Jesus Wins

[0:00] Oh, Lord. Bless your people. In Jesus' name. Amen. John chapter 16, beginning at verse 25.

[0:15] ! We're going to look at this section in two parts, 25 to 23. Jesus is speaking here. He says, I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.

[0:34] In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

[0:49] I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech.

[1:04] Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?

[1:19] Behold, the hour is coming. Indeed, it has come when you will be scattered east to his own home and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

[1:32] I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart, I have overcome the world.

[1:47] That is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. Thank you. Praise team once again for leading us in beautiful music.

[1:58] I don't know how many of you watch the Winter Olympics. I'm not a huge fan of winter sports.

[2:11] But on occasion I do catch some things. But if you watch the Olympics, you are very aware of what we, back in the day, used to call the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.

[2:26] As Americans, we are, we were counting how many medals our athletes were winning. I think I heard the last count was we won 33 medals.

[2:40] Second only to Norway. They won 41, if I got the numbers right. Now why were we watching the medals? Why were we concerned? Because Americans and people of all competing countries love a winner.

[2:53] People don't go to the Olympics to lose. Countries don't send teams to the Olympics to lose. Everybody wants to be a winner.

[3:05] And you know what they say about winners. Winners never quit and quitters never win. I'm just, I'm a little cliché for you today but that's all right.

[3:17] Just stay with me. We're going somewhere. I mean we always say that. Winners never quit and quitters never win. But something tragic is happening in our country.

[3:31] American Christians are quitting. Not just quitting church but too often even quitting the faith. We need courage as we engage this post-Christian culture.

[3:46] We can't give in to the three C's of erroneous Christian engagement. This is what Matt Chandler calls them in his book Take Heart.

[3:58] The three C's the three C's are this. First of all converting culture. Converting culture in this camp these folk are losing or feel like they're losing the culture.

[4:12] And if we do not make the compromises necessary to continue the culture war the church cannot thrive or even survive. That's the converting culture group.

[4:25] The second C is the condemning culture camp. They fear that culture will corrupt them and the church and that any connection will lead to contamination and the church will become sick.

[4:40] So the condemning culture group fires the shots and then retreats away. And then you have the third C. The consuming culture camp.

[4:52] They fear the church will become unacceptable and therefore irrelevant to those who are steeped in a post-Christian culture. And if the church is to have a future it must get with the program.

[5:07] And so the consuming cultural group compromises the truth in order to make the truth more acceptable to the culture.

[5:23] We can't do that. None of those C's really work. Some of them have some merit but they don't work en masse. We can't give up or give in.

[5:36] And why not? Why not? Two words. Jesus wins. Now that's a present tense.

[5:47] So he is winning. Matter of fact let's even go perfect tense. He has won in the past and he continues to win. That's even better. Jesus wins.

[5:59] You can't expect to win every battle yourself. But try anyway. Okay? Try. But you can take comfort and have eternal good hope because Jesus has won the war.

[6:14] And you are secure. He is our victory. So you don't have to give in to the three C's. You don't have to quit the faith.

[6:25] You don't have to give up. You don't have to retreat. Jesus wins. Now remember where we are. We're still on the night of his betrayal.

[6:35] The last night of his earthly life. He's heading to the cross and remember he's preparing the disciples for his departure. He wants to make it clear to them. He won't be with them physically any longer.

[6:48] And we spent the earlier parts of this chapter, chapter 16, looking at what I call the perks of our Lord's absence as we engage the world. Perks like the spirit of truth will be with us and he will do the heavy lifting for us to bear faithful witness to Jesus.

[7:05] We're not on our own. He's with us to bear witness. He will also guide us and lastly and most importantly he will glorify Jesus. But then he tells us that Jesus tells us that in the midst of our sorrow in this fight the spirit will give us the Lord's indestructible joy.

[7:26] joy. And a great key to that joy that transforms our sorrow our sorrows into joy is that we have been given by God a new intimate relationship with the Father.

[7:46] And so we can pray. But at this point in the text Jesus he comes back around and he says to them let me be clear.

[8:00] Let me make some things perfectly clear to you. And that's what he's doing right now at the end of this chapter and before chapter 17 where it's just one chapter of Jesus praying which blows my mind.

[8:16] Two things today I think. Maybe one. First of all Jesus gives us his victory because the Father loves us. That may seem like a no brainer but let me back up for a minute and we'll get to it in a second.

