Well, good morning, everyone. For those of you who don't know
me, my name is Vance Furtado. I'm elder here at Resurrection
Church as well as a volunteer pastor, and we're so glad all of
you are here at church. This morning.
We're going to be taking another look at a passage in the Gospel
of John, which we've been in John for quite a while, looking
at what's called the Upper Room. And this message is called
finding certainty in an uncertain world.
All right, And we're going to be in John chapter 16, verse 25 to
verse 33. Now, before we get into the
Scripture, which we will be shortly, I'm going to share with
you a statement that I think all of us would agree with here.
It is Uncertainty stinks. Uncertainty stinks.
Uncertainty means chaotic, crazy things that are happening around
us. We feel as if our lives are
totally out of control. We feel like we're all birds,
just kind of trapped in a dust storm, just being blown about
one way or the other. Now, I came to discover this
afresh several years ago one Sunday here at our church.
I had just taught the first session of a short term Bible
class on Psalms and it was fun. I love to teach, all right.
And we were having all kinds of good interaction and some
questions were shared, some discussion we had afterwards.
And I was looking forward to the following Sunday when again we
would meet in the activity center and we would again take a
look at Psalms. We never met again.
The following day after that Sunday, I went to work at
teaching at Nueva High School, the same thing I had done for
almost 21 years. We were starting our fourth
quarter. I had my lesson plans all
written out for the entire week. I was ready.
I was looking forward. I was getting a little worn
after 20 some years in the classroom, not too far from
retirement, but I was still loving what I was doing.
We met for two days and then every school in the state of
California closed. I didn't know it at the time,
but my career as a teacher in that school was over.
What happened? I can tell you in one horrible
little word, COVID, the coronavirus.
COVID had arrived in Kern County, and beginning with that
week, we were all trying to survive, something that most of
us had never experienced before, and that was a pandemic.
Now, COVID affected all of us differently, even if you never
got sick. And thankfully, as far as I
know, I never actually caught COVID, but I knew lots of people
who did. But even if you never got sick,
there were so many hard uncertainties.
For example, some of us were students during COVID.
We have vivid memories of sitting alone at a kitchen table
or maybe sitting in our bedrooms, and you're looking at
this screen and you're trying to learn what the teacher is trying
to communicate to you. You can't ask him any questions.
Maybe mom or dad is there to help some, or maybe an older
brother or sibling. Otherwise, you're on your own.
And let me tell you what it was like for the teachers at the
other end. Imagine being a teacher, looking
at 30 individual little screens. Behind each one of those screens
is one of your students. Some of the screens are dark.
You don't know if they're there or if they're not.
And you as a teacher are desperately trying to
communicate, and you don't know what's being received at the
other end. Remember grocery shopping during
COVID? You know, I never knew toilet
paper was that valuable. Did you?
I mean, it was like, very treasure.
A lot of us work during COVID. We had a new phrase that came
into the language. It was used a lot working from
home for me. I retired early then I had
planned. And the reason was, was that I
have trouble with hearing if there's a lot of talking going
on. I have trouble distinguishing
that individual conversation. It was one reason why I kept
such a tight control on my classroom.
Classroom management, all right. But now if my students come back
with me the following school year and we all have masks and
the students have these plexiglass barriers around their
desks, I was having panic attacks thinking, how in the
world can I hear what my students are saying to me?
How can I communicate clearly to them?
How can I manage a classroom if I cannot even hear what's going
on? I retired.
I knew I couldn't take it. And you know, the hardest of all
was losing family and friends. I recall about two months into
the pandemic, I got a phone call from my friend Mike.
We have known each other since the 5th grade.
We still communicate regularly with each other.
His voice was breaking as he told me Bill has passed away.
Our mutual friend Bill was my first friend that I had in town
when my family moved here and I was seven years old.
Bill and I became friends before we even started the 2nd grade.
He passed away sadly hundreds of miles from his family because
social isolation. He passed away in his sleep.
Looking forward to the birth of his first grandchild, knowing
his grandson would carry his name.
He never saw his grandson. Uncertainty stinks, but there
was a lesson COVID taught all of us.
