1. "A sober knowledge of yourself and a painful awareness of your own failures is necessary in order for Christianity to make any kind of sense. You only know that you need peace if you know you've done things that damage peace."

2. "The gospel starts in the eternal depth of the love of the Father and the Son and their love in the Spirit. The gospel starts in the depths of the Father and Son and Spirit's love for each other and it ends with us being completely enfolded into that same love."

3. "The Father sees all the way down into the lowest depths of your heart and he loves you not an ounce less because of what he sees there."

4. "Jesus doesn't go to the Father in order to leave us behind. Instead, he goes to the Father in order to secure our place with the Father. He goes to the Father as our forerunner, as our head, as our guarantee."

5. "The distance between us and God isn't physical, it's moral. We are distant from God because our hearts lead us away from him. We are distant from God because we inwardly run from him. We are distant from God because we do not want him."

6. "Trials and opposition bring pressure down on us which threatens to split us off from each other and to separate us from Christ."

7. "When you have seriously failed, the only path to rest and peace is a love that is not daunted or diminished by your failure. And the good news is that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows your failures better than you do and he has overcome your failures by dying and rising again for you."

8. "True peace comes not from within but from without. True peace is not an achievement but a gift. You don't create it. You receive it."

9. "In this world, we have trouble and in Christ we triumph over all of it. That's why you should take heart. That's why you should have courage. That's why you should have confidence in Christ."

10. "If you trust in Christ, no failure of yours can surprise him. No failure of yours can alienate him. No failure can diminish his love for you."

Observation Questions

1. In John 16:25-26, what does Jesus say will change about how he speaks to the disciples, and when does he say this change will occur?

2. According to John 16:27, what reason does Jesus give for the Father's love toward the disciples?

3. In John 16:28, how does Jesus summarize his mission in terms of his origin and destination?

4. What do the disciples claim to now understand about Jesus in John 16:29-30, and what conclusion do they draw from this understanding?

5. In John 16:32, what does Jesus predict will happen to the disciples, and what does he say about his own situation when this occurs?

6. According to John 16:33, what two contrasting realities does Jesus say the disciples will experience, and what command does he give them in response?

Interpretation Questions

1. Why is it significant that Jesus says in John 16:27 that the Father himself loves the disciples, rather than saying the Father loves them only because Jesus intercedes for them? How does this shape our understanding of God the Father's disposition toward believers?

2. In verse 28, Jesus says he "came from the Father" and is "going to the Father." How does this summary of Jesus' mission connect to the sermon's point that the Trinity is both the source and goal of the gospel?

3. The disciples confidently declare "Now we know" and "This is why we believe" in verses 29-30, yet Jesus immediately questions their faith and predicts their desertion. What does this exchange reveal about the nature of faith and self-knowledge?

4. Jesus says in verse 32 that though the disciples will leave him alone, "I am not alone, for the Father is with me." How does this statement relate to Jesus' cry of forsakenness on the cross (Matthew 27:46), and what does it teach us about how Jesus endured his suffering?

5. In verse 33, Jesus speaks of having peace "in me" while having tribulation "in the world." What does it mean for believers to simultaneously live "in the world" and "in Christ," and how does Jesus' victory make this dual existence possible?

Application Questions

1. The sermon emphasizes that the Father's love for us is not diminished by our failures. When you experience moral failure or conviction of sin, what specific lies do you tend to believe about God's disposition toward you, and how can you actively remind yourself of the truth of John 16:27 this week?

2. The disciples overestimated their faith and understanding before they were tested. In what area of your life might you be overconfident about your spiritual maturity, and what practical step could you take to cultivate a more sober self-assessment?

3. Jesus told the disciples about their coming failure in advance so they would know he had planned for it and still loved them. How does knowing that Jesus anticipates your failures and has already provided for your restoration change how you approach confession and repentance?

4. The sermon described how the church should help one another "exchange the world's troubles for the peace of Christ." Who is one person in your church community currently facing tribulation, and how could you specifically speak Christ's promises into their situation this week?

5. Jesus said to "take heart" because he has overcome the world. When trials come, the sermon suggested we need to "refocus" on God's promises through prayerful meditation on Scripture. What specific practice could you establish or strengthen to help you refocus on Christ's victory when trouble threatens your peace?

Additional Bible Reading

1. John 20:11-23 — This passage shows Jesus fulfilling his promise to speak plainly about the Father, calling the disciples "brothers" and declaring "my Father and your Father" after their desertion.