[8:31] Jesus says he's been using many figures of speech. You saw that. I hope you have a text in front of you please. Please open your Bible. It's right there. I'm going to refer to it. He's been using figures of speech.

[8:42] What figures of speech has Jesus used? He uses parables. The I am sayings which are the latest things he's been saying. The bread of life, the door, the good shepherd, divine. He's been using metaphors, figures of speech to communicate deep spiritual truths.

[8:59] Now we know they didn't get the parables all the time. The parables, they were sitting there going, what do you think he's talking about? We know this from Matthew chapter 15. Peter said to him, explain the parable to us.

[9:12] And Jesus says, are you still without understanding? So we know they didn't always get the parables. But now in our passage, he promises to no longer use figures of speech.

[9:25] This is the second time he says in that day or in that hour. Both times he says that has to do with prayer and because of him therefore we can go directly to the Father.

[9:37] That hour he's talking about is after the resurrection when they will know, they will know that they know who he really is and his relationship to the Father.

[9:50] Jesus even says here, I don't know if you caught it, he says something really clear here, I don't know if they caught it but I hope you did, he says that God is his Father to whom he's returning.

[10:02] He's never said it that clear before. He's referred to the Father, my Father, but no one really understood exactly what he meant.

[10:13] But here in this passage, right here, he makes it clear that God is the Father to whom he's returning. So already he's beginning to get clearer with them.

[10:24] But here's the question, why can we have this new relationship with the Father through Jesus? Why? Why? He just says it.

[10:36] The Father himself loves you. love you. I'm pointing this out. You gotta let me camp on this.

[10:47] This is one of the most direct statements by Jesus of the Father's love for his disciples. Do you hear the emphasis? He didn't just say the Father loves you.

[11:01] He says the Father himself loves you. that puts emphasis on the fact that you can know that you're loved by the Father.

[11:13] In other words, not just me. Not just me. You know I love you. But I want to be clear with you that the Father himself loves you.

[11:30] He says he loves us because we love Jesus and believe in him that he was sent by the Father. Here's the thing. Humanly speaking. Let's go humanly speaking.

[11:41] We speak of loving people's children as a sure far way of being welcome into the family. You want to show people that you care, love their children.

[11:56] Care for their children. My wife, as many of you know, when we lived in, well, she's taught in so many different states now, but we saw this really clearly in Miami though. Sandy taught at this Christian school.

[12:10] And, you know, my wife is a very loving and gracious person and she's a very gifted teacher. God's gifted. She didn't start to be a teacher. That was not her calling. And God began to work and homeschooling and whatnot until God just opened up the door to teaching to her.

[12:26] And Sandy is very firm in her classroom. You have to raise your hand to breathe. she does not tolerate crazy. And she's teaching 10th grade now and believe me, she goes toe to toe with those 10th graders.

[12:38] You will not act a fool in my class or you're gone. You don't play. But because of it, they love her. I said to her one time, don't be so hard on them.

[12:50] They're not going to like you. It's not true. The harder, the tougher she is, the more they love her. Who knew? But here's the thing, because we saw this in Miami, because she loved their kids, the parents would bring her gifts.

[13:07] And they would volunteer, some teachers, you know what I'm talking about, and they'll volunteer to help do whatever she needs. Sandy could say, I need to jump off that roof over there to help me out. And they would do it. I mean, they loved her.

[13:18] She would plunder the Egyptians, man, every Christmas, every teacher, she'd come home, the car's full of gifts. I had to go pick the kids up so we could bring home the gifts in the other car.

[13:31] But one time, it was amazing, one of her students' dad was a police officer, and she said, hey, would you mind come speaking to my class? Well, this guy, because she was loving on his child, he brought a helicopter?

[13:52] the man brought a helicopter. And a whole bunch of other cops, with all their gear and equipment, they flooded into this elementary school side of the campus.

[14:07] They flooded in. People freaked out. The principals, the principals and head masters, they all, well, what is going on? Is it a swat? Are we being swatted or something? I mean, they just came in, and they just loved, they just brought all this stuff.

[14:22] They went all out. It was extravagant. Everyone was in shock. Every parent wanted to get their kid in Sandra's class.

[14:33] I think there were fist fights behind the school to see who could get into her class, because she was a gifted teacher, and they knew their children would get a quality education in her class.

[14:45] When you love on the children, the parents love you. you. Wow.

[14:57] Because we are in Christ, because we love and therefore love Jesus, the Father pours out his extravagant, over-the-top love on us.

