Promises for Troubling Times – John 16:33

The Nature of Biblical Preaching and Why Livestream Is Different

Now one final announcement or word, today's format is a little bit different. You'll notice I'm not in a pulpit and some people asked, are you going to be standing in front of the pulpit kind of preaching to an empty room on a Sunday morning?

And the answer to that is no. I cannot think of anything more horrifying than the thought of trying to preach to an empty room. And so this is really not considered preaching what I'm about to do in giving a study through passage of scripture.

This is not preaching a proclamation and mainly because of the nature of preaching itself, the nature of the preaching task. And I want to speak for a moment about that. This is a bit more casual because I do feel like I'm just having a conversation as people are chiming in on the chat and I'm seeing that come in.

But we're having kind of a conversation here from my office and it is more casual. I'm not wearing a tie and I'm not wearing a shirt that I would normally wear on a Sunday morning and I'm not going to be preaching.

I'm not going to stand up and start preaching to an empty room here or to a camera. Mainly because of a certain theology that I have about preaching and I want to explain this a little bit because maybe some people really haven't thought about this.

And so I want to take a moment to kind of put this into your head. Preaching is not an act nor is it a performance. So it's not something that you practice doing and it's not something that you just do to an empty auditorium.

That's not preaching. Preaching itself is a three-party event. You have the audience, you have the preacher, and then you have God himself who is part of the audience. He is observing this. But at the same time, God is taking the preacher and the congregation and doing work in the hearts of both preacher and congregant and listener through his word as he is sanctifying them together as we study together and we experience the event together.

That's what biblical preaching is. Martyn Lloyd-Jones one time was asked, it was later in his life, and I got this out of a biography by Ian Murray on Martyn Lloyd-Jones, a two-volume biography. Dr. David Martyn Lloyd-Jones was asked about publishing his sermons in written form and he objected to it for years.

He opposed any publication of his sermons. So the commentary on the book of Ephesians and his Upper Room Discourse commentary, his Romans commentary, those were all just published of his sermons, but they were published later in life because for years Lloyd-Jones opposed that.

And his argument was really simple. He said, he would say there is a difference between the word spoken and the word read. So when you are writing something intended to be read by somebody else, you don't use the same cadence, the same language, the same syntax, the same grammar, and all of that in writing that you do in speaking.

And so to take the spoken word and to just put it into writing is not going to have the same impact. And because Lloyd-Jones believed something theological about the act of preaching itself, because we are commanded in Scripture to preach the word, Jesus was a preacher, the apostles were preachers, the Old Testament prophets were preachers, the act of preaching itself is a God-ordained means of sanctifying his people.

And there's something that takes place inside the event of preaching with the person who is there doing the preaching and the audience itself. And if you're not there in that act, at that moment, feeding off of one another, because if you're preaching, if you preach, then you know this, the preacher feeds off of the response of his audience.

It is easier to preach to a room of 2 ,000 people than two people. I would rather preach to 2 ,000, I'd rather preach to 20 ,000 people than two people. And I don't like getting up in front of people.

So it terrifies me the idea of standing up in front of 2 ,000 people or 200 people. But there is something that goes on, a dynamic that is created between the proclaimer of the truth and the hearer of the truth with the Spirit of God using the word of God, where the audience feeds off of the preacher and the preacher feeds off of the audience.

When you stand up in front of people in an empty room to preach, you're really not preaching, you're just acting. And preaching is not acting. It's not a performance. I don't practice certain mannerisms.

I don't practice certain hand gestures or certain voice inflection in the moment for the preaching event. I don't do that. And so it's not a performance that you can just sort of cut out how you're going to do it and get up and do it, and it doesn't matter if there's anybody there or not.

It really matters whether there's somebody there or not. And you or I can watch a preaching event on livestream or after the fact, like if it's been recorded, like our Sunday morning services are, you can watch that live or you can watch it recorded earlier, but it's not the same.

It's not the same because you're not there and the preacher is not feeding off of you and you're not feeding off of the preacher. There is a communion that takes place in the proclamation of the Word of God between hearer and proclaimer that is special and unique that those who watch it or read it later do not participate in or enjoy.

