Take Heart (John 16:16-33)
They say that music is the universal language. That you can go from place to place, culture to culture, and you may not understand the language at all, but one way you can connect with anyone in the world is through music.
Perhaps you have had a cross-cultural experience with a significant language barrier, and you have experienced that very thing. And while I do think that’s true, in a sense, I would propose that there is another universal language — one common to all, absent from none — yet a language with deeper bass notes than music... one that is even more foundational and universal. It is the language of pain.
I am new to Singapore. I’m new to this church and to many of you. So I may not know a lot about you. But here is what I do know: you know pain.
You have shed tears. You have had trials. You have suffered and sorrowed. Some of your tears and trials have lasted for what has felt like a long while — and it has made you cry out, with David in Psalm 13... “How long, O Lord?”
I have been here for less than a month. And already, within a few weeks, here are some ways I have already become acquainted with some of your pain: unemployment, family conflict, family bereavement, infertility, infidelity, apostasy, cancer, addiction, and betrayal — just to name a few.
Life without Jesus is miserable. But life with Jesus is not pain-free. We all know pain.
So what can we do? How can we keep going? Through tears and trials, how can we endure? That is our key question for this text. That is the main question I hope to address with God’s Word this morning.
Through tears and trials, how can we endure?
Oh beloved, hear these words as not my own. Hear these words from the mouth of your Lord. Jesus sees your tears and your trials... And you know what he says? “Take heart!”
Take heart! That is the only way we can endure.
Here in John 16, we are near the end of the upper room discourse in John’s Gospel. Jesus has gathered His disciples for a final meal. He’s washed their feet. He has broken the bread. He has passed the cup. He knows betrayal and arrest are imminent. Pain is on the way. Yet rather than turning in on Himself, He strengthens His disciples, and He comforts them, so that they might endure.
As Jeremy reminded us last week, Jesus promised the Spirit, who would comfort them, even though the world would hate them, and that it would be even better for Jesus to go.
In today’s passage, these are Jesus’s last words to His disciples in the upper room. In the next chapter, He prays for them. And here is the last time He talks with them before His arrest.
These are his final words in their final hour. And what does He say? What does He tell them? They will have tears. They will have trials. But take heart — Jesus has overcome the world!
So, beloved saints, through tears and trials, how can we endure?
We can take heart. And here in our passage, the Lord Jesus gives us three reasons why.
As we walk through this passage, I pray the Lord would strengthen our hearts, by His Spirit, that we might endure.
Deep Joy (Jn 16:16-22)
Jesus begins this section with the phrase “a little while.” He says it twice in John 16:16 — that in “a little while,” they would see him no longer, and again in “a little while they will see him.”
John records the disciples saying it to one another two more times in John 16:17, “What is this that he says, ‘a little while’ and again ‘a little while’ — emphasizing how little they understand.
So if all the “little whiles” are a little confusing to you, do not feel bad. It was certainly confusing to the disciples, and it’s been a point of confusion for many commentators over the years.
J.C. Ryle put it humorously: “Nowhere in Scripture, I must honestly confess, do commentators appear…to contribute so little light to the text, as in their interpretation of this chapter.”
Does this refer to the time between the crucifixion and the resurrection? Or to the time between Jesus’ ascension—after the resurrection — and His return?
The best way I can try to explain it is that this refers immediately and primarily to Jesus’s death and resurrection. He had be apart from them for a little while, but then would return — visibly, bodily from the grave.
But it also applies indirectly and secondarily to the age of the church. Jesus’s death and resurrection would inaugurate the New Covenant. Jesus would ascend to heaven, and pour out the Spirit, and now, Jesus’s disciples —including us — cannot presently see Jesus — for a little while.
And just as it says in Hebrews 10:37, Jesus will return in a little while and then we will see Him face to face.
So it is about the disciples then, in the immediate context, primarily, but it also applies to us now as we wait on our Lord’s return.
If you would like to do a little more digging on that, Don Carson’s commentary was very helpful — no surprise. Too bad for JC Ryle — he was around about a century too early to get to read from Carson.
So after putting their heads together and trying to work toward their best understanding, all these disciples could come up with is what they say in John 16:18: “What does he mean by ‘a little while’? We do not know what he is talking about?”
