I Have Overcome the World — Westlake Bible Fellowship

0:03 John chapter 16

Good morning. I'm gonna read this morning from John chapter 16. I I hope that's right. Is that right? We're gonna do John chapter 16.

Okay. I know sometimes things don't go as planned, so I I was assigned. My homework was John chapter 16 verses 16 through 33. So this is the second half of John chapter 16. So that was the assignment that I accomplished, I hope.

You know, I I am not very good at covering large passages of scripture, But Roger texted me, please cover verses 16 through 33. So I thought I better better cover them all. So we'll do our we'll do our best. In a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me. Some of his disciples said to one another, what does he mean by saying, in a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me, and because I am going to the Father.

They kept asking, what does he mean by a little while? We don't understand what he is saying. Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, are you asking one another what I meant when I said, in a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me? I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.

A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come, but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you. Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice and no one will take away your joy. In that day, you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my father will give you whatever you ask in my name.

Until now, you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you shall receive, and your joy will be complete. Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language, but will tell you plainly about my father. In that day, you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the father on your behalf.

No. The father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the father and entered the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father. Then Jesus' disciples said, now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech.

Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God. You believe at last, Jesus answered, but a time is coming and has come when each of you will be scattered to his own home. You will leave me all alone, yet I am not alone, for my father is with me. I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace.

3:40 In this world, you will have trouble

So to me, this is a very difficult passage to understand. It's not one of those passages that I read and I immediately think, oh, I know what's going on in this passage. Jesus is speaking figuratively. The disciples don't understand. Then, Jesus explains to them what he meant, but it's not in a way that I can clearly make out what is happening here.

And then all of a sudden, the disciples say, we get it now. We understand everything. And Jesus sort of comes back and says, ah, you believe, which in this version of the Bible has an exclamation point after it. Ah, now you believe. But in other versions, there's a question mark after that.

Ah, you believe? And I kind of like the question mark better because it seems like there are some questions in here. So we're just gonna get into it this morning with the understanding that there are some things that we are not going to understand this side of heaven. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't put forth the effort in making sense of what we can. This is one of the last conversations that Jesus has with his disciples.

And in this conversation, I would like to point out four things that he is talking about. They don't all start with the same letter, for which I apologize. But they do all end in I n g. So... Yes.

I don't know. There's some kind of term for those words. What are I n g words? Gerunds. Is that right?

English teachers in the room? Gerunds. So I have four gerunds that you can use to to to remember. He is talking about seeing, seeing, then he talks about rejoicing, then he talks about asking, and then he talks about triumphing. Seeing, rejoicing, asking, and triumphing.

So what does Jesus mean by, in verse 16, in a little while, you will see me no more, and then after a little while, you will see me? The disciples are puzzled over this. And don't forget that two chapters previously, in John 14 and verse nine, Jesus has already told them that the time was coming when the world would no longer see him, but that his followers would see him. Now, frankly, there are a couple of different ways that these passages have historically been interpreted. One of these ways is that Jesus is simply talking about his coming death, in which they would no longer see him, for a little while, a couple of days, and then his resurrection, when they would see him again.

That's perfectly acceptable interpretation of these verses. Another interpretation of this idea of not seeing and then seeing takes on a little more spiritual aspect of seeing. In other words, they are going to go through a time where they do not see him in a physical sense because he has died and has gone to his father. And then there is going to come a time when they see him again in a spiritual sense. In other words, they are going to see him through the eyes of the Holy Spirit, particularly after the day of Pentecost.

So this is another interpretation of this little while. What is meant by the little while? And the second view has some credence to it because Jesus is connecting this idea of they will see him again with the idea that he is going back to his father. So how can they see him if he goes back to his father unless he's talking about sight in a spiritual sense? Not only that, it's difficult in English, but the word seeing is actually two different words.

The first time he uses it, when he says, you will see me no longer, is a word that means, like, as looking or observing something. And the second use of the word seeing has more to do with vision in a in a broader sense than just physical sight. So that is that is the how this conversation starts out in verse 16. But I would like to connect it back a little bit to help us understand a few verses earlier where Jesus is talking about the spirit of Truth coming to guide them into all truth. So, this is verse 13.

