John 16:32 • I Am Not Alone
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
Let's stand as we read God's Word in honor of the Spirit who gave it.
John 16:16, "Jesus said, 'A little while, and you will see me no longer; and again a little while, and you will see me.'
So some of his disciples said to one another, 'What is this that he says to us, 'A little while, and you will not see me, and again a little while, and you will see me'; and, 'because I am going to the Father'?'
So they were saying, 'What does he mean by 'a little while'?
We do not know what he is talking about.'
Jesus knew that 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'?
Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.
When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
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.
In that day you will ask nothing of me.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.
Until now you have asked nothing in my name.
Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
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 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; for 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.'"
Let's pray together.
>>> Heavenly Father, we would appeal for this very Spirit promised in the scripture that opens the heart of Your disciples that they may understand a peace that passes understanding because they are made to understand a God who is working in the world beyond human understanding and ability to make what honors Christ come to pass.
And that becomes the deepest and most profound joy of His people regardless of what this world holds.
Open our hearts to this truth, because in the moments of trial it is hard to hang with it and to have it hold onto us.
So we pray again for that working of Your Spirit that not by external means but that internal witness that You would convince us of the truth of Christ's word and grant us the peace that comes from it.
This we ask in Jesus' name.
Amen.
>>> Please be seated.
I do not know the young woman who wrote these words, but I imagine that I've heard a version of it many times as many of you have.
She wrote, "I was devastated.
I had never been fired from anything.
But because my doctor turned in a workman's compensation claim because of an injury that I sustained at work, my boss was livid.
And he fired me.
It was unfair.
It was unjust.
And I could not imagine what God was doing."
She writes, "As a consequence, I felt I needed Christ to be more real and present than ever before.
And so the prayer life that had lapsed, the life patterns carelessly pursued without reflection or repentance, the priorities pursued without a thought of how they related to Christ: All now were examined in my fresh hour of need as I tried to find out anew what it meant to abide in Christ."
She wrote, "It happened.
Somehow the Holy Spirit began to minister to me.
I began to mend on the inside.
I began to find strength in the Savior again.
But I still did not know why.
In June, there was a strong thunderstorm whose winds knocked down the corn in our garden.
And so my husband went out and stood up the stalks and pushed the soil back around the roots.
Afterwards, we walked down our little rural road toward the house.
The next thing I remember is waking up in the ambulance in excruciating pain.
A drunken driver had crossed the yellow line, ran up the ditch behind us and struck me from behind.
I was airlifted to the hospital: head laceration, a cracked sternum, multiple rib fractures, liver laceration, ruptured spleen, vertebrae fractures, pelvic fracture, hip fracture.
The doctor originally said, 'No hope.'
But then the prayer chain started in our church.
It was night, but people got up out of their beds to pray.
Sustaining my life was touch and go, but God's Spirit touched me.
And I began to heal.
I told the doctors Jesus was taking care of me.
Still, it was not an easy road.
The doctors didn't know if I would ever walk again.
And as I recuperated, I began to see the hand of the Holy Spirit more clearly.
First, our children were not with us on the road.
Normally they would have been, and they would have been killed instantly.
Then God began to have me think more of what Christ might be doing.
Even as His presence became more real in my pain, I recognized that had I not been fired, had I not begun to find strength in Jesus again through that experience, I would not have been ready for this experience.
God knew and was preparing me by His Holy Spirit."
Now, I know the world's skepticism and our own questions have us ask, "Well, why did she have to go through any of it?"
I don't know.
I know that Jesus that I worship said, "In this world you will face tribulation."
He did not pray to take us out of this world.
He promised to be with us through the difficulties of it, so that His name and purposes would ultimately spread in ways that we cannot fathom.
But even in telling us that, He tells us how He will minister to us in the worst of times by His Holy Spirit.
What, after all, will happen as that Spirit voice in us, that inner strength that comes from Christ witnessing to us by His Spirit: What does that Spirit-led life look like?
What characterizes it?
You can't miss that the first characteristic is simply joy.
I mean, it's mentioned three times in this passage: in verse 20 and 22 and 24.
But maybe verse 20 expresses the concept the best.
In verse 20, Jesus says to His disciples, "'Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.
