaven and the divine promise of everlasting joy and peace
in the presence of our Savior. Brothers and sisters, we have
every reason to be of good cheer. The tribulations that we have,
the worries, the anxieties, the uncertainties, the doubts, the
pains, the challenges, the concerns about our health, our family,
politics, finances, employment, everything that goes on in the
circumstances of this world, these tribulations are not going
to drag us down. They are not going to defeat
us. They already are defeated. We
have in our tribulations things that are positive, constructive,
purposeful, and effectual for our relationship with Christ
and our service here on earth. And they will lend themselves
also to our glorious entrance into heaven. God only has goodwill
towards his people, so that even our hardships and trials are
for our good. Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid. These things I have spoken unto
you, says the Lord, that in me ye might have peace. In the world
ye shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome
the world. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us today. Amen.