9:05 The coming of the Holy Spirit

He's talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, and then he talks about this time when they will see him once again. And I think we would say that is true, that the Holy Spirit allows us to have this access to Jesus, even when he is not physically here. You know, that it it it is it is like he is beside me in a physical sense. Some people refer to this as having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Although those words are never found in the Bible, this idea is there that that that the Holy Spirit can give us what Matthew Henry called a thrilling consciousness.

A thrilling consciousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we should be thrilled that by the Holy Spirit, we still have a vision of Jesus even though he is not physically here. And this vision of Christ, you know, is supposed to give us calmness in the storms of life. It's supposed to lift us above temptation. I don't actually know what I would do if Jesus were physically to appear next to me.

I don't know if I would be terrified, if I would be delighted. But I will tell you this, all the other things that that compete for his attention would disappear pretty quickly. It would be kind of like if I took a flashlight, which appears very bright in the darkness, but I took it outside right now, and it wouldn't shine very bright at all. So how are we going to get that kind of nearness to Christ? Right?

If we're supposed to still have this access to Jesus, even though he is not physically here. And I believe it is through the working of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit to me is the most mysterious of the three parts of the Trinity. But Jesus becomes visible to me, not through my human eyes, but through the eyes of faith. And so the best way for me to get a clearer vision of Jesus is by submitting my mind and my spirit and my heart to the teaching and direction of the Holy Spirit.

And the spirit uses the scriptures to make Jesus present in my life, much as if He were physically right there beside me. I guess, personally, I've found there's three things that have helped me to see Jesus. You can take these or or leave them. First, I have to be thinking about him. I have to occupy my thoughts with the Lord.

If I remain too fixed on the trivial problems of life, then I miss the presence of God. You know, it's like... I read this study once that most people go through their entire day and never look at the sky. The sky is right there all the time, but for reasons we don't quite understand, most human beings either look at the ground or they look at things at eye level. It takes effort to lift my eyes above that and look at the sky, even though the sky is always there.

I thought that's really interesting. But that's kind of like how it is with me seeing the presence of the Lord. I am able at any time to see him with the eyes of faith, but it takes a little effort on my part. It doesn't come naturally to me. I'm too fixed on what is directly ahead of me, or what are we going have for lunch today, or when is this guy going to stop talking, or what's the next hymn?

So I'm supposed to meditate, think on the presence of the Lord. The second thing that helps me see Jesus in this spiritual sense is to shut out competing objects. Alright? I have to look away onto Jesus. And sometimes there are a dazzling amount of distractions in my life.

13:43 Technology is a major distraction

So I thought the other morning as I was checking my phone, maybe if I use this time to get more serious about prayer or meditation on the word, that I would be able to see Jesus in a in a stronger way. You have your own distractions, I'm sure. That is just one example. And the third way that I see Jesus in a spiritual sense is by doing his will. Charles Spurgeon said that one act of obedience to God is worth more than hours of idle contemplation.

Sometimes, you just have to obey. You know, rebelliousness can often blind us to the truth. If you are sitting in a state of rebellion, you either either consciously or unconsciously, it's difficult to see the presence of God. But submission, submission can sort of clear my eyes to see Jesus better. This week, NASA released the first photographs of Jupiter to come back from the Juno satellite.

The Juno satellite is the closest satellite ever to reach the planet Jupiter. And it sent back these pictures that gave us such details that we never knew about because it was so close to the planet. We had pictures of Jupiter before, but they were taken from so far away that we were... It sort of obscured what was going on on that planet. It looked just like swirling clouds of mist, and that's actually how a lot of people think about Jesus.

Just kind of this misty presence. I'm not really sure what to make of him because we're not close enough to him to see him through the eyes of faith. Now, the disciples are curious about this, but they, instead of asking questions about this incredible opportunity, or what the Holy Spirit is going to be like, or how the relationship between Christ and the disciples are like a vine and the branches, Or what did you mean by a love that lays down your life for your friends? No, the disciples are concerned with time. When are these things going to happen?

What exactly did he mean by a little while? Right? And I think that this kind of thinking is typical of many Christians. It's typical of myself. I often get distracted by the details, by the minutiae, and I just miss the bigger picture.