[15:11] Behold it. This is a misunderstanding here. And you can take this as a, you can take that as a condition. You can take that, Jesus is saying, hey, you gotta love me, then the Father will love you.

[15:27] You can take it that way, but you'd be terribly wrong. Jesus is not giving us a condition for the Father's love for us. He is given a condition, but it's not one you meet.

[15:42] It's one he has met for us. Are you feeling me? This is important. We gotta get this straight. You see, because people get confused about why the Father loves us.

[15:55] Jesus is going out of his mind here to make it clear to us that the Father himself loves him. The Father himself, out of love, chose us for the privilege of being in Christ's love.

[16:13] Isn't that you meet a condition on your own, Daniel, and then God says, okay, I got you now. No, no, no, no, no, no. God himself meets the condition so that you can experience the Father's love in Christ.

[16:28] So let's correct that thinking. Because some Christians have a hard time believing that God the Father loves them. Does God love us because Jesus died for us?

[16:39] We say this, don't we? Don't we use that phrase? God loves us because Jesus died for us. the problem is that's wrong. And it's confusing and if you take it at face value, you will end up in a very bad place.

[16:57] People see Jesus as softening the Father's heart towards us. It's like the Father is standing in like Zeus with a thunderbolt. He wants to wipe us out, but Jesus jumps in front of him.

[17:10] Don't do it. I love him. Don't do it, daddy. Don't do it, father. That's how Christians see the gospel. And that is so horrible and so painful.

[17:25] Listen, if you think of it that way, if you think that Jesus is holding back the Father from killing you, that will lead you to be doubt, anxiety.

[17:40] You won't be sure. You'll always be insecure. because you always think you're just one Reese's pieces away from destruction. When you talk about God as Father, I'm coming back, I'm going to get to you.

[18:00] When you talk about God as our Father, some psychologists and even theologians call that projectionism. projectionism.

[18:12] What that is, is the idea that faith in God the Father is merely a projection of our personal needs.

[18:22] issues. In other words, we got daddy issues and the way to cope with our daddy issues is to say we have a God who loves us, a Father, a spiritual Father who loves us.

[18:38] Now don't get me wrong, if you know God is your Father, he will help you with your daddy issues big time because now you got a perfect Father. Amen, come on somebody, I saw that hand, I saw that hand, somebody knows what I'm talking about.

[18:51] But it's not projectionism. We don't create God the Father so that we can deal with our daddy issues. We don't project this need of ours into the cosmos to create a God.

[19:09] Here's the truth. God projects himself onto us. It's called being created in his image. That's really what happens.

[19:20] God projects himself onto us so that we begin to bear his image. Now watch this, that's important because that's why you have a need for God.

[19:33] That's how you were created with a need that only God can satisfy. We start with God, not with us. God created us, we didn't create him.

[19:46] So projectionism is not the Christian faith. likewise, neither is the idea that Jesus is holding back God's arm from killing his people.

[20:00] That's not true either. So what's the truth? What's really going on here? The father doesn't love us because Jesus died for us.

[20:15] Jesus dies for us because the father loves us. Did you catch it? This is not just semantics. Listen, misspeaking the gospel is never about semantics.

[20:29] If you misspeak the message, you distort it and people don't know the truth and they can't live the truth. So we got to be clear. So we got to be clear.

[20:39] Jesus dies for us because the father loves us. For God so loved the world.

[20:53] It's stated right there in the scriptures. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. Why does God give his son? Watch this.

[21:03] Why does the father give the son? It's because the father loves us. He set his love upon us. Before the world was even created, the father loves the disciples because they've loved him.

[21:21] You have to remember who loved first. Who loved first. And how did they come to love Jesus? Ephesians 1. I got to know, but I got to read it anyway.

[21:31] Is it up there? I'm going to back up to verse 3. So hold that thought. It's important. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

[21:50] That's not up there, but that's verse 3. That's how Paul begins this run-on sentence that goes down to verse 14. It's in this one long sentence in the original language.

[22:00] He took a deep breath and preached. Now listen, you have every spiritual blessing. It's all there for you. You have it.

[22:12] But here's how it happened. Even as he chose us in, that's the father, chose us in Christ. Him is Christ. So let me say it that way. Even as the father chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

[22:29] Not because we were holy and blameless, but that this choosing in Christ would make us holy and blameless before him. That's before God, the father. In love, the father predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will.

[22:46] Why did he do it? For his own will. For his own purposes. Not yours, his. What was the great goal? To the praise of his glorious grace with which he has blessed us in the beloved.