You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy.'"
I know it's simple, but we have to recognize: He does not promise a world absent of sorrow; He promises joy beyond sorrow.
We have ways of talking about it, sometimes that are helpful, I recognize sometimes not.
But it's an important distinction that happiness depends on what happens in the world.
Joy depends on Jesus, no matter what happens in the world.
And the way which that is made plain here is by Jesus saying to these disciples, "You will weep, and you will lament, but it will not be a cause for your joy going away."
Now, the example He gives we understand, right?
It's verse 21.
Jesus says, "'When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world.'"
I get that.
Kind of.
[Laughter]
I mean, you know, I'm of the generation of fathers who were invited into the delivery room.
I was told this would be a really wonderful experience by some liar.
[Laughter]
I mean, who ever thought this was a good idea?
I mean, you go, you know, and you watch the person that you love most in the world hurt for hours.
Right?
And your great comfort to her is, "Honey, would you like a few ice chips?"
[Laughter]
You know.
Or, "Breathe with me."
Heh-heh, hoo.
Heh-heh, hoo.
[Laughter]
You know.
Who ever thought this was a good idea?
You know.
[Laughter]
Until the baby comes.
And then no matter how manly you are, the tears come too.
But now not of anguish but of profound joy.
The anguish has led to new life, to new beginnings, to new purpose.
And I look at my wife, you know, the same one who I thought, you know, is she even going to survive the next ten minutes?
I've been tinking--, thinking that for the last six hours.
And suddenly the baby's delivered and my wife, I don't know, I know it's not true, but my wife is ready for the marathon now.
I mean, she is just, she's animated; she's excited; she's happy.
And I think, "What happened to the person who was here twenty minutes ago?"
Everything's different, because the purpose has been revealed.
And Jesus is saying, "The sorrow is not absent of the joy, but the joy will follow the sorrow."
It will come.
And to recognize how profound is that, we have to understand the reasons for the anguish that Jesus is describing here.
I mean, the anguish for the disciples is that Jesus has just said, "A little while, and I'm going away."
They don't know it, but we understand the context of those words.
Judas has already left the Supper.
The soldiers are already on their way to arrest Him.
And Jesus is speaking about what is about to happen.
"A little while, and I am going away.
And will be scourged and spat upon and nails will be driven into My hands and feet, thorns in My brow.
I'll be hung upon a cross, and I will have a spear thrust through Me to show that I have died and I am gone.
And you will weep and lament, but that's not the end of the story.
Yet a little while, and I will come again."
And we know what that's about, too.
We know that ultimately what Christ is promising is that He will rise the Victor over the grave, that what that means is our sin will be put aside as far as the east is from the west because the penalty for all of our guilt will be put upon Him.
And ultimately we will see there is cause for rejoicing.
But you must understand: They did not see that immediately and we will not always see the cause for joy immediately either.
The joy comes after sorrow, not without sorrow.
As you consider what all of these words are about, you know the context, but perhaps the worst part of it all is Jesus saying, "'You will sorrow,'" verse 20, "'weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.'"
I've seen a number of the productions of "Lion, Witch and the Werl--, Wardrobe," C. S. Lewis' account of those being rescued by a courageous lion.
And as much as I have seen that in movies and in plays and in cartoon versions, there is that time at which Aslan, the noble lion representing Christ in order to save the children is taken willingly to the altar by the forces of evil, and the chortle and laugh and dance.
And as many times as I have seen it, I cannot believe, because I recognize what is being described there is not just my Savior suffering but the reality of a world in which we live.
You will weep and lament, and the world will think it's got the victory.
"We won!"
Christ purposes have pt--, been put down.
The righteous have been defeated.
The world thinks this is a good thing.
And our agony is that there are people actually rejoicing for our pain and the pain of the purposes of God.
And we have to endure it, recognizing that God is saying ultimately there will be good that comes out of this.
There will joy in the morning.
And the reason the joy will come in the morning is because not only that Christ will rise, but He says, "I go to be with the Father."
What good is that?
To know that Jesus goes to be with the Father in our behalf, that after that resurrection He will ascend, that He will be with the Father and He will be with the Father in our behalf?
Already we have learned here in John 14 and John 16 that the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in us by His Spirit.
And that means if Jesus is with the Father, we are with Him to: that there is not just joy being promised by Christ but by the ministry of the Holy Spirit, nearness to God.
If Christ is in us and Christ is at the right hand of God the Father, that means that we are at the right hand of God the Father as well.
And the wonder of that is verse 27, words that just go by so quickly as we see Jesus saying, "The Father Himself loves you."
Why do I need to know that?
Because of words that may disturb us here as we are being told that by the work of Jesus Christ we not only have joy but nearness to God.
There are words here that disturb us a bit, verse 23.
Jesus says, "'In that day,'" of His returning and then going to the Father, "'you will ask nothing of me.
Truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you.'"
Now, there are a number of things that trouble us here.
First, Jesus says, "In that day that's to come when I'm with the Father, you'll ask nothing of Me."
And many of us have been taught that actually it's Jesus' job to be interceding at the right hand of God the Father on our behalf.
But there's a wrong way of thinking about that.
It's sometimes endorsed by other faiths and other religions.
It's the idea of kind of an impassive, uncaring God of the universe who must be approached by a tender, sensitive Jesus in our behalf.
And Jesus says, "No, listen.
In that day that I'm in you and you are in Me and I'm beside the Father, the Father will love you, so much so that you won't have to ask Me.
You can ask the Father directly."
Now, Jesus is still interceding.
He's still our mediator.
He's still the one who has taken our sin upon Himself so that we can boldly approach the throne of grace.
But I recognize at that point I am approaching the Father as one deeply and profoundly loved.
And that's what He says in verse 27: "The Father loves you."
That's why you can go directly to Him, having been made right by the work of Jesus Christ.
It is, after all, how Jesus taught us to pray, right?
How did Jesus teach us to pray?
The first words of the Lord's Prayer are what?
Our?
Our Father.
We can go directly to the Father who loves us.
And knowing that means that we have direct access to the power as well as the love of God.
Now, there's a problem there too.
Because if you look at verse 23 carefully, it's a little dismaying to us.
Verse 23 of chapter 16: "'In that day,'" Jesus says, "'you will ask nothing of me.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whatever you ask of the Father, no matter how evil or selfish or wrong it is, he will give it to you.'"
Is that what it says?
No, you know there's a qualification, right?
The Bible never says, "You ask whatever you want and no matter how selfish or evil or wrong it is, God's got to give it to you."
No, there's a qualification there.
What was the qualification?
Whatever you ask, what?
In my name.
Now, what does that mean?
Is that some sort of abracadabra?
In Jesus' name, you know, we do the magic incantation that makes it work?
No, Jesus has already told us what it meant to pray in His name.
And I'm going to ask that you back up a couple of chapters and remember that this is one long dinner conversation.
And if you go to John 14 and verse 13, you will discover what it means to pray in the name of another.
John 14 and verse 13.
The subject of prayer is again on the table.
And in John 14:13, Jesus says, "'Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.'"
What you ask in the name of another is what brings glory to the other.
It's for the purposes, the honor, the sake of the other.
That's why Jesus says in verse 24 of chapter 16, back there again.
Chapter 16 and verse 24, speaking to these disciples, "'Until now, you have asked nothing in my name.'"
Which means, of course, that they have been asking amiss.
They have been asking for themselves.
They've been asking for selfish purposes.
They have not asked for the purposes of God, and He's reminding them of that.
It's the same message that Jesus' brother, James, will speak of later in James 4 when he will say, "You have not because you do not ask, and when you do ask, you ask amiss, that you may consume your prayers on your own passions."
You're just after you, instead of after the name and purposes of Christ.
Now, having said that we are to be asking in the name of Jesus does not mean that we just dispense of any desire that we might have.
As a matter of fact, what Jesus is doing is He is saying here: How do you pray in a way that actually is honoring His name?
Let me remind you that Jesus in Ephesians 2 will actually say, Paul the apostle will say in Ephesians 2 what Jesus means.
He says, "In Jesus you who were once far off have been brought here by the blood of Christ.
Through Jesus, we both, those who were once near and those who were once far, have both been brought near by the Spirit to have access to the Father."