And sometimes the details are very interesting. Exactly is Christ returning? Is the country of Israel really the same thing as the nation of Israel in the Bible? And we can argue and discuss these things. It's all very interesting.

But sometimes we get bogged down in even smaller issues that have almost no bearing on anything. My grandfather was a pastor of a church, different churches for forty years. He said the last time he went to a church board meeting, the men at the board meeting spent forty minutes discussing what should go in the church's first aid kit. He said after that, he never went to another board meeting. They were just too distracted by the minutiae.

So this is how we see the disciples. What did he mean by a little while? We don't understand what he's saying. Here's another temptation in my own thoughts. That is when I run across something difficult to just sort of throw up my hands and say, oh, you know what?

I can't tell what Jesus is talking about. It doesn't make any sense to me. I give up thinking altogether. Let me read something else. I'll turn to Ephesians or something something that I can grasp onto.

18:12 Some people could not understand

I have read all these books myself, and some of them are enjoyable. But there are certain Christian books that are easy to read. They've become very popular. They're very light on theology, very light on doctrine, but they become national bestsellers. And then there's books on systematic theology and the doctrine of atonement that sort of sit on our shelves covered in dust.

Because it's easy to read these popular novels about Christianity, and it's difficult to think through theological issues. But Jesus commands us to love the Lord our God with all of our hearts and our souls and our minds. And I think that for many of us, loving him with all our minds is often the one that takes the most work. So it is not surprising that we see the disciples saying, We don't understand what he is saying. You know, they're getting frustrated here.

There's also a temptation in the American church particularly to say, I don't really need to study or to wrestle with ideas, because I got the love of Jesus in my heart. Hey, man. You don't need all that theology. I got love. Love is all you need.

But it was Jesus who told us to put our minds to work in loving God. You know, there's a few of us out here who are teachers. Every teacher knows that sometimes you give the kids a challenging problem. Why? So that they have to strive for something that is just out of their reach, and then their little minds begin to grow.

Right? This is what good teachers do. And so God has put some things in the scripture that are hard for us to understand. God But when we work at understanding them through study, through prayer, through asking others who are wiser than ourselves, our faith grows in our hearts. But, you know, we bring a lot of baggage to the scriptures as well.

I think part of the reason that the disciples are confused here is because they have some preconceived ideas that are incorrect. This is an example of a case where people's political views are keeping them from understanding God. So... And this is this is natural for this to happen. The disciples had this idea of a physical kingdom of God that Jesus was going to set up, that he was going to overthrow these Romans, that he was going to establish this actual earthly kingdom centered on Jerusalem in which they were going to have a major part.

And so they never really got rid of that idea while Christ was alive. And so when Christ is saying things to them like, well, you're not going to see me anymore. And when he talks about his death, they cannot reconcile that with these preconceived political notions. And, you know, I I think that sometimes if if we try to make the Bible fit some false idea I have about God, instead of allowing my ideas about God to come straight from scripture, well, then it's no wonder the Bible is hard to understand. I've got these ideas about God that are wrong, so I'm trying to make these verses fit my ideas.

That's just backwards thinking. Now, don't think we can resolve every difficulty we meet in the scriptures, but we shouldn't give up the search either. We should try to understand what we can, and at the same time, eager for the day when God is going to explain the rest of it to us. Verse 19, Jesus saw they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, Are you asking one another what I meant by in a little while you will see me no more? And then after a little while, you will see me.

22:45 A woman giving birth to a child

Now, I thought this is an interesting analogy to use with a group of men about a woman giving birth to a child. Now, okay, so many of us were with our wives when they gave birth to a baby. So we've seen this happen. I had some preconceived ideas about what this beautiful process was going to be like. But when Megan and I were at the Parma Hospital, and I guess Paul was there too, come to think of it.

Paul and Megan and I are all at the Parma Hospital, it was not at all what I expected to see. There was a lot of stress, and yelling, and blood, and that was just me. This is not even to talk about what happened to Megan. Right? But Jesus is sort of using this scene to illustrate, you know, that the disciples would weep and mourn at the death of Christ.

But then, once the baby is born, after the resurrection, if we follow the analogy, you will forget the anguish because of this joy. So, I don't know if, I don't think that Jesus meant that women literally forget the pain they went through. I don't know. I am not a woman. I know my wife has reminded me of it on several occasions, so she's not here.

