John 16:5-7 (Joy In The Ascended King)

The Search for Joy in the Wrong Places

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you. We tend to look for joy in all the wrong places. It's been true of my life. I'm sure it's been true of yours that we look for joy in Places that it really isn't found.

If you had to give an example of this or sort of a picture of what it looks like. Spiritually many of us most of us all of us are the spiritual equivalent of dumpster divers. We have dived into what the world says is joyful to try to find what can only be found in Christ.

At the bottom of every bottle at the top of every company at the beginning of a new Relationship and at the end of every toxic marriage is Not The false promise and the false dream that the world pedals us.

If you could just have a new marriage, then you'd really be happy. No, you wouldn't. If you can just begin that new relationship or if you could just climb the corporate ladder, then you'd be happy. No, you won't.

At the end of every material rainbow at the apex of every worldly Mountain the top of every tower is a substance that is far too flimsy to give you joy. If you think about it you go to you climb a really beautiful mountain.

There's a lot of life down at the base of the mountain. It's a lot of trees and there's a lot of grass and moss and squirrels and birds and everything and you get up to the top Of it. There's a lot of death.

Things can't grow beyond a certain point so that the higher you climb the more death-like. It becomes it's a metaphor but as we think and Pursue the things of this world hoping that they will give us happy.

What we'll find is that there is lots of death. That comes from those pursuits. For a moment now, let's be honest sin does feel pleasurable. For a moment that affair seems like a good thing. The drugs will give a kind of Pleasure the alcohol the gluttony and everything else will dispense a kind of temporary pleasure.

Richard Baxter or Thomas Brooks, and he's Thomas Brooks said for a drop of pleasure. We swallow an ocean of wrath. It's the spiritual equivalent of crack cocaine. It gives a fleeting pleasure the first time that you do it and then all the rest of the times.

I've worked in a jail for seven and a half years. My wife worked in a jail for 11 years. You're always chasing that first high and you never get it back. Just remains a fingertip outside of your grasp.

So that be at the bottom of the crack pipe. You will not find what you're looking for in the same way at the bottom of a bank account. You will not find what you're looking for at the top of some reputation or status.

You will not find what you're looking for because lasting deep and abiding pleasure comes through Christ and Christ alone. All the things of this world cannot satisfy you and they will never be enough so today We're gonna look at what will truly give God's people joy not false promises and expectations or cleverly marketed ad Campaigns that cannot do anything but get you to spend money on things that you don't need.

Today we're gonna jump back into the scriptures and John in the travel discourse where they're walking on their route to Gethsemane, it's the final words that Jesus give to his disciples the marching orders if you will before the war begins.

For 2 ,000 years these passages have been the marching orders for the Christian Church. So that we will know How to follow Christ and then it's the pain turmoil pleasure chaos order. Whatever the Lord decides to give us these passages that we've been looking at over the last few weeks as Jesus has promised that he is going to return to heaven and The disciples are going to be left on earth and they're disappointed in this they're sad by this because they cannot imagine How much better it is going to be?

When Christ returns to heaven. And in a similar sense we struggle with the same things today. That's what we're gonna look into this morning. First thing. We're gonna look at is we're gonna look at The role of happiness in the believers life and we're going to look at that from four different vantage points.

The first is we're gonna see the sickness of worldly sorrows and how they cannot give you worldly pleasures. Can I give you what you're ultimately looking for. The second thing? We're gonna look at is how true happiness comes from a person and that person is Jesus Christ.

It does not come from pietistic spiritualism. It does not come from from Perfectionism or trying to perform your way into happiness. It's a happiness that arises from a person from a relationship with that person and It is a person number three that we must know rightly.

Because true happiness comes from his position. Not just our opinions and then we're going to close with how true happiness Enlivens and comes from the promises of God. So if you will turn with me to John 16 5 through 7 as We look at happiness joy in the believer.

The Word of the Lord. John 16 5 through 7. But now I am going to him who sent me and none of you asked me. Where are you going? But because I've said these things to you sorrow has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I did not go away the helper will not come but if I go I will send him to you. The Word of the Lord, let's pray Lord Jesus, thank you. Thank you for your word. Thank you that in it are the words of eternal life.