We pray in Jesus' name, that is for the purposes of God, recognizing that ultimately what we're doing is we're asking for the Spirit to control our prayers, to be the one who takes the wheel, as it were, even for our prayer life.
I'm asking for the work of the Holy Spirit.
After all, it's what Jesus said: The Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth.
Now, I need to bring these threads together by seeing even how the apostle Paul does it.
How do we pray in such a way that we are asking for the sake of Christ's glory what the Spirit will bring into existence?
And for that reason, I'm going to ask that you look one more place in your Bible, cause the apostle Paul is the one who takes these words and then puts them into an understanding for us that we can grasp.
Romans 8, Romans chapter 8 verses 26 and following.
If it sounds familiar, it's because Pastor Kerry led you in these words in the responsive reading that we did earlier.
If you're looking for Romans 8 in your Grace Bible, that's page 944.
And these are precious, important words if we're thinking about how do we pray in a way that the Holy Spirit is helping us to actually pray in the name of, for the sake of the glory and purposes of Christ.
In Romans 8:26, we read these words: "Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
For we do not know what to pray for as we ought."
Aren't you glad an apostle said that?
Even an apostle said what?
We do not know what to pray for.
Now, if some of you are like me, we were kind of raised in settings where people said, "God will always answer your prayers as long as you pray in accord with God's will."
Great.
One little problem here.
I want to know what?
What is God's will?
I mean, He's the King of the universe.
He knows the end from the beginning.
I'm just this human being here.
I don't even know if I will walk out of the sanctuary alive; how would, who am I to stand up to God and say, "I know how You should run the universe"?
So how do I pray?
And even the apostle says, "We don't know how to pray."
So what happens?
Again, Romans 8:26, "We do not know what to pray for as we ought."
But what happens?
"The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
Verse 27, "And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with," what?
The will of God.
Now, this is amazing.
Jesus is encouraging us to pray according to what pleases, glorifies, brings honor to His name.
And I say, "I don't always know how to do that.
I mean, I'm just praying for the job.
I'm just praying for my wife to get better.
I, how do I pray in accordance with the will of God?"
And Jesus is saying, I know it may sound silly: The Spirit takes the wheel.
The Holy Spirit will take our prayers and conform them to the will of God with groanings too deep to utter, with conviction and yearning that's even beyond my ability to form the words.
It's not that I don't say what I desire, but even as Jesus said, "Lord, not my will but Your will be done."
We are praying, "God, this is what I think, but You by Your Spirit must take control.
And I yield to that."
I think of it this way.
I spent last week with my mom, and I again had the opportunity to remember, you know, what she did when she decorated cakes: how she would take that icing syringe or that piping funnel, you know, and she would just kind of glop in the icing.
Right?
Just glop it in one end.
And at the other end of this syringe there's that wonderful decorator tip.
And what I think is I think our prayers are like the glop.
[Laughter]
And the Holy Spirit is the decorator tip that is taking our prayers and as we offer them to God is conforming them to God's will so that His purposes are coming forward.
And what are those purposes?
Don't forget Romans 8:28.
That's the end of those great verses on prayer.
"And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose."
Listen, I'm just praying for a new pony.
[Laughter]
And God is offering me the power for all things to work together for good.
Which would you rather have?
I mean, C. S. Lewis said, "Our main problem in prayer is not that we ask for too much: We ask for too little."
We're trying to just kind of, you know, micromanage our lives.
And what the Holy Spirit's promise is: I will take your prayers and I will work all things together for good in ways that you cannot fathom, imagine, arrange, cause you're just human and finite.
But God can do that by His Spirit.
In humility, we go before God and say, "I need Your help, and I prayed my best according to the knowledge I have, but, God, take my prayers and by Your Holy Spirit conform them to Your purposes."
Why would you trust God to do that?
John 16 and verse 27: Why would you trust God to take your prayers and make them what they ought to be?
Verse 27 right at the beginning, "'For the Father himself loves you.'"
That's why.
Because He, knowing more than you know, He, understanding more than you and loving you beyond your fathoming, will work all things together for good for those who love Him.
Now, I know your thought may be, "What if I'm not one of those?