They had questions. They had Jesus. But notice that they do not bring their questions to Jesus. Perhaps they were embarrassed. Perhaps they thought they should have understood, and did not want to admit their confusion to Jesus. So instead, like a group of blind guides asking one another for directions, they just asked each other.
It requires humility to admit a lack of understanding. But it requires even more humility to ask for help. When you have questions about God’s Word, do not be so proud to admit a lack of understanding. And do not be so proud to ask for help.
Your pastors are here to help you with questions like that. There is nothing to be embarrassed about. And trust me, we do not have all the answers, but we have Jesus. And you do too. So we can go to Him together.
He is such a patient teacher. And He loves to help. We will see this in how He responds to the disciples in their confusion.
Notice in John 16:19, “He knew what they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, ‘Is this what you are asking yourselves, what I meant by saying, ‘A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me’?”
They had questions. They had Jesus. They stopped short of going to Jesus. So He took the step of going to them.
Notice what He says will be certain. And notice the turn that only Jesus can give (John 16:20). Their question was, “What is this ‘little while’ you keep talking about? That we will not see you and then we will see you?” And here is Jesus’ answer.
They will weep and lament, because they would see Him hang on a tree. They would see their teacher become a corpse. And the very same act that would bring them tears and sorrow would make the world rejoice. Caiaphas and Herod probably feasted and gloated that Friday-Saturday.
But the cross was no unfortunate accident. Jesus was crucified according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Christ endured unimaginable pain to purchase our inexpressible joy.
Jesus was certain of what needed to be accomplished, and He was certain He would do it. His death would make them weep and lament, but His resurrection would turn their tears into joy. In John 20:20, “The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”
Pain now. Joy later.
It was true for the disciples. It is true for us today. The path to joy is paved with pain.
Jesus illustrates this in John 16:21. Pulling from a number of Old Testament images about the deliverance of God’s people. He says it is just like giving birth. No sorrow, no joy. No tears, no life. Labor pains are not a detour from joy, but the pathway to it.
As many of you now know, we have three young boys. And I remember, especially during our first labour with Jude, halfway through it thinking, “We will never do this again. No chance. No way.”
I mean I was in anguish, just seeing Emily in anguish. And then, just like Jesus says, as soon as Jude came out and we were holding him, it was like all that pain and anguish just went away. It was like we did not even remember it, because we were so filled with joy.
Sorrow now, joy later.
Pain now, relief later.
Suffering now, glory later.
Cross now, crown later.
Jesus summarizes this section, patiently teaching His disciples for their endurance in John 16:22. He says: “So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.”
Sorrow now, joy later.
Pain now, relief later.
Suffering now, glory later.
Cross now, crown later.
That is the shape of our Lord’s redemptive work. And that is the shape of the Christian life.
It is like we are going through life groaning with the pangs of childbirth — Romans 8. Yet because we serve the Risen Christ, we have deep joy now — joy so deep that no one can take it from us — and joy so full that it will last forever.
How has your joy been lately? Has it been deep and solid? Or has it been thin and frail?
The joy Jesus gives is deeper than surface-level, circumstantial happiness. Even the world can give you that — momentary rejoicing — like we see here.
So have you been drawing joy from Jesus? Or have you been pulling a leaky bucket from a shallow well?
Your health can be taken away. Your loved ones can be taken away. Your job, or your home, or your reputation can be taken away.
But if your joy is in Jesus — then your joy is bottomless — deeper than an empty grave. Jesus is alive! No one can take Him from you! And if no one can take your Christ, then no one can take your joy.
Take heart, dear saints. We serve the Risen Christ. Your tears and your trials may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning. You can endure.
Take heart, for Jesus gives deep joy.
Free Access (Jn 16:23-28)
The resurrection would not only turn the disciples’ sorrow into joy, but it would also turn the shape of their prayers. to joy. Notice how joy leads to prayer. And how prayer leads If you want your joy to be full, then fill your life wit prayer.
“In that day, you will ask nothing of me. (Jn 16:23a)” In these days, oftentimes — not so much this time—when they had questions, they would come straight to Jesus, and ask Him for help. “Hey Jesus, there’s a big storm… Hey Jesus, there’s a hungry crowd… Hey Jesus, there’s some demons… Hey Jesus, can you teach us how to pray?”