I know she, at least, has not forgotten. But, you know, there are times, though, that I look at our son Paul, and I am astounded that God used Meghan and I to create this human being. And so so there are mysteries there that I do not understand. But the cause of the joy that Jesus is talking about seems to be that we will see him again, that Jesus is going to return from us. Even in the days when he seems to be far from me, my spiritual vision of him is clouded, he is still close by.

And I know that there are going be days in the future when that joy is going to return because nobody can take away the joy of our belief in the coming of Christ. It is not like the temporary happiness of events here on Earth. Temporary happiness is stolen from us in a thousand different ways. I'll give you an example of this. Several weeks ago, Megan and I had tickets to see the Silk Road Ensemble at Blossom.

The Silk Road Ensemble is an international group of musicians led by Yo Yo Ma, who is perhaps the world's greatest cellist. And we were really looking forward to this concert. In fact, we had splurged, and we got tickets under the pavilion, just in case it was going to rain. So we're driving down to Cuyahoga Falls, and I'm approaching Blossom, and there is a lot of traffic. I had never seen this much traffic going into Blossom before.

In fact, traffic was backed up so far that people were getting out of their cars and walking. The crowds were enormous. And I don't want to don't want to judge anybody by the way they were dressed, but these people were just not wearing a whole lot of clothes. And they looked kinda... They just kinda looked dirty and scrubby, and there was a lot of smoke of different kinds going on.

In fact, it was so... Like, the crowd was so thick around the road that people were bumping into my car as I was driving along. And so I had some mixed feelings about this. But part of me thought, wow, it's really great that cello music could attract such a youthful and vivacious audience. So I get there to the parking lot, and I show the woman my parking pass.

And she said, well, this is only good for orchestra concerts. And I said, what are you talking about? They gave me this pass at Severance Hall. She said, this isn't good for tonight. She said, I said, what is what is happening tonight?

She said, this is the Snoop Dogg concert. And so I look at the tickets, and I look at the date. Sure enough, I had the wrong day. It was the night before. So what do you do?

You buy your tickets and go see Sleep Dog. Yeah. Ripped my shirt off and started blasting the rap music. No. We...

Our our earthly happiness at seeing this beautiful concert was suddenly taken away by Snoop Dogg. I was driving away thinking, yeah, and I have a PhD too. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

But that is not how the Christian life is supposed to be. We have this joy Christ promises us that no one will take away our joy at the thought of His coming. Right? So, verse 23. In that day, you will no longer ask me anything.

28:44 Ask and you shall receive

And then he says, ask and you shall receive, and your joy will be complete. So there are two different ways of using the word asking here. You can use the word asking as in like asking a question. I am ignorant of this. I am asking you for information.

And the other way is to ask for something, for some favor. I am asking for some action to take place. In verse 23, Jesus is talking about the first of those types of asking, asking questions for knowledge. And he's saying, in that day, you will no longer ask me for anything. That is, he is telling the disciples that there is coming a day when they will have such a clear knowledge of the gospel, they will not need to ask Jesus questions about it.

And so, again, I believe he is talking about the day of Pentecost, which marks a major transition in the life of these disciples. You know, if you read through the book of Acts and the latter chapters of the New Testament, it becomes very rare that we see the disciples asking the kinds of questions that they asked before Pentecost. The disciples asked a whole bunch of questions in the Gospels. Some of them were interesting questions, some were pointless questions, some were impertinent questions, some were distrustful questions. But after Pentecost, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, we don't see them asking those kinds of questions.

We see them transformed under divine guidance for the rest of their lives, even more so than somebody like King David. So David spends his whole life asking the Lord, should I do this or should I do that? Should I go here or should I go there? But you look at Peter and John and James and Philip and the other disciples, after the coming of the Holy Spirit, they rarely ask those kinds of questions. They are being divinely led by the Spirit of God.

They had no need to ask Jesus according to these verses. Now, while we are here on earth, we're always going to be asking questions. But sometimes, I I give into this temptation to ask so many questions, I don't actually ever do anything. This is what my grandfather called PBA. That's paralysis by analysis.

