You Have The Heavenly Father’s Heart

If you have your Bibles this morning, I invite you to turn to John chapter 16. John chapter 16, and we are concluding here this teaching that Jesus gave his disciples in preparing them for what was about to happen with the cross event, and then next time we begin a study on the high priestly prayer, and that is a wonderful prayer to study. So I'm eagerly looking forward to that, but these words at the end of chapter 16 are wonderful. So we're going to read at verse 25, and we'll read to the end of the chapter. This is the word of the Lord. 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 I 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'm leaving the world and going to the Father. His disciples said, ah, now you're 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. And there will end the reading of God's word. It would be absolutely cliche, I suppose, to say this is a favorite passage of mine, so I want it to become a favorite passage of yours today. This is one of those worth saying, this is my favorite passage in the Bible. What a glorious text that we have just read from John chapter 16. I have in my office, I have a collection of old numismatics, what you call old metals. And what I like to study these old metals is because they have a message on them of what the saints before us believed. all these metals and numismatics and all these things would capture the most important things about their time and convictions about their time. And there was one I have from John Calvin in the 1600s. It was made with a picture of Calvin. And then on the back, it has a giant hand and it has a heart in it. And it says, prompt et sincere in opera domini, Which means, promptly and sincerely, we offer our hearts to you, O God. That's really beautiful. You know, we think sometimes we're nervous about talking about the heart, but notice how committed these giants were to the Lord of the past. It's remarkable. It's somewhat troubling at times because we see these things and we read these things. And what was it that previous generations and all their hardships seemed to be so much more devoted than our times? And I suppose every generation sort of thinks that way. But as I was reading Calvin on John 16, I think I came to an answer of why he would say, We offer our hearts to you, O God. Because Calvin says something absolutely remarkable on the text that I'm preaching today. Something I couldn't get away from that I captured in the title. These are actually the words of Calvin. One statement stopped me and I couldn't get over it. When he said, all believers should know, they should know that they have the heavenly father's heart. I thought that was just a remarkable statement. You have the heavenly father's heart. What a statement that could be made. And maybe that has not been as useful to us as it should be. But we should think about that a little bit today from John chapter 16, that we have the Heavenly Father's heart. What does that mean? Well, when you begin to understand this, I think that's why somebody could put on a coin so many years ago. We give our hearts back to you. Beautiful. Just beautiful. Today we have in the Gospel of John some of the most tender language given in all of the Bible out of the mouth of Jesus. Language that is so special and so unique and so powerful it's difficult to rightly convey it in the preaching of the Gospel. Yet God still chooses this means. So I trust the Spirit will help you today to understand this beautiful passage that today you have the Heavenly Father's heart. Do you know what that means? This is what we're working with here. what we need to know, why it's difficult to know this, and how we are to know this. And that's what we're going to consider first, what we need to know. Well, we are now in John chapter 16 at the last words of Jesus before his instruction that he gives to the disciples, before he goes off to the cross. Of course, in the next chapter, we're going to hear and be able to stand in and listen to a prayer given by the Son to the Father. which is going to be fun to stand and listen to and to think about. But here we are. It's been a long training session with Jesus and the disciples, a long section in the Gospel of John. Remember, this is Passion Week. And in the midst of Passion Week, as he had instituted the supper, comes this long section that the other Gospels don't capture of Jesus giving instruction and helping his disciples in the present and for the future. And Jesus now says some of the most beautiful and the most powerful words that are in all in the scriptures that are really functioned to be the frosting on the cake to the overwhelmingly wonderful things that he has been already saying. Remember what he's been saying to them. You're about to go through something really difficult. You're going to suffer. You're going to lament. You're going to weep. You're going to mourn. you're going to face something in your lives that you have never faced before or ever really will after it to this degree. This will be the hardest thing to go through. It will be watching me die. They don't understand it. They don't even know why yet he had to do this. So I'm moved by this particular passage and what he is doing here to help them understand. He knows what they are about to face and he's helping them forward because of the dimness of their hearts and because, really, the outpouring of the Spirit will also be an outpouring in understanding when there's fulfillment. It's a really important point, I think, the New Testament writers make. It's not that they didn't have the Spirit before. It was that once fulfillment happens, then understandings were open to see everything and understand everything. They've not been able to understand many things yet that he's been saying, but the plain things about the cross that he was declaring to them, they were fighting him on. Remember, Peter, you're not going to the cross. No, no, no, no, no. I'll die for you. It's really amazing, isn't it? I'll do the dying around here, Jesus. I think for a minute of what we have here, that Jesus actually, I think, in a moment before the cross, does open their understandings a bit, in a special way, in an act of mercy, so that they would have in their hearts understanding with what he is about to face. Whatever he's about to say was so powerful. Now this is, I think, crucial to the text this morning. Whatever he's about to say is now so powerful and has the effect of automatic consolation with all the problems that they're facing, and all the difficulties they are about to go through, Jesus now says something that automatically comforts them and calms them. What they need to know. Well, look at verse 25 for a minute with me. I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to 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. The big problem for them was their struggle to understand Jesus. But the time was coming where Jesus says something to you, says something here that is really remarkable. I'm no longer going to speak in this kind of figurative language that you're so used to, but I'm going to tell you something plainly about the Father. When the spirit of truth comes, remember what Jesus said, he's going to guide you in all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he's going to take what is mine and declare it to you. So Jesus is looking to this time when the Spirit would be poured out, the Spirit would come at Pentecost, and he would bear what's on Jesus' heart to the disciples and to the ends of the earth, which means to you. When Jesus would speak, the Spirit would speak the word. So this is one of the beautiful benefits of the times we live at Pentecost for, I think this is why John would say, really, you have no need of anyone to teach you. The Spirit is your teacher. Ultimately, as the word is proclaimed to you, the Spirit is making these things clear. But I'm really moved by this because when you come to something like this, it's provoking the sort of question, what haven't they understood about the Father? Remember when I said, Remember the prologue of John, right at the beginning. This is what was said, John 1.18. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who's in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him. That's a remarkable verse. The word for declared means He has explained Him. He's made Him clear to us. the Son has declared the Father. Now this came up numerous times in the Gospel of John that this was the burdened member of Philip and Thomas back in chapter 14 where Philip comes up and Thomas and they're asking questions and they say, would you show us the Father? And that will be sufficient for us if you show us the Father. And when you stop and you think and you begin to put this all together of Jesus now addressing this question and helping them to understand this question, what do you really hear behind that question when they ask that? They're curious about the Father. They're concerned about the Father. We're thankful you're here, Jesus. We're thankful that you have come. But our concern is, is that we don't know what the Father's like. And immediately Jesus corrected it. Remember? Remember what he said in John 14? What do you mean show you the Father? I am in the Father and the Father in me. We're one. In other words, whatever revelation there is of me, you have a revelation of the Father. That's how you see him and know him, through me. I'm the mediator. They're not separate in their purposes and intentions. Now, what that tells us is there's something about more of God, right, that we don't typically, we want to understand, I think, at times about the Father that we seem sometimes a little bit dissatisfied with Jesus. I think in some ways it's what was built into the disciples is this question about the righteous anger and justice of God. I think the mere fact that Jesus says what he does here about love proves that. There's a reason he's breaking into the love of the Father. I'm going to come back to that. But they knew the Old Testament. They read the same stories we read. They were well-versed in the Old Testament. They knew stories like Nadab and Abihu. They offered in worship strange fire and that fire fell from God and consumed them. They knew about the judgments of the Old Testament. They knew about the judgments that happened. And they read the same stories. I mean, go through. Think of what God did in light of Israel's unbelief and Israel's disobedience in the wilderness. Read the stories. There's fear there. There's fear there. It's God's absence. It's God's hiddenness. It's all that is unknown and mysterious to us about God that makes us sort of linger with questions about God and questions about the future. All of us here have some measure of failure. I mean, we know that. We sin. We do things that we hate as Christians. And there's some amount of guilt that we continue to carry around. There are hypocrites. There are hypocrisies. We've all failed. We all know in the past that when we were blindly ignorant in sin, the things that we did, that we failed, that we're really just as deserving as anything that Israel ever received, and that maybe, maybe, maybe God's going to hold it against us. they hadn't yet accepted why the cross was necessary. Keep in mind, they've been fighting Jesus on this the whole time. You're not going to go do that for us. They hadn't yet accepted that. And just like today, many have said and treat God this way, it's a common sort of problem in evangelicalism that the God of the Old Testament was vindictive and cruel and mean. This is the old Marcionite heresy. Marcion. And the God of the New Testament's the nice one. And that that's revealed in Jesus. That's the God with whom we have to do. But that God of the Old Testament, a sharp dichotomy, sharp separation between the Old and the New Testament, this happens all the time in evangelicalism today. And you always hear it when it comes to things like worship. Well, you know, it's okay. Wait, God's still, Hebrews, a consuming fire. God didn't change. God is just as just as he always was. God is just as serious about sin as he always was. But I think this is sort of built into us, this sort of Marcionite view here of the God of the Old Testament, the Father, we think, And then Jesus, there's that lingering question in our minds, a doubting one, is God really for me? And that leads us to this, a separation that's unhealthy. Jesus is revealing the triune God. His coming has opened up the revelation of God to understand God, to know what is he going to pray in the high priestly prayer in the next thing? This is my prayer, that they would know you and the one whom you have sent. Well, that's the question. What is the father like? What is the father like? Is he dangerous to us? They didn't know the father. The relationship was like really the one of Israel right after the law. Remember what happened right after the law? when they heard the thunderings and the lightnings and the beast couldn't even touch the mountain, that all of them said, Moses, Moses, don't let him speak to us. We will die. You speak to us. And I think that's similar to what's happening here. I think it's very similar to what's happening here. Jesus, you speak to us. What about him? You see? it's important. This is why I think many people struggle with assurance. It's the hiddenness of God in his supreme justice that has brought down to bear on your conscience when you sin and when you do things and when you look at your past. Everyone on the inside has some kind of sense as a believer of the out-of-harmony nature that we have of our sinful natures and that we know that we've heard preached judgment day is coming. And it is. well you need to know something but notice what Jesus is saying here this is the remarkable truth of it in that day I'm going to tell you plainly about the father the spirit is going to take what's mine and bear it to you in the word he doesn't speak outside of the word what Jesus wants to tell us is something really wonderful I want to tell you about the Father. I want to tell you about my Father. See how tender this is? What does Jesus say? In verse 26, 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 I believed that I came from God. I came forth from the Father and have come into the world. Again, I leave the world and go to the Father. What do you think he's saying? He's saying this. Why do you think the cross is necessary? Do you think this was me working on my own? In other words, apart from the will of the Father? I don't think there was a glorious, you could say, putting it in theological language, covenant made. Call that the pactum salutis? Oh, sure. God is a just God. God hates sin. And guess what? Atonement has to happen. That's why I'm here. Jesus just said, I'm going away. And John, that means I'm going to the cross. On his mind is the excruciating agony. Now think of the love of the son here. The excruciating agony of God the Son this whole time. He's already beginning to face and bear the wrath of God for your sin. That means something. It means something really important for you to understand. I'm not saying that I'm going to have to pray to the Father for you. Now think of this statement. It's a really unique statement because you could stop and say, What is he, just getting rid of his role as intercessor and mediator? What is he saying here? I'm not saying on that day that I'm going to have to go and do that. It's not saying he's done with his role as intercessor. What is he saying to us? Think about it. He's high priest forever. That's what makes this verse so wonderful. Jesus has been praying a certain way on earth the whole time he's been here. Think of John 17 too. I pray that you would give them eternal life to as many as you have given me. And again, verse three, and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Does Jesus have to continue to pray that? Does Jesus have to pray, oh, Father, please accept them. Does he? Calvin says this, stop viewing the Father that way. Stop it. Jesus is not on his knees begging his Father. We should never view Jesus on his knees begging his Father to be kind to you. The revelation of who came, think about this, is a testimony that he loves you. Jesus does not have to continually to go to his Father and ask that you would be supported and helped and loved and that maybe the father, when you mess up, is sitting there like, I don't know. As if the father's blazing hot at us. That the son has to go and try to calm down the father. This is exactly what he was saying. Don't do that. Don't think like that. In other words, he doesn't want his children to go forth unsure that God loves them. God has set forth his son as a propitiation by his blood that he might be the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Jesus is saying, I don't have to go do that. You understand that? I don't have to pressure or persuade my father to be gracious to you. It's not like that. I don't have to convince him to be merciful to you. On the basis of the cross and my going away, it's done. You see, this is what he's saying. That's what you're going to know in that. It's done. It's finished. My job is to convince you of his love. That's what Jesus is saying. My job is to convince you of his love. Overwhelming. Yeah, whatever verse I said was the favorite before, I think this is better. You pray in my name, you have direct access. I think it's important to say, it is important to say, we're not just using Jesus that way, but it is important to recognize in our prayers, it's in Jesus' name. I don't think we do that enough. I don't think we have an understanding of that. He is ready to hear you. He is ready to help you. He is ready. He loves you. The Father loves you. You hear it? Well, what a message when we've had earthly fathers that fail us, huh? What a message when earthly fathers have been abusive. Don't view God that way. That's what typically happens. Listen to the high priestly prayer. In them you, I in them and you in me, listen to this, that they may become perfectly one so that the world may know, know what? That you sent me and loved them even as you love me. There's no pressure for grace. There's no pressure for help. Whatever it is of the hiddenness of God and his justice that terrifies our consciences, the Son has satisfied it. The Son has satisfied it. What a remarkable verse. Jesus just said what Calvin recognized. You have the Heavenly Father's heart. You have it. It's yours. Enjoy it. We should always guard ourselves from thinking as Christians that God the Father is the angry one and that Jesus' intercessory work is just to calm him down in his burning hot wrath on us. That is not what Jesus told the Holy Spirit to tell us. That's not what the New Testament says at all or the Old Testament. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has done what? Blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Who did that? Your father. That's your father. Now the practical bearing on this is really important today. John says, you shouldn't commit sin. But when you sin, if anyone sins, you have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. When we sin, confess. And guess what the Father is going to do? The Father is faithful and just to forgive your sin and to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. Now that understanding has a huge bearing on Christian joy, doesn't it? As we looked at last time. This is why Jesus is saying, I'm writing and saying all these things. I'm saying these things to you so that you would have joy. now now wait for the moment here that was some pretty wonderful stuff to just preach and here's the disciples response oh now you're being clear now you're not talking to us in figures of speech now we're sure that you know all things and have no need that anyone should question question you. By this we believe that you came forth from God. What's happened there is really a remarkable moment before the cross event that really something has happened here. It's impossible for them to fully grasp what he's saying, but what has happened was the comfort was so powerful. The word was so consoling in the midst of all of this distress. The gospel was so penetrating In its clarity, it gave them a moment of automatic relief. Did you feel that right now as I preach these things? Of course you did. You felt a moment of automatic relief in this. That's why church is important. That's why the gospel preach is important. That's why God set this up. It's important for you. Now we're convinced. No, you can go out tomorrow and lose that, can't you? You struggle with sin and you lose that confidence and that's why it's a continual ministry. But Jesus knows that the deep hour of lamenting and mourning is coming for them. And they have no idea of how awful it's going to be. Do you now believe? Probably better translated this way. You believe at last? There's a time coming and has come when you will be scattered, each to your own houses. and you're going to leave me alone. And I'm not alone. The Father's with me. And he says this, Rise, let's be going. Let's get on with this. My betrayer is at hand. This is the hour when the shepherd would be struck and the sheep would be scattered, and sorrow like