What if I'm not deserving of Him working all things together for good?"
Well, then you need John 16 as well.
Look at verse 29 of John 16.
"Jesus' disciples said, 'Ah, now you are speaking plainly and not using figurative speech!'"
Now, what is it He just said?
He has just said, "God the Father will answer whatever you ask as long as you p--."
And them thinking selfishly then say, "Oh, got it.
Now you're not speaking figuratively.
We'll get whatever we ask.
We got it.
We understand that."
"'We believe that You are the one sent from God.'"
And what does Jesus do then to remind them?
Verse 29, after they say, "You're speaking plainly and not using figures of speech," He says, verse 31, "'Oh, do you now believe?'"
Verse 32, "'The hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his home, and will leave me alone.'"
"The world will betray Me.
And you will too.
You will abandon Me.
You who say you believe in Me, you will abandon Me and walk away."
But knowing all of that, what has Jesus just said to them?
"But you ask the Father to help you, and I will not leave you alone.
Ask the Father to help you."
It is this great grace of God on display again that calls His people forward even when they know they are not deserving and calls their prayers forward, even when they know they haven't got it all figured out.
"Lord, I just come to You in humility, knowing I'm not deserving, knowing I've not walked with You in every avenue of life that I should.
But still, God, I come humbly on my knees saying I can't fix this.
You have to fix it.
I offer my prayers.
I offer my desires.
But by Your Holy Spirit, God, work all things together for good, cause I can't figure this out."
And when we offer that prayer, when there's this humbling of ourselves before Him, then what ultimately happens is not only a promise of joy that will come after the sorrow, not only the promise of nearness to God so that He is so loving of us that He's working all things together for good, but if we know that, then what finally comes is peace, even when I haven't got it all figured out.
Look at verse 33, the very end of the chapter.
Jesus says, "'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.'"
There is no sugarcoating on this.
There is just honest, straightforward reality.
Jesus says to His disciples, "In this world you will have tribulation.
It will be hard."
And in the same breath, He is saying, "But you can have peace through it, because you can know that as you are seeking Me by the Holy Spirit I am working all things together for good."
And this is not baby talk.
This is not saccharin nothing.
This is real, hard truth.
To whom is Jesus speaking?
He is speaking to His disciples who will be praying to Him in the worst and the most awful moments of life that any of us can imagine.
This same Jesus who says, "You ask the Father in my name and you will receive," He who says that to these men, what will happen to them?
We know some from the scriptures.
We know others just from church history.
Some of us with a greater certainty than other, but the accounts will be familiar to you as they are common among God's people.
What happened to Stephen who listened to Jesus saying, "Whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give it to you such that Christ's glory will be known"?
What happened to Stephen?
Stoned while Paul, the future apostle, held the cloaks of those who stoned him.
And Paul who witnessed Stephen looking up to heaven even as he was dying and Paul began to understand there was a promise beyond the things of this world.
James beheaded.
But by his testimony before he was beheaded led to the conversion of his executioner who then was beheaded after him.
Peter crucified head down.
Andrew hanged.
Thomas burned.
Philip crucified.
Matthew beheaded.
Nathaniel flayed and crucified.
James the Second clubbed.
Simon crucified.
Judas Thaddeus, the other Judias, beaten with sticks.
And, finally, John, the one who's writing down the words, the only one we know not to have been martyred in death but rather martyred in life, exiled to Patmos without Christian help or friend.
All of them suffered hugely.
All things work together for good?
Explain that to me.
Well, perhaps part of the explanation comes from an unlikely source: Tacitus, the Roman historian, secular and not Christian, who nonetheless recorded what happened to Christians of this era.
He spoke about Nero, remember, the one who fiddled while Rome burned and then blamed the Christians for the burning.
Tacitus, no friend of the Christians, wrote, "Nero inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, people called Christians by the populous.
Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilate.
Accordingly, mockery and death awaited his disciples, too.
They were covered with the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, or they were nailed to crosses, or they were doomed to flames and burnt as nightly illumination in the gardens of Nero."
Well, what was the good of that?