They had intimate, personal fellowship with Jesus, so they would come directly to Him and ask for help. As Jews, they prayed to God, but their prayers to God would not have had that same sense of intimate, personal fellowship that they had experienced with Jesus.
They knew God to be holy. But they did not quite know Him to be near. In their minds, they had no access with God—apart from the blood of bulls and goats. But things were about to change.
And so, for the fourth time that evening — He has said it three other times in the Upper Room — Jesus calls them to pray.
You can tell what a good teacher regards to be most important by listening to what he most repeats—especially in His final hour. May we not neglect what our Lord repeats — and would have us remember. If we are to endure tears and trials, we must pray.
Deep joy — full joy — is a fruit of free access (Jn 16:23-24). Oh beloved, when you pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Spirit — your prayers will be humble of self and confident of God, and so submitted to His will, that He will give you what you ask.
Because even if God does not say “yes” to your prayer, He’ll always say “yes” to making you more like Jesus.
And when that is what your heart most desires, you will get what you ask, and your joy will be full. This is the privilege of free access to the Father in the name of the Son.
So take heart. Your prayers may be frail and flimsy, but your Christ is not weak. If you are in Him, then your prayers have His strength. There is no further merit to earn the Father’s ear. He gave His own Son to give us free access—so how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
In John 16:25, Jesus says He has said these things in “figures of speech.” This refers to the entirety of the upper room discourse, going back to chapter 13. But He says, “the hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech, but will tell you plainly about the Father.”
And it is interesting how Jesus puts this here. Because Jesus’s resurrection and ascension and the pouring out of the Spirit, would not change anything of what Jesus had told them, but it would change their capacity to understand.
Throughout John’s gospel the theme of the disciples dim but growing understanding is repeated many times. Ultimately, the Spirit would illuminate their minds and cause the eyes of their hearts to see — making plain the speech of Jesus. No changed teaching. But changed men.
And — John 16:26 — when that day would come, they would ask the Father in Jesus’s name, changing the way they used to pray (Jn 16:24) because they would know that the curtain has been torn, the price has been paid, and they would have free access to the holy God, and draw near Him as Father.
So hear this dear saints, you do not have free access to a cold God. Jesus did not die and rise again to give you a voucher to a heavenly museum, but to give you free access to God’s very heart.
“For the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. (Jn 16:27)” Oh, what a sweet verse! There’s so much to say here, but first, do you see how generous our Lord is with the weak faith of His disciples? They have been dull of hearing, and dim in understanding. And yet Jesus says, they have believed that He came from God! If your faith is sincere, but weak, take heart. Jesus is more generous in heart than you are weak in spirit. He is so able to take mustard seed faith, and move mountains with it.
But it is not just that we have a loving Jesus, and a tolerant Father. No, the Father abounds in love — He so loves the world that He gave His Son — and He so loves His Son, that He loves all who love Him. This is no furrow-browed, folded armed, absent, distant Father. This is a Father who searches for prodigals on the horizon, and pulls up His tunic to run after us and embrace us and rejoice over us — because He is just glad we are home.
If we love Jesus, then we have the Father’s love. The very same love with which the Father loves the Son. Not a drop less. Because we are united to Christ by faith — that means we are in Him, and we are in the Father’s love.
Take heart, dear saints. You will have tears. You will have trials. But Jesus gives free access to the Father in prayer, and to the Father’s love.
Take heart, dear saints. You will have tears. You will have trials. But Jesus gives free access to the Father in prayer, and to the Father’s love.
In John 16:28, Jesus expands what He said in John 16:27, that “He came from God,” summarizing His redemptive work. If someone asked you to pick one verse in John where Jesus sums up His whole ministry, this would be a good one to choose. He says, “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I am leaving the world and going to the Father.”
He came from the Father. But He never left His Father. And now that He’s returned to His Father, He has promised to never leave us.
Take heart, dear saints. You can endure — even through tears and trials — for Jesus gives free access.
