Jesus Has Overcome the World For You
I’m mad about so many things right now, I don’t know what to preach on.
I actually wrote a whole sermon on Thursday and then just deleted it. There’s a lot to be angry about these days but I guess I’m mostly mad about Christians not acting like Christians or believing like Christians.
So, here’s what I’m going to do today. I’m going to take the last conversation Jesus had with His disciples, and the prayer right after it—Gospel of John chapters 15 through 17—get your Bible and follow along if you want—let’s see what it sounds like in light of everything going on in the world right now. All the politics and fear and anger and self righteous stupidity. The way we’re treating each other, talking at each other. Everyone’s got their mind made up on every issue. Mouths open, ears closed.
These are the last things Jesus had to say to us before He went to the cross. Things for us to keep in mind.
Let’s start here:
Okay. Okay? This is my command: Love. Each. Other. I could stop there if we had any idea what he actually meant by loving each other. But our mouths are open and our hearts are closed.
We have to love each other. I know, you think you already know that. But you need to love people even if people don’t love you back. And they’re not going to love you back. The world isn’t going to love you back. The world is going to hate you. It hated Jesus. Killed Him. Gotta love anyway.
We gotta stop watching the news and getting all bent out of shape.
Stop being surprised that pagans act like pagans. Stop being surprised that the world is full of terrible people doing terrible things. Stop being surprised that it’s a dark place full of pain and misery and death and violence. That it hates God, hates you and everything important to you. The world is an awful place. It’s kinda the whole point of the Gospel.
Earlier in the Gospel of John Jesus said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to save it.” He wouldn’t have done that if it didn’t need to be saved. So He sent Jesus and Jesus did the unthinkable thing that needed to be done to save it. To save us. That’s the Gospel. Jesus saved the world by giving His life. Jesus has overcome the world.
And then the world says, “It doesn’t look like He saved it. It still seems like a mess to me.”
Gospel of John chapters 15 through 17 This last speech Jesus gave His disciples was a warning that even though He was about to fix everything, it was still going to look broken to the naked eye. They were only going to be able to see salvation through faith. They were only going to experience it, for now, through hope.
What are the biggest obstacles to people believing in Jesus? I think there are two: If God is real then why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And why do so many Christians act like jerks?
If we actually paid any attention to what Jesus told us, neither of these things would be a problem. First of all because He was pretty clear about us not being jerks. He said to love people. Be kind, gentle, patient. And second, all the pain and suffering and darkness in the world is why He had to come rescue us. If the world wasn’t a terrible place, He wouldn’t have had to come and save it. Like I said, Christians not acting like Christians or believing like Christians.
Maybe if we read our Bibles a little more and watched the news a little less we might actually know something about this faith that so many of us say we believe in. Maybe we’d actually be able to spread a little hope instead of adding to the funk.
This last conversation Jesus had with the disciples, He said, “the world’s going to hate you, you don’t belong to the world.” He chose you and called you out of the world—which is exactly why the world hates you. So stop being surprised. And start responding to all that hatred with love and grace and kindness and mercy. Forgiveness. That’s supposed to be the Christian way. It’s what Jesus showed us by going to the cross and forgiving us. “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing.”
We’re not greater than He is. We don’t get an easier path. Jesus said, “If they persecuted me, they’re going to persecute you too.” Everyone who follows Jesus, follows Him to a cross.
We have to tell the world what Jesus said, we have to show them what Jesus did for them. But the only way they’re ever going to hear us is when we say it with love. It’s the only way you and me ever heard what Jesus had to say to us, too. Someone loved you enough to show you that Jesus loves you.
The world doesn’t know who God is. They know there’s a God, they just don’t know who He is. It’s our job to tell them. To show them.
If we teach the things Jesus taught, and teach with love, people will hear us, they’ll get it. But if we just act like jerks, insist on our rights and our privileges and opinions the same way everyone else does—we’re just adding to the noise and confusion.
When Jesus went to the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to be with us—to give us the power to tell other people about Him. The power to love people in His name. To do these things here in the world—where it’s going to be hard.
It’s not going to be easy. He warned us about that. He said, “I’ve told you all this so you won’t fall away.” People are going to attack us and we’re gonna want to attack back. Argue back. Fight back. The world thinks they’re doing something good and noble when they attack Christians—Jesus warned us about that, too. Everyone thinks they have the moral high ground. Everyone thinks they’re the good guys. But Jesus said people believe these lies because they don’t know the Father or Him.
We always act so surprised when the politicians and the media and the rest of the unbelieving world try to shut Christians down. We shouldn’t be surprised. It’s exactly what Jesus said was going to happen.