And that as we cling to it and follow you we will be filled with a deep abiding joy. Lord help us today to see the point that you are making with your disciples help us to see how we struggle with the same Things and help us today.

Like the disciples. To cling to you and your full magnificent glorified position. So that we may have confidence that your promises are always yes and amen in Christ Lord it's in your name. We pray. Amen.

The Folly of Seeking Joy in Created Things

The world cannot offer you what only God can give. To try to find joy in the things of this world. There is a level of Satisfaction and appreciation for the things God gives a fine meal and fine wine.

There there are family that that we rejoice and thank the Lord for but it's always through him that we find those things satisfying. If you take your spouse and you put them as the idol of your life, you will demonize them in short order.

Because as soon as they sin against you you will be angry that they did something to you as special as you are. You put them in the place of honor and look at what they've done. If you do that with food, you will become a glutton if you do that with wine.

You become a drunkard. If you put anything in the place of God, you will ruin it. It's meant to be enjoyed through him. Trying to elevate the things of this world to a place that only God can fill is like trying to drink sand in the desert in Order for you to be satisfied.

It will not work. As CS Lewis once said we are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us like an ignorant child who Wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the Sea, we are far too easily pleased.

The problem is not pleasure. The problem is the direction it's aimed at. God meant us to be pleased. He meant us to have joy. We're not monks who believe that smiles crossing our face are wrong and we must somehow like Buddhist Purge ourself of all sensation and joy.

No. Christianity is the most joyful religion on earth. But it's rooted in true joy That's aimed at God. That's why we enjoy the things of life because God gave them to us as good gifts. We rejoice in things through him not rejoicing things in spite of him.

The point that CS Lewis is making is that you and I are pleasure seekers, but of the lower order. We seek things that will never please us. We seek things that are too small to satisfy us When the infinite and all good is before us.

That's what repentance is is repenting of lower pleasures to have a higher pleasure in him. That's what repentance is. We forego never-ending reservoirs of life-giving flow for a thimble of grainy sand and we do it all the time.

So we need to look to something else to satisfy us, let me say it a different way. Let me say it diagnostically like you're going to a doctor. Whenever you are discouraged Whenever you are angry whenever you are depressed.

Whenever you are despondent lonely bitter have I included everyone yet? Sad. Frustrated resentful jealous miserable anxious hopeless or overwhelmed. I Think we've got all of us now. Whenever you fill those things It is because you were looking for something that is created to give you what only the Creator can give and When you see in yourself that tendency repent sever that thing and Be reunited to the love of your Lord that will always satisfy you.

God's presence is where happiness begins. Look at Psalm 16 11. This is sort of the the theological underpinning of Christian happiness is Psalm 16 11. It's where it's rooted. It's where it is. It says you Christ.

Remember we talked about it verse 10 earlier is fulfilled in Jesus. You will make known to me the paths of life in your presence. The presence of Christ is fullness of joy in your right hand our pleasures.

Forever more there is no pleasure apart from Christ. It is the hope the foundation and the reservoir of all joy. So that's the first thing. Can you have joy apart from Christ? No. And you're lying to yourself and delusional.

If you think you can every person that I know of I watch documentaries sometimes of famous people Who are on top of the mountain? They're not exempt. Are they they get to a place where they ask themselves, is there any meaning in life?

I remember when Tom Brady said I Don't know if there's anything as far as meaning to life. He said maybe I'll just win another Super Bowl. Maybe that'll do it. Five, I think is he said it when he had five that wasn't enough.

When he had six it wasn't enough if his body wasn't decaying. He'd be out there again this year. Maybe he still will be who knows but these people who've attained such worth Worldly success aren't happy.

The Joy of Christ's Presence Among His Disciples

Because happiness comes in a person. That's our second thing that we're going to talk about. It's true happiness biblical happiness comes from a person and No one on earth Experienced this like the disciples did.

There was no person in Old Testament history who? Understood the depth of what this meant more than the disciples. They got more what I mean. They got more of God's presence than anyone else that had ever come before them.