2. 1 John 4:7-19 — This passage expands on the nature of God's love for us, emphasizing that God loved us first and sent his Son as the propitiation for our sins.

3. Zechariah 13:7-9 — This prophecy, which Jesus quotes regarding the scattering of the disciples, provides the Old Testament background for understanding his prediction in John 16:32.

4. Romans 5:1-11 — This passage teaches how peace with God comes through justification by faith and how God demonstrated his love for us while we were still sinners and enemies.

5. Romans 8:31-39 — This passage powerfully affirms that nothing can separate believers from the love of God in Christ Jesus, reinforcing the sermon's emphasis on Christ's love overcoming all our failures.

Sermon Main Topics

I. Responding to Failure and the Need for Peace

II. Jesus Overcomes Our Distance from God (John 16:25-28)

III. Jesus Overcomes Our Failures (John 16:29-32)

IV. Jesus Overcomes the World (John 16:33)

V. Finding Peace in Christ Amidst the World's Troubles

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Detailed Sermon Outline

How do you respond to failure? One recent failure that affected our family, and I trust many of you, is the closure yesterday of Trickling Spring Creamery.

For those of you who don't know, Trickling Spring Creamery is a Pennsylvania-based company that until yesterday had stores at Eastern Market and Union Market. They made easily the best ice cream in DC. And in fact, I think they made the best ice cream I have ever tasted. But the whole operation is shutting down in light of the reported fact that the owners are being charged with 370 counts of violating the Pennsylvania Securities Act of 1972, allegedly misappropriating large sums of money. When Kristen told me Trickling Springs was closing, I thought, oh no, how am I going to break the news to the kids?

So how did the Jamisons respond to this failure? Well, after we all got over our shock, we stocked up on four gallons of ice cream, and we stashed them in our chest freezer. Chip and mint, salted caramel, coffee. What's one I'm forgetting? Chocolate peanut butter.

There it is, chocolate peanut butter. We've hoarded our stash.

How do you respond to your own failure? Maybe you didn't get into your top choice school or even your top three. Maybe you've put out job application after job application and you just keep getting rejected.

How do you respond to your own failure? Moral failure.

When we fail to meet our own moral standards, we often get angry at ourselves. As David Powlison has written, Anger at oneself can be more than a passing thought. It can become a lifelong state of affairs. What is low self-esteem but a judgment of self-condemnation that has morphed into a life of chronic self-reproach. I did it again.

I can't believe it. Why bother to even try? If people knew who I really am and how I really feel, they'd despise me.

When you're aware of a serious moral failure in your life, what you don't have is peace. You don't have peace with yourself. You may well have broken peace with others. And because of that failure, how can you have peace with God?

This is why a sober knowledge of yourself and a painful awareness of your own failures is necessary in order for Christianity to make any kind of sense.

You only know that you need peace if you know you've done things that damage peace. So have you damaged your peace with yourself? Have you disrupted peace with others? Do you have peace with God? This morning we continue our study of chapters 14 to 17 of John's gospel with chapter 16.

Verses 25 to 33. It's on page 903 of the Pew Bibles. If you don't have a Bible that you can read and that is your own, feel free to take that one with you. Take it home and read it. As I read our passage, keep your ears attuned to the melody lines of failure and of a peace that overcomes our failure.

John 16, verses 25 to 33.

I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father. In that day, you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world. And now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.

His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. Jesus answered them, Do you now believe?

Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. And will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

In our passage, Jesus promises peace to all who trust him. And this peace overcomes all of our failures. This peace takes full account of all the ways that we have failed and do fail and will fail. This promise of peace overcomes every conceivable obstacle to its fulfillment. How does Jesus make peace for us?

He does it. By overcoming all that stands in the way. The sermon will have three points, each answering the question, how does Jesus make peace for us? First, Jesus overcomes our distance from God. How does Jesus make peace for us?

He overcomes our distance from God. We see this in verses 25 to 28, especially verse 28. Look again at verse 25. I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.

Jesus acknowledges here that he's been teaching his disciples somewhat cryptically, somewhat obscurely. And the hour he refers to when he will speak to the disciples plainly is his resurrection. When he will pour out the Holy Spirit. When Jesus rises from the dead, that event itself will bring a new clarity to the disciples. That event itself will shine a light backwards on the things he taught them and will enable them to understand his teaching and what the Scriptures teach.