We act like we think nothing bad is ever supposed to happen to us, that He promised to fill our life with sunshine and rainbows and blessings. That’s not what He told us. But we don’t know what He told us because we don’t read the Bible and even when we do, we don’t pay attention to what it says. And then some kind of trouble comes our way and we run screaming from the church with our faith in ruins.
Hard times is what our faith is for. That’s what this last conversation Jesus had with the disciples was all about.
He said, “I have told you this, so that when the time comes you will remember that I warned you.”
He didn’t want them to lose their faith when they saw Him dead. Or when they faced their own death. He didn’t want them to be surprised. Hard times were still coming.
They didn’t want to hear any of this any more than we do. It says they were filled with grief. Especially when he said, “It’s not gonna be long now and I’m going to go away.”
They were like, “What the heck are You talking about? ‘
And Jesus told them, “It’s gonna be awful. The world is going to rejoice because I’m dead and gone. You’re gonna get really sad, but that sadness is gonna turn into joy. You’ll see. It’s all going to be worth it. Like when a mother goes through all the pain of delivering a child—the joy of holding that new baby makes the pain seem like a distant memory.”
It was true for the disciples and it’s true for you. Life is going to be hard, people are going to hate you, but on that day when you see Jesus face to face, your joy is going to be complete in a way that you can’t even imagine right now. It’ll all be worth it. You won’t even have any more questions. It’ll all make sense.
All these things that seem so heavy now will just melt away. You’ll know the love of God. You’ll have everything you need and everything you want.
Jesus talked a little about how glorious it’s going to be on that day when everything is perfect and they’re with Him in the presence of God. They got pretty excited. They started to see it. They started to really believe.
But then Jesus brought them back to earth. This earth. The one you and I still live on.
He said, “So you believe now?” Well, “it’s not going to be long before you all desert me and run back home. You’re all going to abandon me.”
He didn’t tell them that to bum them out, or to scold them. It was just a fact, that’s what they were going to do. Peter was going to deny Jesus, They were all going to run away and hide. He wanted them to know He wasn’t going to be surprised by any of it. He wanted them to be able to live with their failure. This was like premeditated forgiveness. He also said, “You’re all going to abandon me but it’s okay, I won’t really be alone, my Father is always with me.”
The world is a violent and scary place. Bad things happen. They were going to blow it. But Jesus wanted them to know they could still come back to Him after their failure and He would forgive them:
You’re gonna fail me but take heart, I have overcome your failures. I forgive you.
You’re gonna fail each other but take heart. I have overcome the world. You can forgive each other, too. Every relationship we have should be a commitment to premeditated forgiveness.
You’re going to fail God. You’re going to fail each other. Troubles are coming. Don’t be surprised. Walk in love. Walk in forgiveness. It’s not going to be easy. Jesus promised He would never leave us or forsake us.
Then He stopped talking with them and started praying for them. He lifted His eyes to heaven and said:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.”
What do you think He meant by that? “The hour has come to Glorify Your Son.” He’s talking about His betrayal and death. That’s what He means when He says the hour had come for Him to be glorified.
The cross.
If we don’t understand how the cross is the Father glorifying the Son, then we’re not going to understand anything about the Christian faith.
The cross is what Jesus came to earth to do. It was His destiny. His purpose. To die for His people was His glory.
That’s not how we think of glory. We tend to think the way we give glory to God is by saying it. “Glory to God!” “Thanks be to God!” Or when we say nice things about God. Or when we give Him credit for good things that happen.
I want to challenge us to think about glory in a different way. A deeper way.
We give Glory to God when we’re the people He created us to be. When we do what He created us to do. In other words, we give glory to God when we stop trying to be our own God.
God is glorified when His creation does what He created it to do.
Now, the eternal Son of God wasn’t created, He is eternally begotten before all worlds. But He entered creation and became part of creation for a God ordained purpose. The hour had come for Him to complete that purpose. The hour had come for the Son to be glorified. And through the Son, the Father would be glorified. Jesus was headed to the cross. And through the death and resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, the people of God were going to be made holy so we could also glorify the Father and the Son, so we could fulfill our purpose. So we could take up our cross. Deny ourselves. So we could be a living sacrifice. So we could love each other. This would be our glory, how we give God glory.
We glorify God when we stop being our own God. When we stop trying to save ourselves. When we stop finding our hope in the things of this world. Our hope is in Christ alone.
Jesus gives eternal life to everyone who believes in Him. That’s the promise of the Gospel: that life would be given to everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.