You overanalyze every situation to the point where you just can't make a decision. You know, I I clutter my mind with pointless scenarios. Yeah. Well, what if this happens? Oh, yeah.

Well, and then if that happens, what will happen if this happens? And then if that happens, what will happen? Right. So it's just... If I was more serious about prayer, about meditating on the scriptures, about spending time seeking wise counsel from older believers, I wouldn't clutter my mind up with so many pointless questions.

And I would be able to access in a stronger way that Holy Spirit, which is supposed to give us some divine guidance in life. Now in verse 25, though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language, I will tell you plainly about my father. In that day, you will ask in my name. I'm not saying I will ask the father on your behalf. The father himself loves you because you have loved me and believe that I came from God.

32:36 Asking for God's favor

Now, is asking for god's favor. So, Jesus says that they can ask God the Father for anything in Jesus' name, and tells them that they are loved by the Father himself. I think this is very important. The disciples of Christ, and that includes us, are loved by God the father himself. Sometimes I have this tendency to think that Jesus died on a cross so that God would no longer be angry at me.

And so God isn't angry at me anymore, but he's just kind of off in his own place, doing his own thing. I better behave because I don't want to make him angry again. But that's not how it works. It's kind of like, you know, well, dad isn't mad at me right now. So I'm just going to leave that guy alone.

I don't want him to be mad at me again. But that misses the point of these verses entirely. So Christ not only turned away God's wrath, but he also won us God's favor, God's friendship. He says, the father himself loves you. God, who is infinitely powerful, totally self sufficient, loves you.

You know, he is pleased to love you. He desires to love you. He wants us to approach him. It's like when I come home from work. I'm exhausted.

I open up the door, and here comes little Paul toddling on his feeble legs. And he runs up to me, and he hands me a plastic truck, and he gives me a hug. I want that to happen. Right? I never understood how much I wanted that to happen until he was born.

But that is how the father is with us. He wants us to approach him like that. And so this close relationship is what faith in Jesus brings. Without... Now, without believing that Jesus came from God, that he's the only begotten of the father, you cannot experience that kind of love.

He says, why does the father love you? Because you believe that I came from the father. Verse 29, the disciples then said, now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God.

Now, find... So I find this interesting. All of a sudden, the disciples seem to understand what Jesus is talking about. These last few words that he said seem to have done them more good than so many of the other things he said prior to that. It's like, you know, you have been preaching the word to somebody, and they're just not getting it, and they are resistant to that.

And then all of a sudden... And you don't really... You're not really doing anything different. You present the word again, they got it. How does that happen?

The spirit is like the wind. We don't know where it comes from or where it is going. We don't know how it is with the spirit moving. You know, you've been witnessing to this guy for weeks and months and years, and then sometimes somebody else says to them exactly what you've been saying for years and all of a sudden, they're down on their knees. You think, how does that happen?

Sometimes, the spirit just intervenes and I don't know if that's happening in this case with the disciples. It's kind of like I'll use an example from math. So, there was this old guy named Archimedes and Archimedes was wondering about the property of displacement and he's taking a bubble bath one night. I don't know if it's a bubble bath, but he was taking a bath one night, and all of a sudden, like, he sees the water rise in the tub, and he suddenly understands the principle of displacement. He jumps out of the bathtub and he's yelling, Eureka!

Eureka! I have found it! That's kind of like how it is when some people finally understand the message of the Gospel and how blessed it is to be in the room when that happens. Eureka. I have found it.

This should give us some encouragement to continue in our evangelistic efforts. Sometimes you evangelize, you work, and you pass out these tracts, and you preach, and nobody seems to be coming to Christ. But the spirit is like the wind. It's going to happen. It's going to happen.

Kind of like the woman at the well, here is a man who told me everything I ever did. Or Nathaniel, you saw me under that fig tree, I believe. What? Really? You believe because I said I saw you under the fig tree?

It's the Holy Spirit. Verse 31. So let me see. We did seeing, we did we did rejoicing, we did asking, and now we're going to talk about triumphing. Verse 31.

Do you now believe? Jesus replied. A time is coming, and in fact has come, when you will be scattered each to your own home. You will all leave me alone, yet I am not alone for my father is with me. And then, one of the greatest verses in the Bible, from my perspective.