Not only that, but as we saw in verses 12 to 15 of this chapter, after Jesus' resurrection and ascension, the Holy Spirit will continue to reveal the mind of Christ to the disciples. And in addition to the resurrection itself and the gift of the Spirit, John records one saying of Jesus that directly fulfills his promise here. Turn ahead two pages to John 20:17.

Here when Jesus is talking to Mary Magdalene after his resurrection, he says, Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. After the resurrection, what Jesus teaches us plainly about the Father is that his Father is our Father. That's the good news of the gospel in a nutshell. Jesus makes his Father.

Our Father. As Richard Sibbes said, if we had 10,000 worlds, they could not be compared to the comforts that arise from hence that we can call God, Father. Jesus' words in verse 25 are a comforting promise of future understanding. The disciples won't stay stuck at their current level and that's a comfort for us too. We have the Holy Spirit whom Jesus Jesus poured out on his disciples.

In the New Testament, we have Jesus plainer speech about the Father. This promise belongs to us too. So pray for and strive for a fuller knowledge of God the Father. In summary, we can say that in verse 25, Jesus overcomes the distance of our minds from God.

Then in verses 26 and 27 we read. Back to chapter 16, verses 26 and 27 we read, In that day you will ask in my name, and I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf. For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from from God. Here Jesus reiterates what he said in verse 24. After he rises from the dead, we will pray to the Father in Jesus' name.

And here's what Jesus denies. It is not that when we pray, Jesus has to twist the Father's arm to get him to care about us. Verse 27. For the Father himself loves you. The Father is not cold and distant toward us.

Many Christians fall into the trap of thinking that God the Father is angry and distant and aloof, and it takes the grace of Christ to win him over to us. That's just not true. As one of the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3:16 reminds us, For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. The father sent the son into the world because the father loves us. The father will hear our prayers because he loves us.

The father has become our father because he loves us. The father himself loves you and none of your sins keep him from loving you. None of your failures keep him from loving you. He doesn't love you because you deserve it, but because he is love. This is the comfort of comforts.

This is the foundation of the foundation of our assurance.

Now, it seems like the next thing Jesus says might contradict or take away from this comfort. Look again at verse 27. For the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. Does this mean that our love comes first? Does this mean that God only loves us because we first loved him?

Not at all. As we read together earlier in the service, 1 John 4:10 says, In this is love, not that we have loved God, But that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. More briefly, just a few verses later in 1 John 4:19, we love because he first loved us. So I think the word because in verse 27 is talking about demonstration, evidence, proof. What's the evidence that God has set his saving love on us?

It's that as a result of that saving love, we now love him. Now, granting that God first loves us and that we love him because he loves us first, there's also a sense in which when we love God, God loves that love in us. Augustine compares this to God creating the world and then being pleased with it, seeing that it's good. Augustine wrote, Our pious love by which we worship God, God made, and he saw that it was good. For indeed he himself, therefore, loved what he made.

The Father himself loves you. So pray because the Father loves you. Expect him to answer your prayers because the Father Delight to obey God because the Father loves you. Repent and confess your sins to him because the Father loves you. If you come to the Father in the name of the Son, you have the heart of God.

There is no small print, there is no catch, there is no wire that you could trip that would shut off his love for you. God knows you fully and he loves you perfectly. The Father sees all the way down into the lowest depths of your heart and he loves you not an ounce less because of what he sees there. The Father himself loves you. So in verses 26 and 27, Jesus' teaching is overcoming the distance that we wrongly insert between ourselves and God's love.

Look at verse 28. I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. Here, Jesus summarizes his whole saving mission in terms of coming and going. And in this mission, he completely overcomes the distance between us and God. The distance between us and God is not physical.

It is not spatial. It's not like our problem is that we're over here and God's over there. God is present to all of creation as its creator and sustainer. As the apostle Paul says, In him we live and move and have our being. The distance between us and God isn't physical, it's moral.

We are distant from God because our hearts lead us away from him. We are distant from God because we inwardly run from him. We are distant from God because we do not want him. Now, when I say we, I mean we as human beings. I mean all of us as we are by nature and our default state.

To be distant from God and getting more distant by our actions is the fallen human condition. And in response to our sin, God promises judgment, condemnation, eternal wrath. And yet, even when we were God's enemies, he loved us. In a mystery, he loved us even when he hated us. In mercy, he sent Christ into the world to live for us and die for us.