[23:00] And beloved is capitalized because the beloved is Jesus. We are in the beloved one. The father's special beloved one. He chose us.

[23:11] He chose us and predestined us in love. Before you were ever, the father was already moving. Before you were even created.

[23:22] And by the time you got here, the father was, the train was going. You were, he had you already in his sights. He was already prepared. In other words, he went into the spiritual adoption agency and scoped you out.

[23:37] I want that one. Why? Why do you want that one, father? Because I love him. Because I love her. But why? Because I do.

[23:49] For the purpose of my own will. I ain't telling you about it because it ain't your business. It's mine, he said. I chose to love you and because I do, I'm going to do something about your condition.

[24:02] Your very sad and eternal problematic condition. That's why John will later say in 1 John 4 19, we love because he first loved us.

[24:17] His love is the compelling factor. His love is the controlling factor. His love, the father's love is the moving factor that moves the arm of God to save sinners like us.

[24:31] And because we've been saved by that love, then we become a transmitter of that love. Do you love people?

[24:44] No. God's love is giving. You notice that, right? For the father so loved the world, he gave.

[24:56] See, God's love is giving. And it isn't, it's given upon people who don't even deserve it. What should they say about our love?

[25:11] You know, we love loving folk who deserve it. Who we think deserve it. We love loving people who are like us. We love loving people who reciprocate in some way.

[25:23] But that's not what God did. He loved scoundrels. He loved people who didn't care anything about him. And if left to themselves, they never would.

[25:36] Amen. His love is so powerful, it changes people. And here's a good thing, here's a good thing, here's a good thing.

[25:51] When you allow the love of God to flow through you, people can get changed. I can't guarantee what he's going to do. I can't guarantee that. But I will tell you this, the more folk you love, the more chances are you're going to see folk get changed.

[26:06] If you just want to love one person, okay, well, but if you start letting God work through you and start touching people's lives around you. I'm not telling you to go out and find folk.

[26:19] There are people all around you right now who need love, who need the Father's love. You ain't got, you don't have to go looking, just open your eyes. And the best ones to go to are the most who don't like you.

[26:37] You look more like God when you do that. Pastor Billy, those are not. Now you're looking like the Lord now. The people who don't like you, the people who keep, they walk by you and they want to spit.

[26:49] They walk by you and you don't even know why they don't like you. Love them in Jesus' name. Do good to them. Take the risk, and it is a risk by the way.

[27:03] Take the risk. Let the Father's love, that love that saved you, let that love reach out and touch them. I'm not telling you to trust them.

[27:15] There's a difference here, okay? I'm not telling you to cast your pearls before swine and trust them. I'm saying, but that doesn't stop you from loving them either. You work that out.

[27:28] You work that out. But do it. Let his love, listen, the more you meditate and realize the Father's love for you, the more you'll be enabled to love those who are not the most lovable people.

[27:47] The Father himself loves you. Like Paul says in Romans chapter five, verse five, he says, hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured, poured, gushed into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

[28:10] We've been studying the Holy Spirit for two chapters now. Jesus has been talking about the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do? One of the things he does is he ministers the reality of the love of God to you.

[28:22] You see, that's why you believe that God loves you because the Spirit of God has come upon you. I can tell you God loves you until I'm blue in the face. And I would. It's okay with me.

[28:32] But until the Spirit of God touches you and makes you alive, it won't matter. You won't care. But when the Spirit of God moves on you and you are born again, the fact that God, the Father loves you becomes the most significant reality in your life.

[28:55] There's nothing more important than knowing and accepting and walking in the love of the Father. You really do have a heavenly Father who loves you.

[29:09] Jesus is clear. God, the Father himself. This is coming from him. Himself loves you.

[29:21] Disciple of Jesus. Himself. God loves you. That's why J.R. Parker wrote his classic book, which you hope you've all read or will read, Knowing God. God, he says, Father is the Christian name for God.

[29:36] Oh, I love that. That's a beautiful phrase. It's so simple, but it's so deep. You see, the Jews never referred to God as their personal father. He was the father of the nation.

[29:49] Okay? But personally, no Jew would ever refer to God as he is my father. He's our father. He's the father.

[30:00] But when Jesus comes, the good news of the gospel is that Jesus reveals the father's love for us so that we can be adopted into the family. And now Jesus teaches us to cry out, Abba.

[30:13] We can say, Father, Daddy. We can know that intimate closeness with the father. Father, Jesus came to bring this to you and me.