38:30 I have overcome the world

So what is the trouble in the world? There are at least two aspects of the troubles that we face. First, we experience trouble in the world because we are men and women living among other men and women. We are not yet living with the angels or the glorified saints. So some aspects of trouble are common to all humans because we are all living outside the gates of Eden.

We might be greatly loved by God, but we could still be poor. Jesus talked about the rich man and Lazarus. God loved Lazarus, but that didn't stop Lazarus from being sick, lying at the rich man's gate, having dogs come and lick his sores. There's different saints. You know, think of, David or Job or Hezekiah.

They all became seriously ill. And for many people, many Christians, it will be said of them, Lord, the one whom you love is sick. So there's one aspect of the trouble that we're going to face on Earth. It's just a matter of being humans. But there's a second aspect to the trouble of which Jesus speaks, and there are troubles that we face because we are Christians.

Ishmael was not mocked, but Isaac was. Esau's children never became slaves in Egypt, but Jacob's did. The wicked did not face persecution, but the righteous did. Spurgeon once said, birds do not peck at rotten fruit, but they wage war upon the sweet and the ripe. All that will live a godly life in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

And at the same time, evil men and women seem to receive the praise of the world. With rare exceptions, the people who are held up in our society for glory are actually evil doers. You could think of... I I just... Sometimes it just makes me sick.

I get so frustrated at evil men and women being held up as, oh, what a role model this person is. Or or or or, you know, I'm I'm thinking of this person, Jenner. How brave. How brave they are. They are just they are just challenging challenging societal norms.

What a role model for young men and women. Let's put them on Time magazine and talk about gender identity. I guess that's the sinful part of me. I just get it makes me nauseous. What a joke.

And yet, godly men and women are suffering. Ridicule and rejection, sometimes physical persecution. And then I think, well, what did I expect? If the world hated Jesus, what are they going to do to his followers? Will I be carried to the skies on flowery beds of ease while others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody seas.

Are there no foes for me to face? Must I not stem the flood? Is this vile world a friend to grace to help me onto God? I must fight if I would reign, increase my courage, Lord. I'll bear the toil, endure the pain, supported by thy word.

It's a glorious statement by the greatest conqueror who ever lived. Be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And by that same power, the Spirit of God, we're able to win the victory through faith. The arch enemy has been conquered and God is going to allow us to continue to bruise Satan under our feet.

When Christ died on the cross, he was loaded down with our sins. By his death, he buried these sins forever, which is something we could never do. And so when Christ says, I have overcome the world, included in that is overcoming sin and death itself. The doctrine that Jesus' death atones for the sins of his followers is at the very heart of Christianity. In fact, I don't think it's wrong to say that all of the other blessings that are talked about in the New Testament sanctification, the coming glorification, all of this rests on the idea of Christ's substitutionary atonement.

It is a doctrine that is currently under attack in the American church. The idea that Jesus died to save us from hell is not popular. We are going to continue to preach that, and we're going to hold on to that by faith. Let's just look at Galatians chapter three. Galatians three and verse 10.

For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. No one is justified by the law before God. The righteous man shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices it shall live by it. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

The Bible is crystal clear about this, that there is no way for us to deal with our sins than to admit that Christ carried them to the cross. So as we close today, we're going to think about how Christ overcame the world. Not in a a way that the disciples were expecting, maybe not in a way that many of us would expect, in that he endured the cross, despising it. He despised the cross and the shame of it, But that was how he overcame. There was never such a conqueror as Jesus.

But because of the cross, this world has no power over us. And so that is triumph. You know, it might not feel like that this morning. But thankfully, things are true regardless of how we feel about them. So let's pray.

Lord god, thank you for a Thank you for a teaching that is both difficult and mysterious and yet also simple and glorious. I pray, Lord, that you would help us to cast all of our cares, our burdens, the trouble of this world upon you. Help us to go forth from this place with a solid faith that you have overcome the world, overcome sin and death. That right now, we can see you in a spiritual sense, and that the day is coming, dear Lord, when we will see you face to face. In the name of Jesus, our savior, we pray.

Amen.

I Have Overcome the World — John 16

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I Have Overcome the World — John 16

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