God's eternal son, our Lord Jesus Christ, became incarnate for our salvation. He came from the Father to us, and he both lived for us and died in our place. As he says in this passage, Now I am leaving the world and going to the Father. In his death, Jesus bore the penalty for our sin, and he reconciled us to God. And in his resurrection, He triumphed over death and entered into the life of the new creation.

Now he calls all people everywhere to repent, to turn from running away from God and run to him, confessing sin, embracing his mercy, casting yourself upon him through Christ to forgive you. If you've never turned from sin and trusted in Christ, trust in him today. The father sent the son into the world because he loves you and the only way you can receive that love. Is through faith in Christ. Brothers and sisters, you who trust in Christ for salvation, in verse 28, note Jesus' origin and his destination.

Where does he come from? The Father. Where does he go to? The Father. Sometimes I think when we meditate on the gospel or try to share the gospel, we can fall into the trap of thinking that the gospel starts with Jesus' death and ends with his resurrection.

But the gospel starts in the eternal depth of the love of the Father and the Son and their love in the Spirit. The gospel starts in the depths of the Father and Son and Spirit's love for each other and it ends with us being completely enfolded into that same love. The Trinity is the beginning and the end of the gospel. The Trinity is the source and goal of the gospel. The gospel springs from the infinite fullness of God's Trinitarian love and it draws us all the way into that love so that that love will be our eternal dwelling.

In verse 28, Jesus doesn't go to the Father in order to leave us behind. Instead, he goes to the Father in order to secure our place with the Father. He goes to the Father as our forerunner, as our head, as our guarantee. He goes in order that we could go and be there with him. It's common today to say that the world has shrunk.

And that it's constantly shrinking. You can think of the railroad, the automobile, the airplane, the telegraph, telephone wires, the internet, smartphones. All these things shrink the distances between places and people. So London is 3,600 miles away, and most of those miles are water, but you could get there on a plane in seven hours. An airplane really does make the world smaller and yet, all of these technologies can only shrink distances.

They can't eliminate them. And all these technologies can only address physical distances. You could be on the phone with someone and be at enmity with them. You could be in the same room as someone and not have love between you. But by coming from the Father to us and by living and dying for us, Jesus has completely closed the gap between us and God.

Jesus has fully reconciled us to God. Only Jesus overcomes our distance from God. And what creates that distance in the first place? Point two, Jesus overcomes our failures. We see this in verses 29 to 32, Jesus overcomes our failures.

We've already considered this theme somewhat but it's clearly illustrated in these verses. Look down at verses 29 and 30.

His disciples said, Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech. Now we know that you know all things and do not need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God. So the disciples do grasp something here. Jesus' plainer speech about his comings and goings gives them a foothold of understanding.

But as we'll see in a moment, the disciples radically overestimate themselves. They somehow seem to think that the hour Jesus is talking about in verse 25 has already come. But it hasn't. Yet, what they say here is true as far as it goes. They know that Jesus knows all things and that's true.

And they say to him, you, do not need anyone to question you. Now, that might seem like a slightly puzzling statement. We might expect it to say, you, do not need to ask anyone any questions. But I think the assumption here is that Jesus is a teacher. A teacher's students normally ask him questions and in response to those questions, the teacher teaches and gives out answers.

So what the disciples are saying to Jesus here is that you don't even need anyone to ask you questions in order to know the questions we need answered.

The disciples say in verse 30, Now we know they've got it all figured out. Their confidence exceeded their competence. And Jesus is about to burst their balloon. Look at verses 31 and 32.

Jesus answered them, Do you now believe? Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. And will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

The disciples do believe. They do know some right things about Jesus, but their faith isn't strong enough to weather the trial they're about to face. They will be tested and they will fail.

They have faith in Jesus, but that faith is weak, untried, immature. They do believe in Jesus, but they need Jesus to help their unbelief.

In Romans 12:3, the apostle Paul writes, For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. The apostles definitely would have failed Paul's test of sober self-assessment. So what about you? Do you think of yourself more highly than you ought to think? In what ways do you overestimate yourself.

If you're not a Christian, what standard do you measure yourself against? What mirror do you hold up to your life in order to try to gain a more accurate self-knowledge?

In this passage, Jesus shows us that he knows us better than we know ourselves.

That should be unsettling. What does Jesus know about you that you don't?

But as we'll see in a minute, this should also be a great comfort. So how would you answer Jesus' question in verse 31? Do you now believe?