[30:25] The reality that God, the father, is not sitting in heaven with that thunderbolt waiting. I just watched this animation recently. My daughter got me into it, the blood of Zeus.

[30:36] And very fascinating animation. And I enjoyed it. But you know, Zeus is all, this guy with this thunderbolt. And he's lightning flashing out of his, he's always angry. I'm going to get him.

[30:48] And he's, oh, you messed up. And that's how some Christians treat God. I'm talking about Christians now. See, I sinned today, so God's not going to bless me.

[31:05] I didn't have my quiet time this morning. God's not going to bless me. That's a strange view of the father.

[31:18] Strange view. I'm not saying you shouldn't do this. You should want to be, spend time with the father and the son. You should want to have devotion. You should, those things should drive, it should be coming from here.

[31:29] Not because it's imposed upon you, but there's a desire to know God. God knows you. God has loved you. Now I want to know God. Listen, you tend to want to know people who love you.

[31:40] Isn't that true? Come on, anybody, anybody, anybody disbelieve that? People who really show you they love you. Isn't there something magnetic about that?

[31:52] You want to be around them because they, they've shown you they care about you. They've shown you that you are important to them. They've shown you that they will do things to bless your life.

[32:03] I, unless you're crazy. Now, maybe a few, maybe you like me and you're crazy. I don't know. But, but that draws you to someone. Should not the love of the father be that draw, the greatest draw, the greatest draw in your life is knowing that the father loves you and you're drawn to him.

[32:32] You're drawn to God. I can't stay away. Sunday morning worship, you running in this joint. I guess not.

[32:47] You make, I've been accused. You make so much about Sunday morning worship. Yep. I'm apologizing for that. When all God's kids get together to go to father, this is a party.

[33:03] This is, this is the more intimate time where the, the all the, in our community, in our communion, well, all God's children get together to go meet father. Man, you think that, that should be, we should be running in here like, woohoo.

[33:20] Okay. And sometimes you may limp in, but what pulls you? Why did you come? What's pulling you? Oh, if I don't come, they going, they going to mark me absent.

[33:33] Oh gosh. No. No. What pulls you limping and crawling is you know the father loves you.

[33:45] He's going to be there in a special way. I'm not saying that at home, he don't, he don't love you. I ain't saying that at all because he does love you. That's the beautiful thing. He, he don't leave him here when you go.

[33:55] But there's something about all God's kids coming together on the word and sacrament, shoulder to shoulder, holding each other up. I got you.

[34:07] I got you. And we're going to father together. The father himself loves you.

[34:19] How do you know? The father displayed his love at the cross. He made it all so clear. He made it so clear that only a blind man can't see it.

[34:31] And that's the problem. A lot of us, a lot of people are spiritually blind. And that's why it's so important that you and I allow the love of Christ to shine through us so that people, so that blind people can be given sight by the spirit of God and see that great love.

[34:48] And come running. Listen, Jesus, Jesus overcame the world. His victory that we enter into is a victory that allows us to know the intimate details of the father's love for us.

[35:06] His victory is a victory of love. It's a victory that says, you sin, Satan, and death will not have the last word over you. It cannot.

[35:17] It cannot. For he's overcome the world, Satan, and death. He's one. He's one. And now, in Christ, you can go. You can know that you are loved and that that love will never let you go.

[35:31] You can squirm all you want. You can mess up. But that father's love around you will never let you go. You are in the father's hands.

[35:43] And he does not fumble. You cannot slip out. And he will not drop you. That love, how could he, how could he, when he set his love upon you before the world began?

[35:57] How could he let you go now? What could you possibly do? What could anyone do to you to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus?

[36:12] Okay. Point one. Thank you. Father, we are, Father, please overwhelm us with the reality of your love.

[36:36] Father, forgive us, but we take your love for granted. We know you love us. But do we really know? Help us to really know. Help us to grow deep in the love of God.

[36:48] Lord, as we come to your word, remind us, as we meditate upon the cross, as we think about who we were before you set your hands upon us and drew us to Jesus, oh Lord, remind us, let us swim in the ocean of your love.

[37:03] Let us know that love that is so high and wide and deep that we can't even get to the end of it. Lord, those, anyone who's feeling anxious or doubtful, Lord, show them clearly.

[37:23] Open their eyes to see that your love is real. So, Father, we thank you for Jesus who is the great, the great deliverer of your love.

[37:39] Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And may that love be reflected in us, to those around us. In Jesus' name, amen.