It would be good if you could open up your Bible again to John chapter 16. This morning we come for a final time to the farewell teaching in John, and given that we started this last October, you might be thinking it’s been a very long farewell, a rather long goodbye. Partly this is due to the holidays, we took a bit of time off over Christmas, but it’s also partly due to the length of the teaching.

It’s some three and a half chapters long, the teaching that Jesus gave to 11 of his closest disciples on the night before he died. We’re finally reaching the end of this teaching. And as I was reflecting back and thinking of what we’ve said about it, one of the very first things we said is that there are two characteristics of this teaching.

First, that the teaching is interactive, and second, that the teaching is pastoral. So on the one hand, this teaching isn’t a monologue, it is a dialogue, it is Jesus responding to the questions his disciples are raising. And on the other hand, it is not a cold, abstract sort of lesson, but it is addressing the pastoral needs, the fears of his disciples at this time.

A parallel came to my mind, I was thinking of when a child hears some very scary news. Maybe one of the parents takes them aside, they’re six or seven years old, and they’re told the scary news that mum or dad is going away for a while. And the questions flow naturally.

(1:59 – 3:24)

Where are they going? Why are they going? How will things change? And are they coming back? And this is very much the tone of John chapters 13 to 16. Jesus announces his leaving, and his disciples are full of fears and full of questions. And what they needed is what any child would need.

They needed some reassuring words that would settle their troubled hearts. So what does Jesus say to them? What could possibly calm their trembling fears on the brink of Jesus’ death? Well, as we come to the end of the sermon, Jesus gives them three massive reassurances. Not small reassurances, but huge reassurances.

And not fake reassurances, not tell them what will feel good, but tell them what is true. Jesus gives three authentic reassurances that were spoken to these disciples, and yet they still resonate with us. These truths are so big that I think they come down the corridors of history, even to us this morning.

(3:25 – 4:47)

So reassurance number one is that no one will take away your joy. No one will take away your joy. This is a direct quote from verse 22 in the text.

Jesus says, now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. But what is Jesus referring to? And when is Jesus referring to? When will the disciples see him again? And when will they receive this unstealable joy? Now to answer that question, we need to go back to the start of the passage. And so we go back to verse 16.

As Jesus begins the end of this discourse, John records, he went on to say, in a little while you will see me no more. Now it’s important for us to realise that Jesus is using this phrase, a little while, in a cryptic and vague way. We’ll see this later on in the sermon as well, that Jesus is deliberately not speaking with absolute black and white clarity.

(4:48 – 5:48)

And this is also seen in the fact that in verse 17, his disciples do not know what on earth Jesus means. They have this discussion at the back of the class, as discussions happen at the back of classes. What did Jesus mean when he said that thing? Because I didn’t get it.

Did you get it? Did you write it down in your notes what he meant? What did Jesus mean when he said, in a little while, you won’t see me. And then when he said, in a little while, you will see me. And they’re absolutely clueless.

They’re looking to one another and no one’s got the answer. But in absolute fairness to them, we might be asking the very same thing. Now, what does Jesus mean by these two little whiles in verse 16? It’s easier for us to answer because we’re looking back with hindsight.

(5:51 – 7:44)

Certainly the first little while refers to the death of Jesus. Jesus is saying he will soon be dead. And at that point, he will be out of sight.

But this is not a far away thing. He says it will be in minutes, not in months. In just a little while, Jesus won’t be seen by his sorrowful disciples.

And then after another little while, you will see me. Now, there have been different points of view about the second little while. And I’m not going to spend a long while on the second little while because we’d be here all day.

But some people think it refers to things in the further future, like, for example, Pentecost. Maybe they will see him again in the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost. Or maybe some think it’s referring to the return of Jesus at the end of history.

Is that when they will see him again? Now, those are possible. But in my opinion, it’s more likely that this is something much sooner. I think the most natural reading of this is that the second little while is the period, basically, when Jesus is in the tomb.

For that short period of time, no more than three days, they will not see the Lord. And that’s confirmed, I think, because he says that during that little while, when they didn’t see him, they would grieve, grieving’s something you do when someone’s dead, while the world will rejoice. So they’re mourning the death of Jesus.