Doesn't mean the Spirit of God doesn't use His Word in those instances, but He uses it in an entirely different manner than in the live event in the moment. There's something happening in the moment that cannot be captured in a recording.

It cannot be captured in viewing it remotely, and it cannot be captured in the written Word. So because there's nobody there, I wouldn't be preaching. I'd just be talking. And so that's what I'm going to do today.

I hope that makes sense. I hope that helps you understand why I wouldn't get up and do that. And by the way, I hope it helps you to understand why being present for the proclamation of Word is so important, why we should not habitually absent ourselves from the proclamation of the truth, because there is something that happens in that moment that cannot be captured any other way.

It's something unique, and as a believer, you need to understand what that is, that there is a theology going on there. There's a dynamic happening in that moment that is for your sanctification and good and for the sanctification and good of the person who does the preaching.

And when we absent ourselves from that process, it minimizes, it detracts from that event and the work that is being done there. All right, not that it's mystical, but I hope you get what I mean. All right, so for today's lesson or discussion or me just speaking to the camera, whatever you want to call this, because it's not a sermon, I wanted to find something that would be kind of appropriate for our time here, for what's going on in our world.

John 16:33 and the Upper Room Discourse

So if you have your Bibles, turn, if you will, to the book of Ecclesiastes. I'm just kidding, not Ecclesiastes, no. I know there's some of you crying right now. Turn to John chapter 16. John chapter 16, I'm going to take you to the words of the Lord Jesus in John chapter 16.

Something I just want to remind us all, our whole flock about here as we give some thought to what's going on in our world and what our response to it should be. John chapter 16, verse 33, Jesus says this, these things I have spoken to you so that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good courage or take courage. I have overcome the world. These things I've spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take courage.

I have overcome the world. I want to set up a little bit the context there of those words when Jesus says these things I've spoken to you. He's talking about really the previous, let me see, chapter 16, all of chapters 13, 14, 15, and 16.

So really it is the previous four chapters that he has in view there, beginning the upper room discourse and some of his conversations with his disciples on the night he was betrayed, and John chapter 16 is the upper room discourse or the farewell discourse of our Lord.

It's the final discourse that John records Jesus making, and it took place after Judas had left the upper room to go betray Jesus. It took place while Jesus was walking at some point between the upper room where he had met with his disciples and enjoyed the Last Supper and instituted communion.

It took place that this discourse was given somewhere on the walk between that upper room and the Garden of Gethsemane, which brings us into John chapter 17 and 18. John chapter 17 being the high priestly prayer of Jesus.

So this whole discourse 14, 15, 16, and 17 all takes place in that context. So when Jesus said these things I've spoken, he's describing the whole previous discourse 13, 14, 15, and all of chapter 16 that he's been describing.

Now what has Jesus been doing in those chapters? He had been, this was the final night of his life, he had just enjoyed dinner with his disciples, Judas absent for that. This was his final discourse. He was preparing the 11 disciples for his departure.

He was leaving the world, he was going back to the Father, he speaks of that. He was going to send them the Holy Spirit. The disciples at this point were not even really aware of what it was that was going on in terms of Judas's betrayal and the crucifixion which was imminent and then and the arrest which would be in the garden just a few hours after this.

The disciples weren't even really aware of all that that was going on. But Jesus had been preparing them for his departure, talking to them about being in the world and being not of the world and abiding in him, John chapter 15.

In John chapter 14 he talks about the peace that should be theirs and the tribulation that they should expect and the gift of the Holy Spirit in John chapter 14. He describes for them the equipping that they would need and receive by the power of the Holy Spirit for their future ministry.

He was preparing them for the near events, his crucifixion and his resurrection, as well as distant events after he would resurrect and ascend back to the Father. He was preparing them for their lives of ministries in this world and what their view of the world should be.

So when he says in verse 33, these things I've spoken to you so that in me you may have peace, in the world you will have tribulation, that reference to the world is not the first time Jesus had mentioned world in that context of that upper room discourse.

That was not the first time he had mentioned that. He had said all kinds of things about the world prior to that, even that night with the disciples. He talked about leaving the world and going back to the Father.

He talked about the world not being able to receive him or the truth, the world not being able to understand the truth. He talked about the disciples being hated by the world. He says back in chapter 15, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you.

If you were of the world, the world would love its own. This is chapter 15 verse 18 and following. But because you're not of the world, but I chose you out of the world because of this, the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you, a slave is not greater than his master. If they persecuted me, they'll also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for my namesake, because they do not know the one who sent me.

If I had come and spoken to them, if I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sinned. But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates me hates my father also. If I had not done among them the works, which no one else did, they would not have sin.

But now they have both seen and hated me and my father as well. But they've done this to fulfill the word that's written in their law. They hated me without a cause. Then he gives to them the promise of the Holy Spirit in verses 26 and 27 of chapter 15.

So Jesus has already said a lot about the world, but specifically our relationship to the world, that we are number one, first and primarily, we are chosen out of the world. This he specifically says, there's a distinction that is drawn between those who belong to the world and those who belong to the Son.

And if you follow the argument and John's teaching throughout the Gospel of John, you see this repeatedly. He speaks in John chapter 6 about the Father giving him a people. In John chapter 10, the Father again gives to him a people and he lays down his life for those sheep.

Those are the sheep. The sheep hear his voice. He saves them. He gives eternal life. They're safe and secure. They're in his hand and the hand of the Father because of the Father's choosing and giving them to the Son.

So these are people, that's us, his sheep, which are chosen out of the world. The world being the mass of humanity. Out of all of the mass of humanity, of all the people who have ever lived out of all of humanity, out of those, the Father has specifically chosen some.

And Jesus said in John 15, you didn't choose me, I chose you. That's us. We have been chosen out of the world and we have been given, plucked as it were, out of the world system, out of belonging to the world and we have been given as a gift by the Father to the Son.

So that very act of our election and that we have been given by the Father to the Son says something about our relationship to this world. So in this world, Jesus said, you will have tribulation because we are not of this world.

We have the Holy Spirit given to us, something that the world does not have. We have the indwelling of the Spirit. We've been chosen by the Father, given to the Son, something that is not true of the rest of the world, those who have not been chosen.

That's why Jesus could say to the Pharisees, you do not believe because you're not of my sheep. If you were my sheep, you would hear my voice, you would come to me, I'd give you eternal life, I would secure you, but the Father has not given you to me, you're not of my sheep, that's why you will not believe.

So those who do not believe, do not believe, not because they are kept from believing by God, they do not believe because they do not belong to the Son by virtue of the choosing and plucking out of the world by the Father and then giving them to the Son.

So that sovereign grace that has been bestowed upon us, that we are given, defines and describes our relationship to the rest of the world, to the world, to the world system, to the world of unbelievers, and it tells us something that this world is not our home.

And Jesus later in John chapter 17, he says in verse 6, I've manifested your name to the men whom you gave me out of the world. Now in John chapter 17, all that Jesus has said concerning the giving of the Father to the Son, all of it kind of comes full circle, it all kind of culminates as it were in Jesus's prayer on behalf of those whom the Father has given to him.

So in John 17 verse 6, Jesus said in his prayer to the Father, I've manifested your name to the men you gave me out of the world. The Father giving a people to the Son out of the world. John chapter 17 verse 9, I ask on their behalf, I do not ask on behalf of the world but of those whom you have given me for they are yours.

Jesus describes a group of people given to him by the Father, separate and distinct from the rest of the world. Jesus distinguished between those who belonged to him and those who belong to the world, and what makes us to belong to the Son.

Jesus over and over again says, that is the work of the Father in giving those people to him. He said you gave them to me out of the world. The Father initiated this and gave those people to the Son, gave us to the Son.

John chapter 17 verse 11, I'm no longer in the world and yet they themselves are in the world. So here's our relationship to the world, though we're not of the world, we're not part of the world, we're chosen out of the world.

Verse 11, yet they themselves are in the world. We are here amongst those whom we do not belong to, and yet they themselves are in the world. And I come to you, Holy Father, keep them in your name, the name which you have given me, that they may be one even as we are.

While I was with them, I was keeping them in your name, which you've given me, and I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled. But now I come to you, and these things I speak in the world, so that they may have my joy made full in themselves.

I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world. That's us. We're not of the world, and the world has hated us. Why? Because we're chosen out of the world.

The world doesn't hate us because we speak weird. The world doesn't hate us because we worship on Sundays. The world doesn't hate us because we use different language, because we have different priorities.

The world hates us for one reason and one reason only. Well, primarily one reason and one reason only. That is because we are chosen out of the world, and we do not belong to it. And so therefore, as Christians, everything we do and say, everything we are, is markedly different from the whole world and the world system.

And so the world hates us, because the world knows that we don't belong to it. And if you act like the world, and you lived like the world, and you thought like the world, and you spoke like the world, and you had doctrine and theology like the world, the world would love you.

But because we've been chosen out of the world, our otherworldliness is manifested in how we respond to that when we're brought to the sun, and therefore the world hates us. All right, so verse 13, now I come to you that these may, um, verse 14.

I've given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.

They're not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth. Your word is truth. Also, you sent me into the world. I also have sent them into the world. For their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.

And so there, in those words, Jesus describes the fact that the Father has chosen us out of the world, and given us to the Son, who has come into the world to save us. And then the Son has left us in the world, so that we may reach the world, and draw others out of the world.

That kind of comes full circle. We are not of the world. We're supposed to be sanctified, and then we are left in the world, and then the Son prays that we would be kept safe and secure, and that even while we're in the world, the Father would be keeping us.

So that describes our relationship to the world. Now, back to John 16, verse 33, where he says, I've spoken to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. Take courage.

I've overcome the world. I want to draw out of that verse three promises, three things that we are promised. Number one, you and I are promised tribulation. In this world, you will have tribulation. That is most certainly that we are going to have tribulation in this world.

And we ought to bank on that. Jesus didn't sugarcoat this to his disciples. I mean, imagine how this would have sounded to the disciples. They're there with Jesus. Judas has left. Jesus has said all of these enigmatic, mysterious things about being betrayed into the hands of sinners and crucified, and now he spent three chapters kind of going through them.

Look, I'm leaving you. I'm going back to the Father, and I'm sending the Holy Spirit. He'll be with you. The world hates you. I'm leaving you here in the world. The world hates you. You're going to have tribulation, et cetera.

And what would have been going through their mind is they're wondering, what does he mean by all of this? What does he mean by I'm going to the Father? What does he mean by he's leaving us here? What does he mean by he's going to send the helper, the Holy Spirit?

All of that contained in those previous chapters. And then Jesus, rather than just saying, look, hey, everything's going to be fine, right? You guys will be okay. Everything's going to be good. I got this.

He didn't say any of that. He just, I mean, it might be true. His care for us might be true, but he doesn't sugarcoat any of this for the disciples. You're going to have tribulation. The world is going to hate you.

You're not of it. And things will get rough. As Paul said in Acts chapter 14, it is through many tribulations that we must enter the kingdom of heaven. Jesus promised us that we're going to have tribulation.

We're going to be hated as Christians. The world is going to respond with hostility to the message of truth. And if they're not responding in a hostile fashion to our message, there's something wrong with our message.

We're going to experience tribulation, even in the sense that's not necessarily spiritual, but in the sense that we experience death and trials and troubles and disease and just the natural results of being under the curse in this world.

And this kind of brings us back to what we're seeing going on in our world today, when we seem like our culture, our nation, being the most prosperous one in the history of the world, we seem to be on the brink of self-ruination, panic buying and hoarding and interrupting of the supply chain, all because of a virus that may be a threat and may not be.

Let's assume that it is genuinely a threat, this virus. It's something that we should expect, that we live in a cursed, fallen, sinful, disease-ridden, death-filled world. That death is going to strike all of us.

We're all going to die. We are promised tribulation. The older I get, the more my body breaks down. And those of you who are older already know this. You know that death is coming and you know that death is settling in on you as everything begins to deteriorate.

And it happens more and more the older that we get. We know that we live in a fallen creation. And not only that, not only in this fallen creation, but we live in a nation at a time when the veneer of comfort and convenience and ease and prosperity could be stripped away from us at any moment.

And we're seeing that now. We don't even have an openly socialist system. And we see the shelves at our local grocery stores being stripped bare because people fear death. And it might get worse. It might get better.

A week from now, next Sunday, we might be talking about how, hey, you can go down to Walmart and buy toilet paper without any problem whatsoever. You can buy hand sanitizer and Pastor Jim doesn't need to hoard it up anymore.

That might be our discussion a week from now. Or a week from now, we might be saying, now we're rationing everything. This is like full scale Venezuela. We don't know what the future holds. We do know this, that we're promised tribulation.

And so when we experience some of this tribulation, like we have here recently, or at least the precursors of it, we've at least experienced a disruption in all of the comforts and conveniences that we have so much taken for granted in our culture and in our society.

And this should remind us, all of this veneer of civilization, it could be stripped away in an instant. We ought to be thankful for what we have enjoyed, but at the same time, understanding that it could all disappear tomorrow.

And what we enjoy in America is an anomaly in terms of what the rest of the world experiences. This is not the norm. It is not the norm that people enjoy this kind of prosperity, convenience, and ease.

Being able to click a button and having something delivered to me from a company whose warehouse I've never seen, I don't even have to leave my couch and the UPS guy two days later will drop it off on my doorstep.

That type of convenience is an anomaly in the world. It is an anomaly in the history of humanity. The freedom, the prosperity, the comforts, and the conveniences that we enjoy, brethren, that is not the norm of human history.

The norm of human history is tribal warfare and people being sacked and people living and fighting daily the battle for bread and having to wonder and worry about where their next meal is going to come from.

That's the norm of human existence for 6 ,000 years. We enjoy this little bubble of prosperity in the midst of all of that, and it's only a little bubble even in our whole world where we have neighbors that live to the south of us who don't even understand what it's like to enjoy the kind of prosperity that we have.

What we enjoy is an anomaly in our world today, and it is anomaly even more so in all of human history, and it could all vanish. And we need to be aware that Jesus has promised us tribulation, and we need not fear that because of the second promise, and that is that we are promised peace as well.

Peace in Christ, Sovereign Providence, and Victory Over the World

We're promised peace as well. It looks like my computer here just froze up. I don't know what's going on. All right, all the rest of this I do from memory. We are promised peace. We're not only promised tribulation, but we are promised peace.

Jesus said in 16 verse 33, you will have tribulation, but take courage. I have overcome the world, and he speaks at the beginning of that, these things I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace.

Our peace truly is in Jesus Christ, and that's the peace that we have. We can have peace in the midst of tribulation. Even though he promises us tribulation, he also promises us his peace. He gives us this peace.

He talks about leaving his peace with us at the beginning of chapter 14. He describes how don't let your heart be troubled. Believe in God. Believe also in me. He talks about going to his father's house.

Prepare for us many rooms. His father's house has many rooms, and he has one prepared for us. He talks about giving us the Holy Spirit and sending his peace to be with us, the comforter who will comfort us in that affliction.

Jesus has prepared us. He has promised us tribulation, and he has also promised us the peace that is to come, the peace that can come through a right relationship with him, the peace that can come when we rest in him and trust in his sovereignty.

One of the things that I could have spent the day talking to you about today was the sovereignty of God in all of this, and I could have comforted you with that and said, as Spurgeon would say, that the sovereignty of God is the pillow upon which we lay our head, and that we can have the comfort of God in the midst of our tribulations, and we can rest upon the sovereignty of God, and that is true, and I don't deny any of that, and I would affirm all of that, but you've been taught well about the sovereignty of God in salvation and in human history, and we've talked about that.

I want you to understand that the sovereignty of God goes well with the purposes of God. It comes together with the purposes of God, the love of God, the wisdom of God, that he is working all things out for our good.