More than Adam in the garden Who walked with God? for a short time before the fall. More than Abram outside the tent who met with the theophanic presence of Christ. More than Jacob who had a multi-hour wrestling session the WWE section of the Old Testament.

More than Moses who was hiding in the cleft of the rock. More than the men who were in the fiery furnace if you add up all of the time. That the first that the disciples spent with Jesus in their first week.

It would be more than Adam Abram Jacob Moses. And the Old Testament Saints combined. So these men knew The reality of what this passage was talking about. The Old Testament Saints saw God at a distance.

They saw God on the top of Mount Sinai shaking and rumbling and quaking and they were afraid because his holiness was so intense. That their sin was the object of his wrath. When he came down into the tabernacle, he went three rooms deep inside of it so that he was at a distance from the people.

But not true for the disciples. Christ came and dwelt with them. He invited them to come where he was staying if Christ is the very presence of God. Then he is the walking talking Holy of Holies and these twelve men were invited to be his high priest.

To live with him and walk with him not one day a year every day of that three-year Ministry, it's astounding if you consider the fact that they were with him. Like a high priest in the Holy of Holies.

They were with him and that concentrated revelation of his presence in a way that none of us And no one before Could have fathomed. They knew the pleasures of his presence more than any who had come before him and of course, this is why they felt the sorrow that they felt When he said that he was going away, you know, sometimes when we receive blessings and Then they're taken from us.

We get sad and frustrated as if they belong to us. They were upset they were broken. It's sorrow that had filled their heart because the Lord was going away. Jesus tells them I am now going to him who sent me and none of you asked me.

Where are you going? But because I've said these things to you sorrow Has filled your heart. Peter had said that Jesus had the words of life. So what are they gonna do now that he's leaving? What he's going to do is he's going to develop their theology.

Because later he says it's to their advantage. It's something better that he leaves. Isn't that astounding? They spent more time with the presence of God than any human who had ever lived and Jesus is saying not only Am I gonna give you that?

But I'm gonna give you something better so that New Testament Christian you're in a better status Than the disciples before the resurrection. You have something better Than Moses Adam Aaron and all of them.

Because biblical happiness does come from a person but we have to understand that person rightly and when we understand Christ rightly Christ is not just an incarnating God and He is not just the crucified God and he is not just the justifying God.

He is those things but if he were just the incarnate God then he would still be here physically with us and we would only see him when he comes around for a visit if He were just the crucified God and the buried God.

He'd still be in that tomb. If he were just the justifying God He would be in heaven and yet that would have no application to us. What we see in this passage is that he is also the ascended and victorious God and if you don't have a theology of the Ascension you miss out on the blessings.

How often do we talk about the Ascension in Christian theology? I'm gonna be honest my time in the Christian Church has been predominantly about the crucifixion. It's the crucifixion that brings us hope.

No. The crucifixion without the resurrection is hopeless. Many people were crucified the resurrection likewise without the Ascension is No good news for you either. The resurrection proves that Christ was righteous before God and that God approved of him.

The Ascension proves that Christ is now going to bring the promises of God to his people. His Ascension to the throne is his Ascension to his kingship. The only reason the citizens of the kingdom receive the blessings is that the king reigns on his throne.

Without that Christ is justified. But you're not His Ascension to the right hand of the father to sit at the throne of God to reign over his subjects is Why you are blessed? Because the perfect king with perfect righteousness.

With perfect joy of the perfect intelligence with perfect will. Has delighted to bring the promises of God to you. We have it better than all of the Old Testament Saints for that very reason. And we also struggle in the same way the disciples struggle because everyone Who's ever known Christ from the disciples all the way down to the present church?

When we feel sorrow it's because we think that there's some distance between us and Christ. The disciples thought that that distance was physical. That there were they had a diminished relationship with him because they were physically going to be separated from him.

That's not why we Experience sorrow in our hearts as Christians. We experience sorrow because of a different distance. Again, the disciples prioritize physical closeness to Christ and that's why they experience disappointment.

We prioritize other kinds of distance and that's why we think that we have reason to be discouraged and depressed. For instance I'm gonna throw out some terms. Pietism has infected much of Christianity and the Reformed world, especially Pietism is the belief that if I just have inward piety and follow the commands of Scripture Then I'll be close to Christ.