The world is celebrating because they think they’ve knocked off a false messiah. They will mourn. The world will rejoice.

(7:46 – 8:13)

But what a turnaround it will be on the greatest Sunday to have ever been when their not seeing turns into seeing. John records it later in chapter 20, verse 20, the disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. When they saw him, they were overjoyed.

(8:15 – 8:30)

It was an instant, an immediate change of emotions. And Jesus reaches for the perfect illustration, as you would expect Jesus to do. All of Jesus’ illustrations were perfect.

(8:31 – 9:55)

And he goes for the absolute optimal illustration to show this sudden change of emotion. He says, it’s like a mother going through the pain of giving birth and that giving way to the arrival of the baby. And there’s none of the nonsense here, by the way, about the father going through the pain.

No, it’s the mother in this illustration going through the agony. And then suddenly, there is that deep and lasting joy as the baby is here. And Jesus says, verse 22, so with you, your deep anguish will turn into joy.

And that joy can never be taken away from you. Now, that is an unprecedented kind of joy. That’s an unparalleled sort of joy, isn’t it? I did some thinking this week.

Ask yourself this question too. What are the joys in life that cannot be taken away? Can you think of any joys in life that have no possibility of being taken away? Joys come and they go. They either vanish quickly or they vanish eventually.

(9:57 – 10:49)

Andy Bannister, I heard him interviewed a number of years ago, and I always remember him speaking about four levels of joy. I don’t know necessarily whether this is biblical, but it was just a sort of observation of people. He said there’s four levels of joy.

He said there’s the animal level, the base level, pleasures of eating and drinking and that sort of thing. And then he said there’s the joy of human achievement. Maybe I’m going to just go out there and do some stuff and achieve some stuff, and that will bring me joy.

And then he says, thirdly, there’s the joy of human relationships, finding your joy in your partner or your children or your friends. But he says the trouble with all of these levels of joy is that all of them eventually disappoint, and certainly all of them are temporary. The base pleasures come and go.

(10:50 – 12:23)

The achievements fade or are surpassed by others. The relationships disappoint at times, and even at their best, the ties are severed. And so what we really need, says Bannister, is to seek out a fourth level of joy.

And he says at the very top of the pyramid of joy is the joy that we find in spirituality, or because he’s a Christian, he says, in Christ himself. And it is absolutely in Christ himself, incidentally. We’re not pluralists here if we follow the Bible, because real and lasting joy is found in a risen person who cannot die and can never disappoint.

The reason our joy as Christians is untakeable is because it is resting in a risen Saviour whose work is finished. Our joy isn’t temporary because Jesus isn’t temporary, and His work isn’t temporary. It is finished and it is forever.

I wonder if we know this. I was thinking of Paul in Philippians where he says, and I used to find this really mysterious when I read Philippians as someone that’s not prone temperamentally particularly to joy. And I remember thinking, Paul must have been one of these really upbeat people.

(12:25 – 12:42)

He was just one of those upbeat temperaments because he says, we’ve to rejoice in the Lord always. So maybe I just need to be a little more smiley and upbeat like Paul. But you see, the key to what he says there, he says, don’t rejoice because you’ve got a joyful temperament.

(12:42 – 13:30)

He says, rejoice in the Lord always. And that really is the key to it. It is when your joy is found in a risen conquering Christ that it can’t be taken away.

Paul was writing that in a prison cell and yet he was able to find joy even amidst his sorrow in Christ. Do we know this? Are we thankful for it? Are we living in light of it each day? Well, if so, then we probably also are making use of the second reassurance that Jesus mentions, and that is the blessing of prayer. And I find this interesting that the next place Jesus goes is to prayer.

(13:32 – 14:45)

One of the great blessings of the work he’s achieved on the cross and his resurrection is now that nothing will hinder your access. Second reassurance, nothing will hinder your access. In that day, verse 23, in the day when they see him raised from the dead, there is something that the disciples will not need to do.