Do you? It's not enough to believe that. It's not enough to believe true statements about Jesus. Even the demons knew that he was the Holy One who had come from God. Believing that is necessary but not sufficient.

True faith is trust. True faith is reliance. And that reliance shows itself by how you live.

In verse 32, Jesus warns his disciples that they will abandon him in his hour of greatest need. You will be scattered each to his own home and will leave me alone. This fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah chapter 13 verse 7, strike the shepherd. And the sheep will be scattered. On top of the pain of mockery by enemies, Jesus will suffer the wound of desertion by friends.

When he bears his heaviest burden, none of the disciples will bear it with him.

A while back, we bought a few geodes for our kids. Do you know what those are? They're rocks with crystals inside. So, of course, in order to see the crystals, you have to break open the rock. Now, someone more skilled than I am with hammer and chisel may have been able to do a clean split, just break it in half.

But with my meager abilities, I had to wield quite a bit of force to get those things open. So the hammer comes down, the pieces fly all over the place. Pressure downward, pieces scatter.

That is what trials and opposition threatened to do to believers.

Trials and opposition bring pressure down on us which threatens to split us off from each other and to separate us from Christ. And that's exactly what Jesus' trial did to his first disciples.

If you're not a Christian and you doubt that the Gospels are reliable accounts to who Jesus really was and what he really did and taught, how do you account for the disciples presenting themselves in such an unflattering light? Do people who make up religions and claim supernatural revelation for those religions usually throw themselves under the bus? Do they make up things that put them in the worst possible light?

As one scholar put it, it is part of the character and genius of the church that its foundation members were discredited men. It owed its existence not to their faith, courage, or virtue, but to what Christ had done with them. And this they could never forget. The disciples recorded this because they remembered it. They could never forget their failure.

And they could never forget Jesus' gracious response to their failure.

So how do you respond to your worst failures?

Minimizing your failures will not help. If you're convicted of sin, don't try to short circuit that conviction. Don't heal the wound of your conscience lightly. If you're troubled by your sin, by something you know you've done wrong, then that's actually a good thing. The sin, of course, isn't good, but being troubled by it is.

Don't silence that voice. Let conviction drive you to confession. Let conviction drive you to prayer, to laying your soul bare before the Lord and asking to be forgiven of all of it. And when you're stung by your own failures, It's not enough simply to try to love yourself more. It will not help for you to try to reinflate your leaking self-esteem.

As Justin and Lindsay Holcomb have written, self-love and self-help do not work because we'll never peel back enough layers of ourselves to find the true self at the core that is pure and lovable. You can't keep peeling back layers until you find that true self because that true self doesn't exist. The deeper you go and the more accurate vision you have of yourself, the worse things are going to seem. Let that worse drive you to the only solution, drive you to find peace in Christ. When you have seriously failed, the only path to rest and peace is a love that is not daunted or diminished by your failure.

And the good news, brothers and sisters, is that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He knows your failures better than you do and he has overcome your failures by dying and rising again for you. His love for you is in no way daunted or diminished by your failures. He knows the worst about you and he loves you still.

Look again at the end of verse 32.

The disciples will leave Jesus alone, yet he says, I am not alone, for the Father is with me.

When the disciples abandoned Jesus, the Father didn't abandon Jesus. Fellowship with the Father sustained the Son when he walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Truly, Jesus could say with David, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. In the next 24 hours after Jesus spoke these words, he would walk through a valley deeper and darker than anything that you or I will ever face. And through it all, he had peace, peace in himself.

Peace enough to spare for us. Jesus' intimate fellowship with the Father was his support when all external supports fell away. The Father was the Son's help when all other help failed. And so verse 32 gives us the secret in advance to Jesus' successful endurance of his trial and his passion. He didn't do it alone.

The Father was with him all along sustaining him in in secret. Now, immediately, many of you will be wondering, wait a minute, what about Matthew 27:46, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Well, we need to start by recognizing the present tense of the verb here. You will all abandon me. But what does Jesus say in verse 32?

I am not alone for the Father is with me. The Father is with me now. The Father is with me in the hour of trial. The Father is with me in my trial. The Father is with me when I am condemned.

The Father is with me when I bear faithful witness. The Father is with me when I carry the cross. The Father is with me when I'm beaten and scourged. There's more to Jesus' passion than the crucifixion. So he's saying, the Father is with me.