That is not what the scriptures say. The charismatics have a different angle on this spiritualism. They believe that if I just see signs and wonders that external phenomenon Then I will be close to Christ so that if I don't see tongues and miracles Then Jesus must be distant from me.

That cannot be true of you Christian. You Jesus cannot be distant from you if your piety is lacking. He is not if External phenomenon is not present in your life. He is present. These things do not dictate your relationship with Christ.

Number three mystics inward feelings of awareness. Pietist are all about inward behavior. Mystics are about inward feelings. If I don't have the right feelings then God must be distant for me. He's not.

He is never distant from you even if your experience feels distant. Because he is faithful. Even when you don't feel it. To my mystic brothers and sisters. Puritanism. I love the Puritans. But they prioritized purity external purity and often you will read in the Puritans this idea of a sanctified groaning and whining even in the in some cases David Brainerd's biography is an Example of it.

John Bunyan's biography is an example of it a whining that God is distant from them. No, he's not. Just because you're not feeling it and because you feel dry and dusty doesn't mean that he has abandoned you.

He is not but we're human aren't we and we feel these things. Christian perfectionism, which is Wesley and the holiness movement. They prioritized inward holiness if I can somehow be perfect. Then God will be closer to me.

So to the degree that I become Perfect and obedient will be to the degree that God is with me and close to me so that when I sin I'm causing distance. You don't have that kind of power brother and sister.

When you sin. The same faithful Christ who saved you is with you and pursuing you you cannot. Heisman the King of Kings. Revivalism is another one. If we're not seeing kingdom growth, we become discouraged because God must not be with us.

This is really important for us. We are in a region of the country that has experienced great revivals and we are in a region of the country that has also experienced false revivals. So that churches all throughout this part of the country will try to whip up Services to manipulate emotions so that we walk away feeling like some sort of revival has happened.

To make us feel like Christ is close to us. You don't need that He is close to you. There is no distance between you this Christian and your Christ. Revivalism and Pietism and perfectionism and Puritanism and all of these movements where they fail is that they use the wrong barometer.

To measure the closeness between you and your Lord. All Christians perceive a sort of distance between us and our Savior. It's a part of our fallen human condition. We perceive it at times that we feel distant from Christ and there is a barometer by which to judge the closeness of our Savior, but it is not pietism and It is not revivalism and it is not spiritism or any of the other isms avoid the isms.

The right barometer of our faith is not to look at our feelings and not to look at the Consistency of our living or the perfection of our performance. The right barometer is to look to the ascended Christ.

If you want to be happy in God look to the ascended victorious triumphant Christ. Stop looking to everything else, but look to the King who sits upon his throne the disciples what they really needed more than anything is to stop looking at Christ beside them and To start looking to Christ on his throne.

That is the fundamental difference between them and us today and it and they would step into that reality as well. They had Christ with them. We have Christ in us through his spirit and Christ reigning on his throne.

If you want to be happy look to that. Be thankful for what Christ has done in his incarnation. Be thankful for what Christ has done in his crucifixion his burial and his resurrection. But where the rubber meets the road.

Where the food gets set down on the plate so you can eat is in his ascension. Had he not ascended to heaven you would not be his citizen. But because he is King and because he has called you into his presence this triumphant Christ will bring to you all that he has promised.

That's how we can be confident and have joy. You're either gonna find your confidence in you or in your circumstances or in your revivalism or pietism or all these things. Are you gonna find your joy in the risen ascended Christ?

Think about it like this. We're in political season. Oh, sorry. One can take so much a political candidate will announce his intention to run and Then he will go and he will go to events and he will speak and he will go on TV and do certain debates and He's not president yet.

He has a couple years of candidating and candidating and then If all goes well He's elected. Sits upon the American throne and he then enacts his party platform. Think about Christ. This is a metaphor so it's not perfect.

But think about his incarnation think about his death burial and resurrection as The candidating process whereby God Proclaimed him perfect Proclaimed him the King of Kings the Lord of Lords where he was raised above every name in heaven and on earth where he sat down at the throne to reign and Just like a party again.

This is metaphor so it breaks down. Just like a party has a platform. Christ has a platform on which he is ruling at the throne of God. That platform is Genesis chapter 1 through the last verse in Revelation 22 you want to know how Christ is going to reign there it is and Because he ascended in victory and because he sits on the throne you can be assured dear brother and sister that everything that God says Will be true in Christ.

You know when we elect rulers, there's a there's sort of a An element of trust involved, right? He said he's pro-life. He better not go back on that. He said he's gonna rule in this way. He said he's gonna close the border or he said he's gonna whatever.

We hold people accountable to the promises that they've made and we judge them based off of their character whether they're trustworthy to Accomplish it. Who is more trustworthy than Christ? Who is more powerful than Christ who is more able and joyfully willing to bring about the promises of God in your life?

He is ruling and he is reigning and he is bringing the promises of God to the people of God through his ascension. It is a part of Christian theology. We must recover The Ascended King. That's how you have hope.

That's how you have joy and this leads toward it's where our last point. True happiness comes from his promises. Jesus closes off the section by saying this. But I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away.

For I do not go. If I do not go away the helper will not come to you. But if I go I will send him to you. Do you see the conditional statement here if I don't go then you will not receive. That is true a fact of the Holy Spirit if Christ does not ascend to heaven.

You will not receive the Holy Spirit and you will not be regenerate. Your salvation and Your indwelling and your sanctification and your glorification depends upon the ascension of Christ. It is not a meaningless exercise for Christ to Dazzlingly ascend to the father.

It is not it is so that the promises of God will come true in your life. If he does not ascend you don't receive the Spirit. If you don't receive the Spirit you are not a Christian. Therefore his ascension is a salvific matter.

And again, he applies this to the Holy Spirit, but he also I think in under good and necessary Consequences here this truth applies to all the promises of God. For instance the promise of God's presence.

Deuteronomy 31 6. The people of Israel are Moses is about to die. God in himself is going to bury this this old 120 year old saint and the people are going to go into the promised land with Joshua and they're thinking Hey the miracle man Moses who gave us God's presence is they're thinking wrongly.

How do we know that God is gonna go with us? How do we know that Joshua was gonna have the stuff? To help us. God tells them be strong and courageous and do not be afraid or tremble at them. For the Lord your God is the one who goes with you and he will not fail you or forsake you.

It's not the leader Moses that guaranteed the promises of God. It wasn't Joshua in the transfer of power to the new generation. It was God's presence with his people that gave them Hope. What is the ascension of Christ?

But the issuing forth of the Spirit of God so that you will live in the presence of God forever. You of All people can have courage. You of all people can have joy. You of all people can have hope. Why?

Because the Spirit of God lives with you. Yeah, we live in a land that's like Canaan and we live among a people who are quite pagan but even that. You have something that our brothers and sister in the Old Testament did not have.

You do not have God with you in a temple. You have God in you and you're the temple. So you can have great hope. Other promises. The promise to Abraham. I'm just going over a couple like all of them just like thousands of promises.

They're all true because the ascension. He will bring them to to truth and he will bring them to fruition because of the ascension. But let's look at a couple of Abraham's promise that the world will be filled with worshipers that all the families on the earth We blessed.

He's not he's not kidding. I Remember when I realized this about this promise. He was not kidding when he said that all the families of the earth that we blessed he meant it that means when I walk around in Boston or Seattle or Zimbabwe.

And I look at families. I'm looking at the future of Redemption is all families on earth under the blessing of Christ. Now. Do I know what that means in full? No. But I know what it doesn't mean. I know that it doesn't mean that he isn't going to accomplish it.

I Don't know how he's going to accomplish it, but I know that he's going to accomplish it. Why. Because Christ ascended to heaven. I Know that the world is not going to us going to spiral into some Abysmal abyss that the church is not going to come crashing down in the in the years to come and that Christ is gonna come And rescue us out of the throes of defeat.

I know that because he promised that all the families on the earth are gonna be blessed the whole world's gonna be covered with the Glory of God as the water covers the seas all his enemies. Psalm 110 are gonna be put under his feet and Then before the end comes first Corinthians 15 before he hands the kingdom back over to his father.

