Your Grief Will Turn To Joy (John 16:1-33)

John 16:1-33; Key Verse: Jn 16:20b

"...your grief will turn to joy."

To preach about the Holy Spirit is quite enigmatic and confounding. My first title for this sermon was "The Holy Spirit Convicts and Guides" with Jn 16:8,13 as key verses. Next was "The Holy Spirit is Fully God, Yet Distinctly Different from God the Father and God the Son." But this title is clearly too long and cumbersome. Finally I settled on "Your Grief Will Turn To Joy," with Jn 16:20b as the key verse. My theme and thesis is that authentic Christian life, which is the work of the Holy Spirit, must have grief because of our sins, and it must have joy because of the marvelous grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The "two sides" of God are often hard to reconcile or embrace together. God loves, but God also judges. Jesus is full of grace, but also full of truth (Jn 1:14). The Holy Spirit comforts but also convicts (Jn 16:8). Because we are sinful we tend to skew toward one side or the other, and we often flip flop depending on the situation. When we are upset with a particular person, we apply judgment, truth, conviction, etc. But if we favor someone, we apply love, grace and comfort. We are unpredictable, wishy washy and often inconsistent human beings. We desperately need the help of all three persons of the Trinity, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jn 16:1-33 can be divided into three parts:

1. Hostility from the religious (Jn 16:1-4).
2. Help from the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:5-16).
• The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.
• The Holy Spirit guides into all truth.
  
3. Hope from the promise of Jesus (Jn 16:17-33).
• Persevering in Christ, our grief will turn to joy.
  

I. Hostility From The Religious (Jn 16:1-4)

Going astray. The greatest danger the disciples will confront from the opposition of the world is not death but apostasy (Jn 16:1). They will be hated and persecuted simply because of Jesus' name, which means that they unashamedly identify themselves as Christians (Jn 15:18-21; Mt 5:10-12; Lk 6:22). If a Christian's roots are shallow, their faith may seem to joyfully thrive at first, but when persecution or hardship comes they fall away (Mt 13:21; Mk 4:17; Lk 8:13). Jesus warns them so that they might know with certainty that "everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted" (2 Tim 3:12).

Being persecuted not by atheists but by the ultra-religious. Surprisingly, the most pressing threat is not just from the irreligious and the world at large (Jn 15:18-25), but specifically from the religious hierarchy; it is expulsion from "the synagogue" (Jn 16:2a). Historically, the first virulent opposition Christians faced came from the Jews, precisely because the church sprang out of Judaism and all its earliest members were Jews. Stephen was persecuted by the religious Jews (Ac 7:54-8:3). Paul, before his conversion, was an ardent devout Jew, who severely, aggressively and violently persecuted Christians and the church (Ac 8:3, 22:4-5, 26:9-11; Gal 1:13-17; Phil 3:6; 1 Tim 1:12-17). In his religious zeal, Paul likely believed that by persecuting Christians even to their death, he was "offering a service to God" (Jn 16:2b). But after his conversion, the persecutor became the persecuted (2 Cor 11:23-26). Receiving 39 lashes (2 Cor 11:24) was a distinctive punishment meted out by synagogue authorities. Some rabbinic authorities held that slaying heretics could be an act of divine worship. Sadly and inexcusably, Christiandom has heinously repaid the compliment toward other religious groups, including sincere Christians who defy a traditionalistic legalistic institutionalized church that has lost the life giving power of the gospel. Jesus himself was executed by the most "religious people" in the land who claimed that they knew God the best.

Serving God by persecuting Christians. When William Carey wanted to obey Jesus' command, he was told by the church, "Young man, sit down; when God is pleased to convert the heathen world, He will do it without your help or mine." Whether in the 1st century or the 20th, Christians have often discovered that the most dangerous oppression comes not from careless pagans but from zealous adherents to religious faith, and from other ideologues. Christians have faced severe persecution performed in the name of Yahweh, in the name of Allah, in the name of Marx -- and in the name of Jesus (Jn 16:2b).