And yet we know from that cry on the cross, that the Father did turn away from the Son in wrath. In and according to his human nature, Jesus was abandoned by the Father as an act of wrath. So how do we put those things together? I think for us and for our salvation, we say the Father was with Jesus until he wasn't.

Jesus overcame our failures by perfectly relying on his heavenly father. And by doing so, he left us a perfect and compelling example to follow. When you face trials, outside supports may crumble away. Friends may fail you. But if you have God, you lack nothing.

Faith is proved when all other supports are stripped away. Faith shines when God is all you have. Have. So when God takes away anything else you might lean on, will you lean on him alone? Will you find him to be your sole and sufficient support?

How does Jesus give us peace? By overcoming our failures. The disciples' desertion was not the end of the story. As we've already seen from John 20:17, go to What? Not my enemies, not my former friends?

Go to my brothers and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. If this is what Jesus says to the disciples who deserted him, then you can be sure that Jesus' love for you will overcome your Failures. Keep trusting in him. Keep clinging to him. However you have failed him, Jesus calls you brother.

He calls you sister. He calls his God your God. His father, your father.

How can you be sure that Jesus' love for you will overcome every one of your failures? That he'll give you peace? Point three, Jesus overcomes the world. We see this in verse 33. How does Jesus make peace for us?

Jesus overcomes the world.

Look at verse 33. I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world.

This is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. It tempts me to simply pray and sit down. Nothing I can say about this verse could possibly be as good as the verse itself, but I'll try to say something useful.

Jesus says, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace. When he says these things, he's talking about the whole farewell discourse. So he began in chapter 14, verse 1 saying, let not your hearts be troubled. He began by speaking peace to troubled hearts. Then in chapter 14, verse 27, he said, peace I leave with you.

My peace I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

So everything he says in these chapters, he says so that these disciples will have peace and he isn't concerned for them alone. What he says to them now will be especially relevant once they desert him, abandon him, and then he rises from the dead and restores them to him. These words are looking ahead to after his resurrection and not only that, But as we'll see a few sermons from now, in chapter 17, verse 20, Jesus prays not just for his disciples, the original ones, but for all those who will believe in him through their message. And if Jesus is praying for us there, that means he's also preaching to us here. All that he says in these chapters, he says so that you will have peace in him.

That phrase, in me, is crucial. The world will not give you peace. You will not find peace by looking inward. You'll only find true peace in Christ. True peace comes not from within but from without.

True peace is not an achievement but a gift. You don't create it. You receive it. And you receive this peace by receiving Christ's words in faith. So when your heart is troubled, grab hold of Christ's promises and don't let go until they give you peace.

Wrestle with Christ's words like Jacob wrestled with God saying, I will not let you go until you bless me.

Jesus goes on, In the world you will have Tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. This tribulation includes persecution, but I don't think it's limited to persecution. This tribulation includes all the trouble that the world gives us. It includes all the sources of sorrow that come from living in a cursed and fallen world.

So throughout your life, you should expect trials like you expect humidity in D.C. in the summer.

Now, it might not be overwhelmingly humid every day, but it will be frequently. You can count on it, and you should plan for it. One of the greatest challenges to following Christ in the modern West is the pervasive assumption that prosperity and blessing are the norm and suffering is the exception.

But Jesus says, In the world you will have tribulation. We won't have trials all the time, but we should always be ready for them. Notice that Jesus says, In the world you will have trouble. He says, in the world, because this world isn't all there is. Here and now we will have trials, but a day is coming when trials will be only a memory.

And Jesus also says, in the world, because we don't live only in the world, we also live in him. As Christians, we live two lives at once, life in the world and life in Christ. Because Jesus has overcome the world, so have we. Because Jesus has triumphed over death, so have we and so will we. In this world, we have trouble and in Christ we triumph over all of it.

That's why you should take heart. That's why you should have courage. That's why you should have confidence in Christ. Jesus says, I have overcome the world.

Now, he's talking to the disciples before his death and resurrection. And yet he says, I have overcome the world. How can he say this? Two reasons. First, Jesus' entire life from the very beginning up to this point has been one sustained act of overcoming the world.

He faithfully endured every trial, he faithfully overcame every temptation. Satan got no foothold in him. Jesus has all along been overcoming the world and he's been overcoming the world for us, for our salvation, to triumph over our failures.

And the second reason Jesus can say, even before it happens, that he has overcome the world is that he will. It's certain. Nothing can stop him. He can say, It's done before it is because there's nothing in the universe that can keep him from accomplishing our salvation.