It will have been triumphant to the ends of the earth. Isaiah 9. We were talking about this a membership class. Isaiah 9 is not a Christmas card passage. For unto us a child is given sweet, baby, Jesus.

We read that on Christmas cards. It is not a Christmas passage. It begins at Christmas, but it says of the increase of his government. There shall be no end. I have no way to view that passage unless his government increases to the ends.

If there's a square inch of the cosmos or a rogue Adam that doesn't belong to Christ that passage is Invalidated and it's not true. His government will increase. His kingdom will not end. He will be the mustard seed that takes over the entire garden.

He will be the little pebble that forms into a mountain that covers the entire earth. His kingdom will continue. Until it has swallowed up the cosmos. And if we don't believe that we don't believe the promises of God and The reason I can tell you that that is true.

It's not because I'm a good exegete study of the Bible. It's not because I'm a good theologian. It's because he ascended. The reason that I have confidence. I don't look at my world. My world is not fun.

My world is broken. My world has Areas where we are leaving God and I'm not saying that every year the world gets better. Sort of like this a little bit. What I am saying Is that when I take my eyes off of my circumstances and I put my eyes on to the truth of the scriptures the scriptures say that his kingdom will be successful and The only reason I know that's true is not because the world is so bad.

But because he's so good and he's sitting on the throne and he will do what he said. He's gonna do what he said. And he will do what he said. And I can have no confidence in anything. Doesn't mean we're not going to go through heartache and trial.

It will be though in a direction towards victory. That's what the scriptures teach. God's promises Will come true. Because of Christ. James chapter 1 verse 17 is a good example of this. Every good and perfect gift comes down from above.

Every good and perfect gift does not Necessarily and only come from the cross. Every good and perfect gift does not necessarily and only come from the tomb. Every good and perfect gift comes from the ascendant triumphant Christ who sits at the throne of heaven and dispenses the gifts of God to the people of God.

The Ascension is why? You can have great hope. So now let's close today if you believe that Christ sits at the right hand of God the Father and You believe that he has been triumphant over the grave and You believe that he pinned you to the cross with him buried you in the grave with him.

Pulled you out by your collar screaming and kicking and resurrection and now he sits on the throne if you believe those things. Dear brother and sister may they fill you with great joy. May you not be like the pagans who have no hope.

May you be the most joyful people. James says count it all joy when you go through trials of various kinds. Do you know why James can say that? He's not a sadist. He's not a lover of pain. He can say in everything I don't care what it is all of us right now on a piece of paper can write down every hard thing we've ever been.

Through the reason all of those can have great joy. You can have great joy in the midst of all of that is because the king reigns The king of sins and in this life, you've been counted worthy to suffer for him but this life is not the only life and our king will triumph and our king will will prevail and By the end of it all of it.

Everything we suffer now Will work for us a greater heavier deeper thicker glory. It says that he works all things for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Dear Christian rejoice.

Your king is ascended. Let's pray Lord Jesus, I pray That the kingship of Christ would become a a robust pressing theme upon our consciousness. Lord it is good and right to look to the cross. It is good and right to see our Savior there, but you did not stay there.

And it is good and right for us to see the tomb and how you died for us and took upon yourself our curse. But you did not stay in the tomb. And it is good and right for us to see the resurrected Lord who appeared on Sunday morning who burst out of the tomb and made the Romans pass out and fits of epilepsy made the disciples Hit the ground and be confused and and appeared over 500 witnesses.

It is good and right to us to see the resurrection As one of the center points of our faith, but you did not just stay in a resurrected body on planet earth. You ascended up to the ancient of days. To the praise of all of heaven you entered the courts of Yahweh and you sat down upon the throne For no other reason than to reign.

Lord let us not Have a slight or low theology in this area. Lord, let us see ourself as citizens citizens of a great king in a robust kingdom that will come on earth as it is in heaven because you said that it would and Lord let the practical implications of what it means to be under the Lordship of Christ in the reign of Christ.

Break out and smiles across our faces. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Amen.