They will not need to ask Jesus anything. And that says a really odd thing to say, doesn’t it? How are we to understand this? Is he saying, you know, when I’m raised from the dead, you’ll just never talk to me again. You’ll never actually ask me any questions.

Surely he’s not saying that in some kind of literal way. The point I think Jesus is making has to do with the achievement of the cross and you might say the history of salvation. A time is coming soon when Jesus, the earthly son of God who has been living on earth, will return in glory to his father in heaven.

(14:47 – 15:26)

And in that sense, he will not be immediately available as he had been for three and a half years to his disciples, where they could put their questions to God in the flesh. But what Jesus is saying is actually, because of the work of my death and resurrection, that is no longer essential and it is no longer needed anyway. Because through his work on the cross and through his rising from the dead, Jesus has opened up a direct line of access into the very presence of his heavenly father.

(15:27 – 15:49)

And so he says, very truly I tell you, my father will give you whatever you ask in my name. The things you have asked of me, you will now be able to ask of my father. And he will give you whatever you ask for in my name.

(15:51 – 16:10)

Now that in my name is really significant. If you’ve been around church for a while, if you’ve been praying for a while, then you’re probably familiar with the custom of ending your prayers in Jesus’ name. Amen.

(16:10 – 16:17)

Amen. That practise comes out of this chapter in John 16. This is where it was established.

(16:18 – 17:18)

But what does it mean? And why do we do it? Is it just a form of nice religious words? Is it just a kind of nice thing to say at the end of your prayer, but it’s pretty meaningless? Or on the other hand, do we go to the other extreme of thinking that it’s a kind of magical formula, that we can be asking for any sort of nonsense, but as long as we add in Jesus’ name to it, then it’s going to be done? Is it a kind of powerless, meaningless thing? Or is it just a magical formula, a kind of leverage lever that you pull and God gives you stuff? Well, it’s neither of those things. It’s neither just a form of words, neither is it a magic formula. Rather, praying in Jesus’ name is reminding ourselves of the authority in which we pray, and it’s a reminder of the priorities we have when we pray, a reminder of the authority in which we pray.

(17:20 – 17:46)

There are various places in the country where you and I, as ordinary citizens, cannot simply get access. You cannot get on a plane tomorrow morning, fly down to London, go to Downing Street, knock on the gate and say, let me in, because they won’t let you in. There are some places like that where you cannot get in unless you have a certain authority and permission.

(17:48 – 19:13)

Now, suppose, and I don’t know if any of you have friends in high places, but suppose you did know a member at the top levels of the cabinet in the government, and suppose that person invited you down to Downing Street, and they put it in the diary, and they maybe gave you an official letter signed with their name at the bottom. Well, if you took that to the gate of Downing Street, then their name surely would get you in the door. When we pray in Jesus’ name, what we are gladly saying is that we have access to the Father because Jesus has made that access possible.

Because of His life-bearing and sin-bearing death, we have access to the highest and holiest heaven. And it’s not only the reason that we can pray, it is also a reminder of the priorities with which we must pray. Because if you’re praying in Jesus’ name, then you need to ask for things that befit His name.

People get kind of nervous about some of Jesus’ language here. I mean, Jesus says, whatever you ask for in my name, the Father’s going to give you. And we worry about that.

(19:13 – 19:58)

Are people going to ask for really silly things? Well, they do ask for really silly things. We do sometimes, don’t we? But if we do, it’s because we’ve missed the fact of the remainder of the sentence. Because what He says is that whatever you ask in my name is what the Father then will give you.

Well, you cannot ask for a million-pound yacht in Jesus’ name. You can’t ask that in the name of the one who had nowhere to lay His head. That would be incongruent, wouldn’t it, with asking for something in His name? As long as it aligns with Jesus’ name, as long as it aligns with His character, then we can ask for anything that we want.

(20:00 – 20:38)

This is both a constraint in what we ask for, and yet in another sense, the opportunities are limitless. For we pray in the name that is above all other names in the universe. Not just the name that’s near the top of government or even at the top of government, but the name at the top of the cosmos.

That’s the name we pray in and ask in. And so we can ask for a lot more than we often think we can ask for. This crisis point has come.

(20:39 – 21:06)

The darkness and death that Jesus will endure, the temporary separation that the disciples will endure, what a painful thing it is going to be in the short term. But there will be lasting joy, and there will be the outcome of prayer. The very reason that Jesus is going is so that we will enjoy the access that Jesus Himself enjoys.

(21:07 – 21:48)

And I think this is what Jesus is getting at in His words in verse 26. There’s a few head-scratching statements in this passage. Here’s another one.

Jesus says, I am not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf. I’m not saying I will ask the Father on your behalf. And we think, well, that’s odd.

Isn’t Jesus the one who intercedes for us, who prays on our behalf? And isn’t it also true that Jesus is our mediator who gives us access into God’s presence? Well, He is. We’ve already said that. We pray in Jesus’ name.

(21:50 – 24:17)

But Jesus is saying here that there is a mistake we could be making. We must not think that though we pray in Jesus’ name, we do not have direct access to the Father in prayer. And He says something very radical here.

Jesus says that even I am not the messenger who sort of goes between you and the Father so that you can’t speak to Him yourself. Jesus is the mediator. Jesus does pray for us, but that’s another matter.

His point is that we don’t pray to Jesus, and then Jesus takes our prayers to the Father for us. No. This is one of the great mistakes that you see in some versions of Christian faith.

You know, the sort of thing that actually you can’t come to the Father yourself. What you really need is a pastor or an apostle or a priest of some kind or a saint who’s already dead, a particularly holy person. And what you really need to do is you need to offer your prayers to that individual, and then that individual who’s a bit holier than you will go to the Father and will hopefully speak on your behalf.

You know why that’s wrong? Because it’s not even true of Jesus. Even Jesus says that He’s not going to do a shuttle run to the Father on your behalf. No.

Yes, He does pray for us, but not in the sense that we can’t pray directly to the Father. And this is also tied into the point that Jesus also says, that the Father loves us personally and individually. Because there’s often a view that we have of the Father that somehow He’s less inclined to love us and to hear us than perhaps Jesus is.

I think that’s part of why people do the go-between prayer thing, because they think, well, you know, maybe the Father is a bit colder and more stern and unloving than Jesus. So we’ll go to Jesus, and hopefully Jesus can nudge the Father along. Jesus says nothing could be further from the truth.

Verse 27, the Father Himself loves you. He knows you’ve loved me. He knows you’ve believed in me, and He loves you for that.

(24:18 – 24:54)

And He loves you with an everlasting love. It’s hard to imagine how revolutionary these verses could be to some of our prayer lives, certainly to my prayer life, if I just took them to heart. Because there’s various reasons we don’t come to God in prayer.

I mean, there’s all sorts of practical things, laziness, tiredness, various things. But there’s also other reasons. We don’t come because we often feel we don’t have really the authority to come, the right to come.

(24:55 – 26:21)

We’re too worried about the sin that we just committed 10 minutes ago. And we don’t realise that our entire authority to come rests on the name of Jesus. Or we pray too selfishly or too small because we forget we’re praying in Jesus’ name.

Or we feel wary of prayer because of a deep and distorted view of the love of our heavenly Father. So many of us struggle with that sort of thing because we use human fatherhood, sinful and imperfect as it is, as the measure of God’s fatherhood, which is the perfect love of the Father and the perfect pattern. Now, these are difficult things.

We understand that. But we need to keep coming back to the Bible and let it shape our view. Or another pothole that we often go down is that we view prayer as a joyless thing, as a drudgery.

And I’ve been really struck by this as we’ve gone through, John. This is not the first time Jesus has said this. The devil would love us to view prayer as a joyless exercise when Jesus promises in verse 24 that our joy will be complete when we pray and we receive answers to prayer.

(26:21 – 27:29)

Now, that is not saying that there are no struggles or challenges in prayer. There are. But let us not speak of prayer as if it is a merely joyless thing.

When Jesus says that our joy will be made complete when we are people who ask and receive from the Father. How much joy am I depriving myself of in my Christian life because of the relative lack of my prayerfulness? I remember a book a few years ago, a short book I read, a very helpful book, maybe one of the best books I think I’ve read on prayer by a guy called Michael Reeves. And the title of the book was Enjoy Your Prayer Life.

And I was like, I need to read this. Like this, what? Enjoy your prayer life, really? Does this guy know anything about my prayer life? Because it doesn’t seem like that’s the title you would give it. And yet as he went through the book, he explained what prayer really is.

(27:31 – 27:46)

That it’s not just a task. It’s not even just a list of things we’re asking for. But it’s the opportunity to speak to the Father who loves us, and to tell him our concerns, and to receive from him the things that we need.

(27:48 – 30:41)

What could be more joyful than that? Well, enough on that point. We need to move on to our final section this morning. There’s a joy that cannot be taken, and there’s an access that cannot be hindered.

But there’s a final reassurance that Jesus gives, thirdly and finally. He says that nobody can disturb your peace. Nobody can disturb your peace.

Now, one of the things that I mentioned earlier is that Jesus is not always speaking plainly throughout this section of teaching. And I’m not making that up because Jesus himself says that in verse 25. Look at verse 25.

Jesus says, I have been speaking figuratively. Figuratively. Now, to speak figuratively is to use images to explain something.

And when you use an image to explain something, it can be helpful, but also it sometimes can mean it’s a little less clear. So even just think of this whole section. Jesus has spoken, for example, of the cross in terms of foot washing and cleansing.

That was a figure. He’s used images of vines and branches and fruit. I mean, he could have just said it in a very straightforward way, but he didn’t.

He’s been talking about an hour of glory. That’s a figure of speech. He’s been speaking of a little while.

Again, the disciples didn’t know what he was saying. But Jesus says a time is coming when I will tell you plainly about my father. There’s a sense in which part of the reason the disciples don’t get things before the cross is not only because they’re dull, and certainly they are spiritually dull, but it’s also because Jesus is speaking less clearly.

There is something of a veil, there is something of a mystery that shrouds the cross before Jesus goes to it. There is so much that becomes much brighter and clearer when the resurrection arrives, and it all clicks into place, and it all begins to make sense. And the stuff that Jesus was saying that they didn’t fully get, they now get what he meant.

Jesus says a time is coming when I’m going to speak to you very plainly. And indeed, verse 28, he gives them a little foretaste of that. And Jesus says something in very straightforward terms.

He says, I came from the father and entered the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the father. And the disciples say, at last, now you’re talking.

(30:42 – 30:53)

Now you’re speaking in a way that we can grasp. You came from the father into the world, you’re going back to the father, you’re leaving the world. Now we know that you understand everything.

(30:54 – 31:29)

And we want you to know that we fully believe in you at this point. Now, you might expect Jesus to respond positively to that. You might expect him to take this at face value.

But interestingly, earlier in the gospel, one of the things that was said of Jesus is that Jesus knows what’s in the heart of a person. He knows what’s in the heart. And therefore, his response in verse 31 is, shall we say, less than enthusiastic.

(31:31 – 32:01)

Very likely, there is an ironic tone when Jesus says, do you now believe? You’ve said you believe. Do you now believe? Are you really telling me that you fully believe? Because the time is coming and has now come. It’s right here when you will be scattered, each of you to your own homes.

(32:03 – 32:58)

The meaning of that is, I don’t think is that they will literally return to their own homes. After all, their own homes were up in Galilee, right? At this point, they’re in Jerusalem. But I think one of the commentators is right when he says, the point of that phrase, they will return to their home is, they will return to their own concerns, their own interests, and their own self-preservation.

That’s what their homes represent here. As Jesus goes to the cross, these disciples go to their homes. They left their homes in faith and sacrifice.

But now when it comes to the crunch, they scatter, and they return to the place of comfort. And it’s not just Peter. We’re going to see Peter denying Jesus in a chapter or two, but it is all of them who will scatter in unbelief.

(32:59 – 33:39)

And self-preservation. Jesus will be left all alone, humanly speaking. And yet he will not be entirely alone.

Isn’t that an intriguing little phrase where he says that his father will be with him. Don’t be derailed by that little statement. You might be sitting wondering, well, how does that fit? If the father is going to be with him, how does that fit with Jesus’ cry on the cross where he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And that sense of the father’s withdrawal was very true on the cross.

(33:40 – 34:49)

As the human Jesus suffers in the darkness, as God makes Jesus sin for us in that moment of time, however long it was, Jesus experiences a profound forsakenness that is captured in the cry. Why have you forsaken me? And yet it was also true at every moment and stage of his passion that God the son, as God the son, as a second member of the Trinity, remained in perfect union with his heavenly father. When we’re talking in terms of the divinity of Jesus, you cannot divide God the father from God the son.

They are eternally united and indivisible. And John is a gospel not only of Jesus’ full humanity, but a gospel of Jesus’ full divinity. Of course, it’s a great mystery how these two things come together and fit together in one person, union in the divine, and yet separation between the humanity of Jesus and the father who puts him under judgement.

(34:50 – 35:04)

Both are affirmed in scripture. Jesus is abandoned and yet God the son cannot be left alone. But coming back to the point, Jesus has become suddenly blunt.

(35:05 – 35:16)

And the disciples might have preferred it when Jesus was speaking in figures of speech and a little more mysteriously. Now he is speaking plainly and here it is. You’re going to scatter.

(35:16 – 35:23)

You’re going to do a runner for your own homes. Your faith will fail. Your feet will run.

(35:24 – 36:52)

And it is the fact that Jesus has just said this that makes verse 33 one of the most surprising verses in the whole of John’s gospel in the context in which it comes. Because after what Jesus has just said, that you’re going to run, you’re going to abandon me, I am expecting him to say in verse 33, you absolutely rotten lot. The last thing you should hope for is peace.

But what does Jesus say? Precisely on the back of their predicted failure, he says, I have told you these things so that in me, you will have peace. The worst of failures can still find peace if they find their peace in Jesus. Not in themselves, not in their faithfulness, but in Christ.

This is peace that survives failure. It’s peace that’s not cancelled by weakness. It’s peace that no one, not even ourselves can destroy and not the world either.

(36:53 – 39:10)

Not the world either. It’s true as Jesus says that in the world, you will have trouble. Again, what this passage isn’t saying and what we mustn’t take it to say is, you know, if you put your trust in Jesus, then everything’s going to be plain sailing and you can just ask the father for anything you want and he’ll smooth things over for you.

That’s clearly not what he’s saying because of this verse. In this world, you will have trouble, but you can have peace within the trouble because Jesus says, take heart, I have overcome the world. He’s speaking there of the cross and he’s saying it is so certain his victory that even before it happens, he uses the past tense.

He says, I have done it. I have overcome. That’s how sure it is that I’m using the past tense even before the fact.

On the cross, I will win the victory. Over sin and death and all of the world’s opposition against God, I will overcome. And no matter what we’re going through or no matter what we will go through unexpectedly, yet the things that are not yet on our radar but might come just in a flash throughout this year, in all of that, here is a peace that nobody can finally disturb.

Too many people fail to find it. They climb the levels of joy. They scale the pyramid of peace.

They only get up a few levels, three levels maybe, and they don’t realise that there’s a top floor, the level of putting their trust in the risen conquering Christ. Thomas Watson, pastor of a number of hundred years ago, once said this, and it came to my mind as I was thinking on this passage. He said, the soul is never satisfied until it has God as its portion and heaven as its haven.

(39:12 – 40:33)

Let me take that and just slightly adapt that. The soul is never satisfied until it has its joy and peace in Christ for its portion and heaven as its haven. Where are you looking for joy? Where are you looking for peace? Is it finally and fully and only in Christ? Father, help us to see the absolute emptiness of the wells of this world.

Those wells that promise us lasting joy, and yet they are dry and cracked. Help us to come to that well of Christ, to draw from him those endless sources of joy and peace amid all of the ups and downs of life. Father, thank you for a joy that outlasts our trials and tribulations, that overcomes even our sin and our failure and our running from you.

Help us to rest our souls in this gospel. We pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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