True Peace (Jn 16:29-33)
All of a sudden, the disciples get a boost of confidence. In John 16:29-30, they say that now Jesus finally speaks clearly, that now they know Jesus has divine knowledge, and that now they finally understand. Jesus’s speech was no more plain now than it was before, and we’re about to see how this boost of confidence lacked substance. It was all talk. No follow through.
A soldier’s strength is not to be measured by his eagerness at training camp, but by his endurance on the battlefield. So, brothers and sisters, let us be wary of spiritual self-confidence. Let us be wary of talk without follow through. May we pause, and not think of ourselves more highly than we ought, before we assert ourselves and say, “Now we know…”
The true secret of spiritual strength is not self-confidence, but self-denial and humility.
We know that their confidence lacks substance because of how Jesus answers them. He asks in John 16:31, “Do you… now believe?”
And we know there’s a touch of rebuke in Jesus’ tone based on what He says next: “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone.” In the hour of his greatest trial, His closest friends abandoned Him. They talked like soldiers, but they acted like cowards.
Just a couple of hours before this, at the beginning of their time in the Upper Room, Jesus said to Peter, “Where I am going, you cannot follow me.”
And Peter asserted, “Lord, why can I not follow you? I’ll lay down my life for you!” Jesus told him, “Peter, you’re going to deny me .. three times… before the sun even rises.” “Do you… now believe?”
There were centuries when Israel wandered like sheep without a shepherd. And when their Shepherd came, they struck Him. And just like Zechariah prophesied, the sheep whom He had gathered, scattered away from Him.
Are you lonely this morning? Have your friends abandoned you? Jesus knows your pain. He knows what it is like to be lonely. But Jesus was never alone — “Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me (Jn 16:32).
Oh, take heart dear saint. Your friends may be far from you, you may be lonely, but you are not alone. Your Father is with you.
Your tears may fall, and your trials persist, but the surest way to know that God is all you need, is when God is all you have.
Take heart.
A good friend of mine reached out to me a few weeks ago. His grandfather, who he was quite close to, had just committed suicide. It was shocking and tragic for the whole family. And my friend, Davis, was asked to share some words at the funeral. So Davis texted me. He asked, “What passages of Scripture have most encouraged me in difficult times?”
You know what I said? Before I even knew I would be preaching this passage, I gave him one verse — John 16:33. “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 why Jesus said all these things — all of His final words to His disciples in their final hour. So that “in [Him] you may have peace.”
There is no peace like the peace of Christ. He and He alone gives true peace. Because true peace is only found in Him.
There is no peace like the peace of Christ. He and He alone gives true peace. Because true peace is only found in Him.
This is no mere temporary relief. This is no mere circumstantial change. It is not the absence of tears. Or the absence of trials. He said in John 16:20, “You will weep and lament.” And here in John 16:33, “You will have tribulation.”
Tears and trials are certain. Pain is universal. You cannot run from it. But you can run to Christ.
You can take heart and you can endure because Jesus has overcome the world. And how did He do it? By laying down His life!
His death looked like defeat. It made his enemies rejoice. It was Satan’s best effort to give his strongest blow.
And yet the very act that would look like Jesus’s defeat, would accomplish His victory. It would turn sorrow into joy, pain into peace, and a bruised heel into a crushed head. You can endure any trial because Jesus has overcome the world.
The way to heaven is not smooth, with air con, and manicured flowers — like a stroll through the Gardens by the Bay.
It is long. It is difficult. It comes with tears and trials. But take heart, dear saints, Jesus has overcome the world.
If you are here today, and you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, hear this: there is no joy or peace apart from Jesus. We are not here to promise you a pain-free life. Jesus, clearly, does not make that promise either. But He’s the only God who knows what pain is like.
And He has endured the worst pain imaginable. Not for His sins— He did not have any — for the sins of all who would believe.
He may not take away your pain. But if you come to Him in faith, He will take away your sins. He alone can give you access to the Father, and joy that cannot be taken from you, and peace that surpasses understanding, because He alone has overcome the world.
Turn from your sins. Trust in Jesus. He knows your tears and your trials, and only in Him can you endure.
Take heart, for Jesus gives deep joy free access, and true peace. Your tears and your trials will not overcome you. The hope of Christ will never put you to shame — not in life, nor in death.
You can endure, and you can take heart, because Jesus has overcome the world.
Let us pray.