I think over the past few weeks, if you have children, maybe they said to you, We'll put our clothes away. Maybe your housemate or your roommate Husband or wife said, I'll pay the electricity bill. Maybe a friend said, yeah, yeah, I'll text you to set up lunch. In each of those cases, how confident are you that the person will do what they said they're going to do?

But brothers and sisters, what about when Jesus says, Before it happens, I've overcome the world. It's taken care of.

Jesus' confidence before the fact, should strengthen our confidence after the fact.

What does it mean that Jesus overcame the world? It means that he triumphed over Satan and all his demons. It means that he absorbed the worst that the world could throw at him and he came out victorious. It means he bore the penalty for our sin, which is the only way that we could come to share in his victory. Jesus vanquishes Satan Because he is the sacrificial substitute, he won the contest with Satan by abolishing our guilt so that Satan's accusations can no longer stick.

Brothers and sisters, when Jesus says in verse 33, I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace, that includes what he's just said in verse 32. That the disciples are going to desert him.

He tells them now, before they desert him, so that they can know he saw it coming, they can know that he planned for it. They can know that all along he loved them. They can know that he will restore them.

Some of the trouble we will have in this world is self-inflicted. And through faith in Christ, we can have peace. Through faith in Christ, we can overcome that self-inflicted trouble. Jesus' peace extends even to the ways that we fail him. In the world we have tribulation but at the same time in Christ we have peace.

When's the last time you bought something and then returned it to the place where you bought it from? Maybe it was something online and you got it in the mail and sent it back. Maybe you brought it to the exchange counter at a department store. Brothers and sisters, as a church, we should be about the business of helping one another exchange the world's troubles for the peace of Christ. As church members, we should each set up our own little exchange counter, accepting all manner of the world's troubles and continually giving out the peace of Christ.

Of course, we very often are totally powerless to remove the causes of sorrow. Very often, there's nothing we can do objectively about the trial, but we can bear one another's burdens. We can help to flip a troubled believer from being distressed to being encouraged, from despairing to hopeful, from shaken to secure. And you do that by speaking Christ's promise of peace right into someone's circumstances. So how can you be a conduit of Christ's peace to a struggling church member?

For years, our pastor Mark has been renowned for his blurry iPhone photos.

Those of you who follow Mark on social media for many years have been treated to a constant stream of out-of-focus, unrecognizable friends.

Now, I think in recent years, the autofocus technology has caught up to basically render the iPhone user-proof.

But in case any of you have photos that suffer a similar affliction, there is a simple procedure by which one can get an iPhone camera to focus. All you have to do is tap on what you wanted to focus on.

When trials come, often one of the first things to go is our focus. Our sight of God gets blurry. We lose our vision of God's character, his faithfulness. We can't see Christ's victory. So very often in trials, what you most need to do is refocus.

How do you do that?

What do you tap on? What do you fix your vision on? The only way you'll find peace is if you tap on God's promises in Christ and keep on tapping until they come into focus. Do that through prayerfully meditating on Scripture. Take your trouble, bring it to the text, and bring that combination to God in prayer until you find peace.

This verse, verse 33, gives us the Christian life in a nutshell. In the world, trouble. In Christ, peace, both at once. And Christ's promise means that even in the midst of trouble, Peace can prevail. Trust the promise of Christ and you will have calm in the storm.

As long as we are in this life, we will have trials. And it may be that some of those trials will last as long as life itself.

As Spurgeon said, The God who is better to you than all your fears, yea, better than your hopes, perhaps intends the affliction to remain with you until it lifts the latch of heaven for you and lets you into your eternal rest.

How does Jesus make peace for us? He overcomes the world. He overcame the world for us. He overcame the world as one of us, which means we overcome in him.

How do you respond to your failure?

Far more importantly, how does Jesus respond to your failure? If you trust in Christ, no failure of yours can surprise Him. No failure of yours can alienate Him. No failure can diminish His love for you. When I fear, my faith will fail.

Christ will hold me fast. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the peace you promise us in Christ. We pray that whatever sources of trouble we face, whatever sources of unrest, whatever ways others have failed us, whatever ways we have failed you, we pray you'd give us peace in Christ. We pray that we would experience that peace amidst the world's troubles and and sorrows, would you hold us fast? Keep us in your grace. Keep us in your peace, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen.