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The Christian and Trouble
John 16:33 (NASB), “These things I have spoken to you so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
Who? What? When? Where? Why?
- In the world we have trouble.
“In the world you have tribulation.”
• “Trouble, suffering, sorrows.”
• Natural evil – trouble from creation’s corruption.
• Moral evil – trouble from sinful human choices.
• Christian trouble – hated, banned, persecuted.
- In Christ we may have peace.
“… in Me you may have peace.”
• Peace in the midst of troubles.
• Peace of salvation and in Christian experience.
• Peace conditioned upon looking to Christ alone.
J.C. Ryle, “Let us lean back our souls on these comfortable words, and take courage. The storms of trial and persecution may sometimes beat heavily on us; but let them only drive us closer to Christ. The sorrows, and losses, and crosses, and disappointments of our life may often make us feel sorely cast down; but let them only make us tighten our hold on Christ.”
- Take courage.
“...but take courage; I have overcome the world.”
• “Take cheer, take heart.”
• In Christ, we overcome.
• Trouble lasts “an hour.” (16:2,4,21,32)
• Trouble as birth pangs of joy. (16:21)
John 16:21 (NASB), “Whenever a woman is in labor she has pain, because her hour has come; but when she gives birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy that a child has been born into the world. 22 Therefore you too have grief now; but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one is going to take your joy away from you.”
Conclusion:
Ian Hamilton, “Faith is essentially extraspective… It does not look into self, it is not principally ‘introspective’; it looks out and away to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