Jesus glorified God the Father by going to the cross and finishing what He had to do.
There would be a crucifixion and a resurrection, and Jesus asks the Father to return Him to the perfect state He enjoyed before the creation of the world, before the re-creation of the world. Before the world was new.
We glorify God by following Jesus.
He’s called us out of the world. To be His people. To believe what He says. To believe that Jesus came from the Father. We become His people by faith. He prays for us. Verse 15 says He prayed that we’d remain in the world without being swallowed up by it. That we’d hold onto our faith and hold onto the hope He’s given us. He prayed that we’d be one. That we’d love each other and be unified. He prayed that God would protect us and keep us, and that our joy will be full. Everyone who follows Jesus, follows Him to a cross. Our cross is always going to look like loving people that we don’t want to love.
To love people even though they’re going to hate us. To believe God is good even when life is hard. Because we’re still in this broken world—but we are not of the world anymore. Jesus didn’t pray that His people would be taken out of the world, we shouldn’t put our hope in some escapist fantasy. He said, “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that You protect them from the evil one.”
We’re going to be here, in the thick of it, doing the work that God has given us to do. It’s going to be hard. There’s gonna be lots of times we don’t want to do it. The evil one, the devil, is going to do his best every day to discourage us and try to get us to quit.
Do you remember what the work of God is? The commandment that Jesus gave us? The thing we’re supposed to be doing that’s going to be so hard for us? The thing that the devil is going to try to keep us from doing?
It’s the first thing I said in this sermon. “This is my commandment; that you love one another.”
That’s the only thing that matters. That’s the only path to joy.
That’s what sets us apart from the world. Love. Sanctify means to be set apart. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.” He sends us into the world to love people.
Love. Not arguments. Not opinions. Not politics. Love. Sometimes speaking the truth in love is going to come off kinda harsh—maybe like this sermon—we better make sure our motives have a whole lot more to do with helping people and not just proving we’re right.
And just in case you think Jesus was only talking to the disciples who were in front of Him and none of this applies to you and me:
Verse 20 says
“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message.”
How’s that for a trippy, outside of time moment? Right there in the Bible, Jesus prayed for you and me.
He prayed that we would be one. That we would be as unified in love as the Father and the Son. That our faith in God would be so obvious that the world would start to believe. The same world who hates us and wants to see us dead and buried. How are they supposed to see our faith? By the way we make fun of the pagan news networks? By how clever we are when we mock the demonic political candidates? By letting people know how patriotic and pro America we are? By showing everyone how disgusted we are with their sin? By how much we love guns? By making sure everyone knows we think we’re better than they are? By arguing about social distancing and masks? By correcting people? Does any of that sound like Jesus?
No. The world will know that we’re with Jesus when we love them the way Jesus loved us. Sacrificially. With humility. Laying down our lives and opinions and personal rights for them. When we stop bickering with each other.
See if you can pray this with Jesus, “Father, I want those people who hate me to be with me when I finally see You face to face. Help me to give my life for them, because you gave your life for me.”
Jesus ended His prayer with this, He said, “Righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these believers know you sent me. I’ve made you known to them, and I will continue to make you known to them—so that the love you have for me might be in them and that I myself might be in them.”
After Jesus said all this, He went to the Garden of Gethsemane and waited for Judas to show up with soldiers and take Him to be crucified.
Wasn’t going to be easy. Isn't going to be easy for us either.
We’re not of this world, but we’re still in it. This means our hope is no longer in the things of this world. Things like money and security. We used to hope for those things but now we know they’re empty. Our hope isn’t for a nice house and car or a job that makes us feel important. Those are good things but our hope isn’t in them. Our hope isn’t in a political party or America or Texas. We pray that God will bless our land and heal it and bring it to repentance and true faith—but our hope isn’t here. We don’t put our trust in the state, or social programs—we have to trust in God alone. And our hope isn’t just not dying, avoiding sickness and pain, we don’t put our hope in a comfortable life of pleasure. Our hope is not in this world at all, not anything in this world. Our hope is in Christ alone. His life and death and resurrection. That by believing in Him, nothing will ever separate us from the love of God.
What would it look like if that was true? How would it change the way you talk with people?
I pray that God would help us to start acting like Christians. Believing the things Jesus told us. I pray that our ears and our hearts would be open, so we can hear what God is saying. So we can hear the cries for help that are all around us. And when we fail—fail God and fail each other—that we would hear the comforting words of Christ: In this world there will be trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world. Because of Jesus, you are forgiven. Walk in that forgiveness. AMEN