Tacitus writes, "Hence, even for those criminals who deserved extreme and exemplary punishment, there arose a feeling of compassion in the kingdom, because it seemed their suffering was not for the public good but for the passion of an evil man."
And Christianity spread as people said, "If they would die for their faith, if they could have joy in the midst of sorrow, if they could still have peace despite what is happening to them, if they have something that is beyond this world, I want what they have."
It's not just an ancient story.
On the tenth of this month before the U.S. House Subcommittee on global health, global human rights and international organization, our own Congress reported the worst violence against Christians in the twenty-first century has taken place in India's Orissa state at the hands of Hindu nationalists.
In one attack, as many as five hundred Christians were killed, many hacked to death by machete wielding Hindu radicals and thousands more injured and at least fifty thousand left homeless.
Those are our brothers and sisters.
Those are ones who are right now suffering for the faith.
And what is happening is one of the greatest conversion movements of all of Christian history is happening in India right now.
And there's pushback such as the world cannot in any other way bring by death and persecution.
And God's people are standing firm with joy, singing to their torturers.
They are standing there with peace, believing that in the obstacles and the persecution that is coming to their families that God is nonetheless working.
I don't know, friends, we talk about a comprehensive calling here, what God may be calling us to be and to do: to stand in the workplace, to stand in the neighborhood, to be with friend and family and neighbor and say, "I believe in something that is beyond this world.
And I may face difficulty and frustration and family hurt and family harm, but I have a deep and abiding peace, because I believe in a God who is working all things together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose, because of the power of the Holy Spirit."
That is ours.
That is what is at work now and in our world.
That is why when Jesus could say in verse 33 these words, people were not overwhelmed.
He said in verse 33, "'I have said these things to you that you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation.
But take heart; I have overcome the world.'"
He's not even gone to the cross yet.
He's not risen yet.
But He speaks in the past tense, because He recognizes the purposes of God are so sure, the promises of God so certain that He can speak as having already accomplished the purposes of God, knowing that His God, your God, will accomplish all things together for good.
And so we can have the strange thing called peace that passes understanding because of that profound work of the Holy Spirit yet among us.
Because I was working on this message and this passage, I could not help but think of it as I was coming home from being with my father this week.
A number of you have asked how he's doing, and the honest answer is he's not doing very well.
So after congestive heart failure, now kidneys are shutting down, and he knows that he will be on dialysis for the rest of his life.
And so as we were coming back to Peoria from Memphis and just coming out of what you all saw this week on the news which was that big southern storm moving across the southern states, we got to the edge of the storm driving back up Highway 55, and as the sun came out, suddenly there was rainbow entirely around the sun.
I mean, a complete circle all the way around the sun.
I know what sundogs are where you get the rainbows on both sides.
And I know enough about science to know it's all ice crystals in the sky.
But this was a complete rainbow all the way around the sun.
And in my heart I thought of the promise of God who says, "This world and the universe is in My hand.
I have given you the rainbow to remind you of the power of My hand and the certainty of My promises.
All things will work together for good."
And as I thought about my father, a man so wise and so strong and so energetic in life who now is suffering, I could not help think with poignancy of what it would mean to believe that God is working all thing together for good through our prayers.
Cause five years ago when I prayed that my brother, mentally handicapped, would not go to prison but he did.
And God used the horror of that experience not simply to convert my brother so that he will be in heaven whole both in mind and body and soul but taking care of him, my parents who had been separated for fifteen years came back together.
And their love has been more real and beautiful than at any time in their entire married lives.
And now when my father needs my mother the most, she is right there with him.
And I look at all that has happened in the last five years and it was not at all according to my prayer.
But entirely according to the will of my good Father in heaven who is working all things together for good.
So that whether I'm facing that or things I know will surely come, I may yet have a peace that passes understanding that I pray for you as well.
Regardless of what you face that Jesus who said, "I am not alone.
I go to be with My Father.
And you are united to Me.
So you're not alone either.
And though in this world you may face tribulation, you may have the peace that passes understanding as the Spirit you seek and through whom you pray works all things together for good."
This is your treasure.
Hold it and let it be your peace that passes understanding.
We don't know how to pray.
But the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep to utter.
And God who knows the mind of the Spirit works in accord with His will to make all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.