“Leaving” – John 16:33

How many of you are good at math?  I don’t mean you know what 2 plus 2 is real good-like.  How many of you took college-level math or at least some serious high school math like physics or quantum equations or like… division and stuff?  I hated math.  I wasn’t good at it and didn’t want to be good at it.  I didn’t see the need for learning anything past addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.

I asked the teacher one time why we needed to learn how to do all this stuff and she told me that I wouldn’t always have a calculator with me.  (Pull out iPhone) Really, Mrs. Overman?  Really?  Not only does it have a calculator but I don’t even have to use it.  (Ask Siri) I had another teacher tell me that learning all this different kinds of math would expand my mind.  Expand my mind?  I don’t even know what that means so obviously she was wrong.

I have always been the kind of person who wanted to know why I needed to learn something before I learned it.  I understand learning history.  I don’t want to make the same mistakes that others before me have but why do I ever need to know the square root of anything?  Not one time in my life have I thought, “Man, I wish I knew what the square root of this hamburger is.”  Sorry kids, but anything beyond about 12 times 12 is a waste of brain cells.  Just my opinion.

We are continuing our sermon series entitled, “It’s All About Easter” with Jesus telling His disciples why He has been teaching them all the things they have been learning over the past few weeks.  He has been preparing them for the day when He will be tried, convicted, killed, buried and then resurrected.  He wanted them to understand what was going on and why and so, like a good teacher, He tells them in John 16:33 why He has taught them all this.

He has told them that they would abandon Him, deny Him and sell Him out.  He has told them that He would die, be buried and come back but that He would leave them again.  He would send the Holy Spirit.  He would go to prepare a place for them and then come back to get them.  You and I have grown up hearing all of this but don’t you know the disciples were drinking from a fire hose with Jesus trying to tell them all of this?

Jesus had started out teaching in parables but as time got closer to the cross, He started teaching them more plainly.  Now, He has given them a lot to think about and He could see their minds were smoking and their eyes were starting to glaze over and the night was getting late and so He finally said, “Ok, let me tell you why I have been teaching you all this stuff.”  He said, “It’s to expand your mind.”  No, no!  That’s not it.  Let’s read what He said in one little beautiful verse.

John 16:33 says, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

My friend Gerry Lewis at Harvest Association taught us how to give criticism one time.  He said we are to use the sandwich method.  The sandwich method is starting with a nice, soft, piece of bread, you then add the meat and then end with another nice, soft, piece of bread.  If you are giving criticism or bad news or something negative about somebody, start with something nice, then tell them the bad stuff but end with something else nice.

In John 16:33, Jesus uses the sandwich method on the disciples.  In me you may have peace.  There’s some lovely bread.  In this world you will have trouble.  That’s the meat.  But I have overcome.  More bread.  Great sandwich!  Right?  Jesus was a great sandwich maker and the sandwich He made the disciples tastes just as sweet and is just as filling today as it was back then.  He may have been speaking just to the disciples here but this is definitely something that can benefit us as well.  Let’s look at it closer.

“In Me you may have peace.”  We all want peace.  We all need peace.  The older we get the more valuable it is and here Jesus explains in just two words how we get it.  “In Me.”  Sounds pretty easy, right?  But what does it really mean?  Well, first off, notice what He doesn’t say.  He doesn’t say, “In church you may have peace.”  While that may be true, it’s not the secret to finding peace.

He doesn’t say we find peace by being in wealth or by being in health or by being in anything except Him.  It’s not about being pretty close to Him or in Him sometimes.  He says peace comes by being in Him.  It means to be right with Him; to be right with Him in every way.  It means He is your hope, your faith, your rock and you are obedient to Him.  Your sins are forgiven.  He has searched you and tried you and has not revealed any hidden sin or evil motive.  You are not perfect.  You are abiding in Him.

Being in Him means that what is important to Him is important to you.  What is not important to Him is not important to you.  While church is not the secret to having peace, without church you will not have peace because church is important to God.  Worship is important to God.  Prayer and Bible study are important and without all that you can’t say you are in Him or abiding in Him so don’t be surprised when peace seems like a distant dream.

I heard a good definition for peace.  It said that peace was being in possession of adequate resources.  However you want to define it, you know when you have peace and when you don’t.  It’s easy to have peace when the sailing is smooth and the wind is calm.  You don’t need many resources then, do you? But what about when the storm comes? 

What about when the doctor says you have a horrible disease from which you will never recover?  Only God has the resources to weather that.  What about when your spouse, your boss and your last dollar all say “See ya” and there seems to be no way out of it all?   That’s when, as you abide in Him; following Him, worshipping Him and being in Him you realize that He has all the resources you are ever going to need.

Peace manifests itself in the person who says, “I don’t know how to do it.  I can’t do it.  I want to give up.  It seems hopeless to me but I know, in fact, I am in the One Who does know and my peace is in Him.”  That’s what peace looks like and do you know why you can have that kind of peace?  You can have that kind of peace because you know that you are forgiven.  You have peace because you are loved and you have peace because you are secure.

Do you really need any other resource than that?  You are forgiven.  You are loved and you are secure.  When you have that you have peace with yourself.  You have peace with others.  You have peace with God.  Hebrews and Romans both say to live at peace with others to the best of your ability.  We all know some people who don’t have peace and don’t want you to have it so they need to manufacture some drama.  But to the best of your ability you have peace with others, yourself and even with God.  Now, that’s peace.