we don't appreciate would hit them. They are all about to face, right after these words, the hardest trial of their life. They are all about to face, right after these words, the hardest trial of their life. What's yours? What's yours? Here's theirs. They would abandon Jesus at the hour of his, they couldn't pray one hour with him. Oh, we'll stand up, we'll fight. They all denied him. You imagine the burden of that. I don't really want to be a denier of Jesus. So fickle in their faith. Couldn't pray an hour. With all their will and desire, couldn't stay with him. Peter would cuss and curse and deny him in the worst sort of way. If all are made to stumble, I won't. And so after all this instruction, Jesus concludes with a wonderful verse, doesn't he? This is the end of the instruction in the Gospel of John. In the world, you're going to have a lot of tribulation. This is so important. All the accumulation of sorrow, all the hardship, the death, the mysterious ways of God's providence, all the weariness that comes at times, and you're going to stand back from it all, and you don't understand it. You don't understand it, and you're going to stand back from all that you're about to face at times when it comes upon you and you're going to say, how could ever God the Father in his providence and mysterious ways of providence and creation, he upholds it all, how in the world could that ever say that God is for us? And I believe that he gave these words to them to that day, not just to them, but to us. Listen, listen to this. As the world rages, as the devil wants to destroy you, as your sins rise up against you, prevailing day by day as we sing, I think, we think, we have to fight this fight and win ourselves. Isn't that it? The pressure of upholding ourselves through all of this and beating the world and keeping ourselves, we think is ours. And right then and there, Jesus says, no, it's not. It's mine. It's mine. He loves them so much as the Father loves them so much. What does he say? Verse 33, these things I've spoken to you that in me you may have peace. And then comes the grand climax to it all. In the world, you will have tribulation. It's going to come. But I want you a really happy people. Do you know why? Because I've overcome it. I've won for you. He tells every Christian, every believer to take heart. Apply it. Every time in the future, you face some kind of terrible thing living in this world. and it's going to come. Jesus has told you long beforehand that in him you would have peace and that you would live in the joy of knowing he conquered it. So pick it. Is it death? He came to die and rise victorious. Is it the world? It's a conquered foe. Is everything that's falling apart around us what scares us? He's going to make it all new. He's already won. I said this a few weeks ago. Why do you think things are raging so strongly right now? You have to have the eyes to see. It's kind of like when you've trapped a wild possum. I've done that, you know. They're miserable little creatures. I'm convinced God gave us possums to teach us about Satan. They're the ugliest things I've ever seen in my life. I caught one one day. And I wanted to put that miserable thing out of its life. And it hissed at me. And it spit at me. It kicked at me. But I held the poison. And I fed it to him. And it died. And you know what? That thing's not peeing under my house anymore. Do you get the point? The world's defeated. It's kicking, it's screaming, it's hissing. And there's one who's already fed the poison. It's done. He's won. The cross won. And that gives me a lot of hope that no matter how bad the tribulation is, he is that all-powerful to cheer us in the midst of it and give us joy. and give us power to minister what we have to do here. And when we feel that God has abandoned us or we feel that we have failed in this or that, whatever form of tribulation that we have in this world, he is saying this, what my work is, what my concern is through the work of the Holy Spirit is to continually minister to you the comfort that you need that I love you and my Father loves you. He's not letting go. Though the victory may not seem apparent at the moment, in the present, the cross tells you it's already over. Soon he's going to make this all new. Soon he's going to fix this. But hold this thought for the moment today, and we'll close. He who did not spare, who's that? His own son. But gave him up for us all. How will he not graciously give us everything? Let that set in. That's what this passage is about. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your steadfast love. Thank you for proving it in the gift of your son. give us understanding by your Spirit so that we would live in confidence in whatever is happening. That you will not let us go. That your Son has overcome everything that needs to be overcome. That this is just a short time of affliction creating in us a weight of eternal glory and preparing us for the glories to come. Let us fulfill our task with confidence as we've been challenged today keep us from hypocrisy forgive and wash our sins and let us be confident that you have and then let us go and live in the joy of discomfort that the world has been overcome and that we are your children we praise the name of the Lord how deep the Father's love for us in Jesus name we pray Amen