Persecution comes from those who do not know God. Why is there such opposition from the religious? "They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me" (Jn 16:3). Who are these religious persecutors? Tit 1:16 says, "They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable, disobedient and unfit for doing anything good." Usually religious zealots think that they somehow earn their salvation and their status by their own goodness or merit or righteousness (cf. Dt 7:7-8, 9:4,6). They think they have a "more direct access to God," on account of their own goodness, faithfulness, or some virtue. When genuine Christians display clearly that salvation is by grace alone and not by works (Eph 2:8-9), it severely threatens their false sense of security, status and salvation. They also feel dismissed as religious relics and artifacts who are disconnected to both God and people. Like the Pharisees and religious leaders of Jesus' time, they feel their position of religious aristocracy challenged and threatened by sincere Christians. Though they claim to know God, they instead spawn hostility toward sincere Christians (Jn 15:18-21). Jesus told them this so that when persecution breaks out the disciples will not be taken by surprise (Jn 16:4a). Jesus did not spell out the full dangers of persecution earlier because he was with them, and could largely protect them by absorbing all opposition himself, thus deflecting it from them (Jn 16:4b). His arrest was the last time he served them in this way (Jn 18:8-9).

II. Help From The Holy Spirit (Jn 16:5-16)

The disciples were too self-absorbed; they just didn't get it and were filled with grief. Peter and Thomas had earlier asked about where Jesus was going (Jn 13:36, 14:5). So why did Jesus say that none of them had asked him where he was going (Jn 16:5)? Though they did ask the question, they were not really interested to hear the answer. They were too self-absorbed in their own loss, sorrow and confusion. The drift of all 4 Gospels assures us that none of the inner ring of disciples entertained the idea, before the cross, that the Messiah would simultaneously be conquering king, suffering, dying servant and resurrected Lord. They did not grasp or understand any of Jesus' talk about his departure (Jn 16:16-19). As a result, they were "filled with grief" (Jn 16:6). Jesus said, "But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you" (Jn 16:7). Jesus leaving them (Jn 14:16, 26; 15:26), which was for their good, was filling them with grief and sorrow. Why? They had their own personal human hopes and dreams (Lk 24:21; Ac 1:6), which could not be realized if Jesus left them. Do we experience similar disappointments when we follow Jesus?

The Holy Spirit (Paraclete) convicts/proves the world to be in the wrong. Jn 16:8-11 are not easy to explain: "⁸ When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: ⁹ about sin, because people do not believe in me; ¹⁰ about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; ¹¹ and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned." Jn 16:9-11 is an expansion or explanation of the rather cryptic utterance of Jn 16:8. The Greek elenchō has the meaning of "expose, convince, convict, putting to shame, treating with contempt, cross-examining, accusing, bringing to the test, proving, refuting." The 1984 and 2011 NIV translates it "he will convict the world of guilt" and "he will prove the world to be in the wrong." This verb occurs 18 times in the NT (Mt 18:15; Lk 3:19; Jn 3:20, 8:46; 1 Cor 14:24; Eph 5:11, 13; 1 Tim 5:20; 2 Tim 4:2; Tit 1:9, 13, 2:15; Heb 12:5; Jas 2:9; Jude 15,22; Rev 3:19). In every instance it has to do with showing someone his sin, usually as a summons to repentance. Thus, the work of the Holy Spirit is to shame the world and convince it of its own guilt, and calling it to repentance.

The Holy Spirit continues the work of Jesus. Just as Jesus forced a division in the world by showing that what it does is evil (Jn 7:7, 15:22), so the Paraclete continues this work--most commonly through the witness of disciples (Jn 15:26-27). This is done in connection with the truth of the gospel of Christ, since his whole purpose is to bring glory to Jesus (Jn 16:14, 17:2).

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of its sin because the people who constitute the world do not believe in Jesus (Jn 16:9). If they did, they would believe his statements about their guilt and turn to him. Their unbelief brings not only condemnation (Jn 3:18,36) but willful ignorance of their need. The world's unbelief not only ensures that it will not receive life, it ensures that it cannot perceive that it walks in death and needs life. The Holy Spirit presses home the world's sin despite the world's unbelief; he convicts the world of sin because they do not believe in Jesus. This convicting work of the Paraclete is therefore gracious; it is designed to bring men and women of the world to recognize their need, and so turn to Jesus, and thus stop being the world.

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of its (self-)righteousness because Jesus is going to the Father (Jn 16:10). What does this mean? While on earth, one of Jesus' most startling roles was to show up the world for the emptiness of its pretensions, to expose by his light the darkness of the world for what it is (Jn 3:19-21, 7:7, 15:22,24; Jer 17:9). But now that Jesus is leaving, how will that convicting work be continued? By the Paraclete, who will come to carry on that function, through illumination (Jn 14:26, 16:13), and who drives home this conviction in the world precisely because Jesus is no longer present to discharge this task. Undoubtedly this kind of conviction is driven home to the world primarily through Jesus' followers who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, live their lives in such growing conformity to Christ that the same impact on the world is observed as when Jesus lived out his life before the world. The point is that Jesus was the paradigm, the model of behavior, the master who was to be followed. Now the Paraclete so empowers them by taking "from what is mine and [making] it known to you" (Jn 16:15).

Religious righteousness is like filthy rags, for there is no righteousness in the world. Jn 16:10 seems odd because the world rejects God's righteousness by actively suppressing the truth by her wickedness (Rom 1:18). Thus, the Holy Spirit's purpose is to shatter the world's pretensions of self-righteousness, by exposing the darkness and hypocrisy of the heart. To God, all man's righteous acts are like a soiled menstrual cloth (Isa 64:6), even if there is plenty of religious righteousness based on the Law. In Les Miserables, Javert represents the righteousness of the Law, which is inflexible, rigid, and non-negotiable. But through Jean Valjean, who represents the free grace of God, the world of righteousness based on the Law was convicted. Javert had only two options: to embrace the grace of God and share it with others as Jean Valjean did, or to reject it, which he did, and he threw himself off a bridge to his death. Similarly, when Judas was convicted of betraying a righteous man, Jesus, he could come forth and accept the free grace of God. Instead, he committed suicide by hanging himself until his intestines spilled out (Mt 27:5; Acts 1:18).

The Holy Spirit convicts the world of its judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned (Jn 16:11). The judgment of which the Spirit convicts the world is its multifaceted spiritual blindness, supremely displayed in its treatment of Jesus. Because the world is under Satan's control, its judgments are blind, faulty and evil as evidenced in their verdict on Christ. Jesus had exhorted the world, "Stop judging by mere appearances, but instead judge correctly” (Jn 7:24). Jesus' judgment is righteous (Jn 5:30) and true (Jn 8:16). The world's judgment is profoundly wrong and morally perverse. Now the Paraclete convicts the world of its false judgment, because in the impending triumph of Christ the prince of this world stands condemned. All false judgment is related to Satan who is a liar from the beginning, whose children we are if we echo his values (Jn 8:42-47). Satan, the ruler of the world (Jn 14:30; Eph 2:1-3) who, as the god of this world, has perverted the world's judgment and turned people from believing in Jesus as the Messiah and Son of God (2 Cor 4:4), was defeated at the cross. While Christ's death looked like Satan's greatest victory, it actually was Satan's destruction (Col 2:15; Heb 2:14-15; Rev 20:10). The Spirit will lead sinners to true judgment.

Jesus is God's final self-expression of himself. Jn 16:12-15 is the fifth and final Paraclete passage: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.” It is a suitable climax, since it focuses on the completion of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the nodal point of revelation, God's culminating self-disclosure, God's final self-expression, God's "Word" (Jn 1:1, 14). All antecedent revelation has pointed toward him, and reaches its climax in him. The same thought is presented in Heb 1:1-4. Because of this theme of the finality of the revelation of God in Christ, the church has always been rightly suspicious of claims of still further definitive revelation that is binding on the consciences of all Christians (say of Mormonism, Rev. Moon, etc).

The Holy Spirit guides into all truth (who is Jesus, the very revelation of God) (Jn 16:13). Jesus himself is the truth (Jn 1:14, 14:6). But now the Spirit of truth leads the disciples into all the implications of the truth, the revelation, intrinsically bound up with Jesus Christ. There is no other locus of truth; this is all truth. Just as Jesus did exactly what the Father gave him to say and do (Jn 3:34-35; 5:19-20; 7:16-18; 8:26-29, 42-43; 12:47-50; 14:10), so also the Spirit "will speak only what he hears" (Jn 16:13b). Jesus' absolute and exhaustive obedience to his Father ensures that he is the very revelation of God himself (Jn 5:19-30), and the Spirit affirds that this is true.

Through the Holy Spirit, Jesus' followers wrote the NT and reveals Jesus as God. The Spirit’s ministry of guiding Jesus’ followers "into all the truth" is a promise especially directed toward these 11 disciples, and it finds particular fulfillment in the subsequent work of these disciples in personally writing or overseeing the inspired NT writings. The promise, like the other things that Jesus says in these chapters, also has a broader application to all believers as the Holy Spirit leads and guides them (Rom 8:14; Gal 5:18). The activity of the Holy Spirit in declaring "what is yet to come" (Jn 16:13) suggests that he knows the future, something that is true of God alone; this gives evidence of the full deity of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's witness to Jesus would primarily be through the church (Jn 15:26-27). The Holy Spirit primarily fleshes out the implications of God's triumphant self-disclosure in the person and work of the Son.

The central aim of the Holy Spirit is that just as the Son by his ministry on earth brought glory to his Father (Jn 7:18, 17:4), so the Holy Spirit by his ministry brings glory to Jesus (Jn 16:14-15). By "taking from what is mine and making it known to you" (Jn 16:14b) the Holy Spirit presses home on the disciples all the revelation bound up in Jesus' person and mission. The ESV says, "He (the Holy Spirit) will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you" (John 16:14). All that Jesus said and did is nothing more and nothing else than what the Father gave him to say and do, "because whatever the Father does the Son also does. ²⁰ For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does" (Jn 5:19-20). Therefore, if the Spirit is "taking from what is mine and making it known to you (the disciples)" (Jn 16:14b), then the content of "what is mine" is nothing less than the revelation of the Father himself, for Jesus declares, "All that belongs to the Father is mine" (Jn 16:15a). The Father has declared that all should honor the Son even as they honor the Father (Jn 5:23). And the Son is no less concerned to bring glory to his Father (Jn 14:13, 17:1,4).

The point of John's Gospel is Jesus. It is important to realize that the disciples are the ones who will directly benefit from these ministrations of the Spirit (Jn 14:26, 15:27), for at the time they still could not bear what Jesus was saying (Jn 15:12). Even though it is not the primary emphasis of these verses, yet this also speaks of the Spirit's continued work in the disciples of Jesus today. From the disciples that Jesus directly addressed we today have a fully Christian understanding of all that Jesus is and did. It drives our attention to Jesus himself, and away from subsidiary themes like discipleship, the continuing work of the Spirit and the like. This almost self-evident fact greatly supports the view that John's Gospel is primarily evangelistic in its content (Jn 20:31).

III. Hope From The Promise Of Jesus (Jn 16:17-33)

Jesus dealt directly with the emotions of his disciples. Jn 16:16-33 is the conclusion of the Upper Room Discourse. Here Jesus deals with the emotions of the disciples. The first reference of the repeated phrase “In a little while...after a little while” (Jn 16:16-19) is referring to the brief period between the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus; the second reference is to the resurrection appearances, when the disciples will see Jesus again. Jesus explicitly told them that he was leaving for their good, and they were filled with grief and angst like a woman in agonizing labor (Jn 16:21). Though Jesus stated clearly, yet the disciples were clueless.

 

Were the disciples really that dumb? They are totally confused. It was total chaos. If this was a forgery, if this were a fraud, would they really paint themselves as being so obtuse? There is complete honesty here; they were admitting that they were complete dumbbells. The reality is that they should have figured it out by now, but they had not. It simply illustrates that all of us are that way; we are all dense and we are all obtuse, unless the Spirit of God breaks through.

 

God uses slow dumb people. The disciples were very real people who did not seem to be very bright or exemplary or spiritual. They were not the "top nothcers" nor the crem della crem. It is a wonderful comfort that God uses imperfect "slow" people. To be frank, the people Jesus chose are not the folks we would have chosen. This means that He can use us as well. You do not have to be highly gifted, in the eyes of the world, for you to be used in a powerful way by God. Instead, you need to be radically dependent. Obedience and dependence; trust and obey, is what really makes the difference. The fact is that some people have greater amounts of intelligence, ability, wealth, or influence. But, the divine equalizer is that reward in God’s Kingdom is based on faithfulness and opportunity, and not on time, talent, or treasure. Therefore, a very, very deficient person, as the world might define them, has as much opportunity to be rewarded in the Kingdom of Heaven as does a person who seems most likely to succeed, even in the Christian world.

Jesus comforts by giving a promise. A recurring theme is Jesus' comforting his disciples by giving them a promise. Listen carefully: "Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. ²¹ A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. ²² So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy" (Jn 16:20-22).

God uses adversity to develop us. Jesus uses this theme of joy and joy is not the same as happiness. Happiness depends upon circumstances, joy transcends circumstances. There is a big difference. We can be joyful in the midst of adversity, because of our perspective (Jas 1:2-4). God very often uses adversity to mature, strengthen, develop you. This is an incredibly important principle, a life changing principle if we see it and grasp it.

Joy by transformation, not by substitution or replacement. Three times in these three verses Jesus repeats the same point: "your grief will turn to joy...when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy...Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy" (Jn 16:20-22). Here Jesus explains a principle that God brings joy into our lives, not by substitution, but by transformation.  A woman giving birth illustrates this. The same baby that caused the pain also caused great joy. Instead of relieving the mother’s pain, God transformed it.

Desiring a replacement rather than transformation. The mother’s pain is not replaced by joy; it is transformed into joy. What is the difference? If each time a toy is broken, the mother gets a new toy for a child, what will happen to that child? That child will grow up expecting every problem to be solved by substitution/replacement: If something goes wrong, get a new thing. Sadly, so many people often suppose that say during a mid-life crisis, a new wife, a new career, or a new car, all substitutions or replacements, will suddenly make things better. That is an illusion.

We want our better life now. Solving our problems by way of substitution is the way of immaturity. The way of transformation is the way of faith and that leads to maturity. No one cannot mature emotionally or spiritually by always replacing our broken toys. When we get desperate we might even try to use God to replace our toys. Then our thought of God is as a kind of a divine vending machine. Larry Crabbe, from his book The Pressure's Off, says, “The sad part is that most Christians are more concerned with the better life of God’s blessings than they are with the better hope of God’s presence.” What is the better life of God’s blessings? What we want. Fill in the blank; better health, better career, more money.

God-and... In The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer writes, "The evil habit of seeking God-and effectively prevents us from finding God in full revelation. In the “and” lies our great woe. If we omit the “and,” we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have all our lives been secretly longing." In other words, we want God, "and" something else. We are hoping not to have God all by Himself, but also what God will provide, whatever that may be, and/or that we want God to solve. Until we finally abandon all those "ands" and pursue God only for Himself, we are still not really pursuing God, but using God.

Cause and effect thinking does not apply to God; if it did, we're all dead.Do not make your joy depend on something God has not promised. If you do, you will be disappointed and embittered in the end. Never put your hope on something God has not promised. There is no guaranteed promise in the Bible that righteous godly living will lead to greater earthly prosperity. There is no direct correlation between that, or between ungodliness leading to less prosperity. That is pretty obvious in the world. One of the first phrases a child learns is "it’s not fair." We all have this hard-wired and built-in idea of fairness. What we want may be ‘'fair for me,'’ but not always fair for the other person. ‘'God isn’t fair,'’ we say. But if God were fair, we would all be in a Christ-less eternity. If God were fair, He would judge us according to true judgment and we would be separated from Him forever. God is more than fair. He is gracious, and that leads to the issue of how we respond to Him.

May God bless you to avail yourself to the work of the Holy Spirit and experientially know with confidence that in Christ your grief will turn to joy.

Questions:

1. Why did Jesus warn his disciples about being persecuted (Jn 16:1,4; 15:18-25)? Who would be their persecutors (Jn 16:2; Ac 7:54-8:3, 22:4-5, 26:9-11; Gal 1:13-17; Phil 3:6; 1 Tim 1:12-17; 2 Cor 11:24; Rev 2:9, 3:9)? Why (Jn 16:3, 15:21; Tit 1:16)? How should they respond to hostility (Jn 15:26-27; 1 Pet 3:9)?
2. What was the state of the disciples (Jn 16:5-6, 20-22)? Why did Jesus leave (Jn 16:7, 14:2-4)? How does the Holy Spirit convict the world about sin and righteousness and judgment (Jn 16:8-11, 8:24, 3:19-21, 7:7, 24, 8:44-47, 12:31; Isa 64:6; 2 Cor 5:21; Eph 2:1-3).
3. How does that the Holy Spirit guide into all truth and speak only what he hears (Jn 16:12-13; 14:16-17,26; 3:34-35; 5:19-20; 7:16-18; 8:26-29, 42; 12:47-50; 14:10)? What is central to the work of the Holy Spirit (Jn 16:14-15, 15:26, 17:1,4; Heb 1:1-4)?
4. Why were the disciples confounded by Jesus'  words "a little while” (Jn 16:16-19, 6)? Are they really that dumb or clueless (Lk 24:25; Ac 1:6)? What is the lessron from a woman with birth pains (Jn 16:20-22; Heb 10:36-37, 12:2; 2 Pet 3:8-9)? What does Jesus promise (Jn 16:23-28, 14:13; Lk 24:27; Ac 1:3)? How long did the disciples take to "get it" (Jn 16:29-31)? What would happen soon (Jn 16:32-33; Zech 13:7; Mt 26:31, 56)?

References:

1. Carson, D.A. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 1991. IV. Jesus' Self-Disclosure in His Cross and Exaltation (Jn 13:1-20:31), C. The Farewell Discourse: Part Two (Jn 15:1-16:33) 530-550.
2. Boa, Kenneth. Studies in the book of John: John Chapter 16 (Jn 16:1-33).
   

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