That’s the first piece of bread but now we come to the meat.  Unfortunately, you don’t get to decide if you want meat or even what kind.  Jesus says, “In this world, you will have trouble.”  The photographer for a national magazine was assigned to get photos of a great forest fire. Smoke at the scene hampered him and he asked his home office to hire a plane. Arrangements were made and he was told to go at once to a nearby airport, where the plane would be waiting. When he arrived at the airport, a plane was warming up near the runway. He jumped in with his equipment and yelled, "Let's go! Let's go!" The pilot swung the plane into the wind and they soon were in the air. 

"Fly over the north side of the fire," yelled the photographer, "and make three or four low level passes." 

"Why?" asked the pilot. 

"Because I'm going to take pictures," cried the photographer. "I'm a photographer and photographers take pictures!" 

After a pause the pilot said, "You mean you're not the instructor?"  The Jokesmith.

I don’t know if either one of those guys had peace but it is always available because we are always going to need it.  Job knew about trouble if anybody ever did.  He said “Man born of woman is of few days and full of trouble.”  (Job 14:1) Sometimes we have trouble because of other people.  Sometimes it comes from circumstances we can’t control.  Sometimes it comes from circumstances we should have controlled but didn’t and sometimes it comes from God Himself, as Job can attest.

Paul knew that as well.  He said in Romans 8:18 that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.  That was said by a man who knew peace; by a man who knew what it meant to abide in God and because he did he said he could be content in whatever state he was in. (Philippians 4:11)

Peace!  Contentment!  How is that possible in this nasty old world?  Do you ever wonder why Jesus would tell His disciples this?  Do you think Jesus knew that His disciples would be attacked and put in prison and killed all for His name?  Of course He did.  That’s why He told them this.  What better example of this being taken to heart by a disciple than good old Peter who was put in jail and was to be killed the next day.  Do you remember what happened?  The angel came and had to wake him up before he could get him out of there.

How do you have that kind of peace?  Jesus tells the disciples and us the answer to that question in the last sentence; the last piece of bread, if you will.  He says that we can have peace because He has overcome the world.  He says, “Take heart!”  which literally means, “Cheer up!”  Jesus has just given them all this bad news including that He is leaving and then says, “Cheer up!”

Have you ever had a really bad day and somebody comes along and says, “Hey, come on.  Smile!”  Don’t you just want to poke ‘em in the eye?  But Jesus then goes on to tell them why they should take heart.  He says, “In this world you will have trouble.  But I have overcome the world!”  Isn’t that great?  I love that.  But wait a minute.  Maybe Jesus misspoke here.  Maybe it is mistranslated or something because He uses the word “overcome” like it’s already done; like He has already overcome the world.

His death, burial and resurrection is not for another couple of days so why do you think He said “I have overcome”?  He says, “I have overcome” because it was not His death that overcame the world.  It was His life.  His death and resurrection overcame sin and the power of sin that leads to death.  His resurrection overcame animal sacrifice for redemption.  His resurrection overcame Satan and his schemes but it was the life of Jesus that overcame the world and it gave us hope, joy, comfort, truth…and peace; that ever-elusive peace; peace that passes all understanding as Philippians 4:7 says.

His life overcame this world because He overcame lies with truth.  Satan is the father of lies and has lied since at least the Garden of Eden and he is the prince of this world so we know that this world is full of lies.  This world lies about the resources we need.  I told you the definition I heard that peace is the possession of adequate resources and the world lies about what we need.

The world says we need nice stuff; in fact we deserve nice stuff.  How many times have you heard a commercial that says you deserve our product?  Really?  How do you know?  You don’t know me.  I might be a serial killer.  It says it because it lies.  How much stuff do you really need?  Jesus said in Matthew 6:33, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

Jesus overcame the world by overcoming the lies of the world with truth.  He also overcame the world by overcoming sin with holiness.  His life was perfect.  He was sinless.  He was perfectly holy and while none of us can be perfectly holy and sinless we can be more like Jesus by being “in Him”.  See how all that ties in?  His life affects our life even today.  Even today His overcoming helps us to be overcomers as well.  1 John 5 says that we, too, are overcomers when we obey the words of Jesus.  That’s just what it means to be “in Him”.

His life overcame this world by overcoming lies with truth and sin with holiness and also hate with love.  This world lies and this world lives in sin because this world hates.  Jesus said to expect it.  Go left in your Bibles just a chapter over to chapter 15 of John and look at verses 18 and 19.  Jesus said to expect the world to hate you because it hated Him first.  If you belonged to the world it would love you.

But Jesus overcame that hatred by loving and we can have peace when we do the same thing.  Have you ever, even one time, had peace with someone who hated you by hating them back?  No.  that’s impossible.  But you say, “Yeah, but it’s impossible for me to love someone who hates me.  That’s not how I was made!”  That’s exactly right.  You can’t do it because that is how you were made but when you became a believer in Jesus, you were re-made.  You live a new life; a life “in Him” and through Him you can also be an overcomer.

What do you need to overcome today?  Is it worry, lust, greed, food, alcohol, drugs…math?  What resources do you need?  Now, do you think the Creator of the universe has those resources?  Of course He does and that should bring you great peace.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."