He is orchestrating human history to be what he intends for it to be. He is working out the good of his people and the good of his church. He is doing all of this for a purpose. The sovereignty of God would be a terrifying doctrine if I did not at the same time believe in the infinite wisdom of God and his infinite love for us, because he loves us infinitely.

We know that whatever it is that is happening in the world is happening according to his sovereign plan, and he is working it all out for his glory and for our good. We can take comfort in that, and with the indwelling of the Spirit of God, we can behave and comport ourselves in such a way that we are not shaken by this.

We are not disturbed by this. We are not upset by this, but we have the peace and the comfort that comes to us through the person of the Holy Spirit and in his indwelling. That is what Jesus is talking about.

In every chapter of this Upper Room Discourse, Jesus mentions the coming of the Spirit. Chapter 14, chapter 15, chapter 16. It is all the way through there. I am leaving. You are going to be hated. You are going to have tribulation.

The peace and prosperity that we enjoy is an anomaly. We are promised that we are going to suffer. We are promised that we are going to be persecuted. We are promised that things are not going to necessarily be.

We cannot count on everything being swimming for us all the time, but even in the midst of that, Jesus promises that we can have peace. We can have peace with him. We can have peace in the world. We can have peace in the midst of those tribulations and difficulties.

So, he promises us tribulation. He promises us peace, and I am doing this from memory because my computer froze up, but he also promises us victory. He says in chapter 16, verse 33, be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.

We can have that peace. We can have that courage because he has promised us the victory. He has assured us the victory that is ours in Jesus Christ because of what he has done. Because of his act on the cross, he has victory over the world.

He has victory over history. He has victory over every enemy, death and disease. All of it will be made right in the end. He is sovereign over all of that. He is victorious over all of that, and we can have that confidence that the same God who spoke the universe into existence, he is not leaving it spinning without orchestrating everything for our good and for his glory.

So, he has promised us tribulation. He has promised us peace in the midst of that tribulation, and he has promised us the victory that is ours in Jesus Christ because of what he has done. One of the things, and the computer's fired back up here, so now I can...

Oh, one thing I do need to remind you of in the midst of all of this is Philippians 3, verses 20 and 21. Our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly await a savior, Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity to the body of his glory by the exertion of the power that he has to subject all things to himself.

Our citizenship is in heaven. This is not our home. This is not our world. So, if it is wracked by disease and virus and if everything that we hold dear, materially speaking, is taken from us in an instant, this is not our home.

And so, I would like to leave you with this. Colossians chapter 3 tells us that we must set our minds on things above. Having been raised up with Christ, Paul says to the Colossians, keep seeking the things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Before Paul says you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God, when Christ who is your life appears or is revealed, then you also will appear with him in glory.

That's the promise. Our citizenship is in heaven and so we are to set our minds on things above. So, are things with the coronavirus going to get worse, get better, stay the same? We don't know any of that.

But here's what I'm praying for in the midst of all of this. Number one, I'm praying that this would end up serving to purify the true church of God in Jesus Christ. That the false gospel would be exposed.

I see on Facebook and social media a lot of mocking of the false doctrines and the false gospels and the word of faith teachers. I think that's all well and good. I don't have any problem mocking false doctrine.

Sometimes it deserves to be mocked. Sometimes it deserves to be ridiculed. Sometimes, all the time, it deserves to be called out and compared to the truth. So all of these health, wealth, and prosperity gospel preachers that talk about having the ability to heal and raise the dead and heal the sick, their silence is speaking volumes.

And I'm hoping that this whole fiasco, whether it gets worse or gets better, ends up exposing those charlatans, those hucksters, those hoaxers, those frauds for exactly what they are. Lying, money-grubbing, prosperity-seeking hacks who have co-opted the true gospel and used it simply to fill their own coffers.

The emperor has no clothes. Benny Hinn wears glasses. Bill Johnson wears glasses. These men can't even heal themselves. They're dying. They're getting old. They're getting sick. They don't have the ability to heal themselves or anybody else, no matter how much faith they have.

And I hope that this whole thing ends up exposing them for the frauds that they are and that the false hopes and the false confidences that Christians have possessed for far too long, that those would be exposed as well.