It is so easy for us to have a false sense of security because
things just kind of seem to keep happening according to a
pattern. We wake up the next day, we go
to work, we hang out with our friends, we make our plans.
Everything seems stable. It seems predictable, the
reality we make our plans, cast our dreams and aspirations, but
only Almighty God knows what's really going to happen.
That's what COVID reminded us of.
It's what the prophet Jeremiah said 2600 years ago.
Here's what he wrote. I know, Lord, that a person's
way is not their own. No one who walks determines his
own steps. Now, that uncertainty, that
anxiety, that instability that we went through during the COVID
pandemic, that same kinds of feelings and emotions is exactly
what the disciples were experiencing as they were
listening to Jesus in that upper room.
Because Jesus had been their certainty.
He had been their focus. He had been the rock that had
always been there for three years, and now he was saying
crazy stuff. One of you will betray me.
I'm going away. You cannot follow me now, but
you will follow me later. What?
It was scary. Uncertainty is scary.
And because they were frightened, because we get
frightened. Jesus speaks what He says in
verses beginning at verse 25 of verse 33.
Here's the main idea that we're focusing on.
True certainty outshines false confidence.
Now as we start reading these verses, Please remember this
what we're going to be hearing. These are the last words that
Jesus taught them before He died.
So it's important. Let's start reading now.
John 16, beginning at verse 25. These things, 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.
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
am leaving the world and going to the Father, The disciples
said. Now you are speaking plainly,
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 you 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 or trouble. But take heart, I have overcome
the world again. True certainty outshines false
confidence. Jesus is giving us here 2
certainties that we can absolutely count upon.
The first one is in verses 25 to 28.
And the first certainty is simply this, the Father's love
for us. We all know real love is always
backed up by action, isn't it? It's backed up by evidence.
So Jesus here in these this first paragraph, he gives us
three pieces of evidence of the Father's love.
The first one is in verse 28, the Father sent Jesus.
Verse 28 is the entire gospel in one sentence.
Jesus came from the Father. He entered the world, and now
that his work will be shortly finished, he is going back to
the Father. That's the whole thing right
there. Now why?
Why did the Father send Jesus? Because we were absolutely
doomed unless Jesus saved us. According to Ephesians 2 verses
one to five, we were dead, spiritually dead in our
trespasses and sins, but God sent his Son Jesus.
Romans 58. God demonstrates his own love
for us in this, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. Easter is coming up in just a
few weeks. Easter is a time when we can
invite people to church, our friends, our family, people
living in the neighborhood around us, what we call loving
our 10 or reaching out to our circles.
It's a time that we can share that message That's in verse 28
that the Father sent his son so that all of us could have a
relationship with God. The fact that he said Jesus is
always proof of his love. Second, Jesus says here we're
going to have clear knowledge of the Father.
Jesus is saying, I'm not going to have to speak basically in
those figures of speech. See, Jesus had been doing his
very, very best to communicate God's truth to his disciples,
but his disciples to put a charitably, we're kind of dumb
spiritually. They were dense, obtuse, so
Jesus had to use stories and actions to communicate to them,
and even then they didn't get it.
So they were arguing at the beginning of the time in the
upper room about which one of them is the greatest.
So Jesus, according to John 13, he dresses himself as a slave
and goes around and washes the feet of every disciple,
including the disciple Judas, who will betray him.
It's an example of servanthood they would never forget.
Jesus tells them I'm the vine, you're the branches apart from
me. You can do what is it exactly?
But he's saying here, there will come a time you will learn
plainly, clearly knowledge about my Father.
And that will happen when the Holy Spirit shows up, the spirit
of truth. Until then, everything's going
to be kind of unclear and a bit murky.
You know, sort of like sometimes my nephews, they like to take
off their swim goggles and throw it into the swimming pool and
then dive after him. All right.
Why? They can see it down there.
Now imagine taking swim goggles and throwing them into some
fishing hole. Yeah.
Find them. That's kind of like what the
disciples in terms of what they could pick up on.
Truth. It was murky.
It was unclear, but that's going to change.
You know what? Also, just to kind of tie in
with what Pastor Daniel was sharing last Sunday, where he
was telling us about how, you know, in in Old Testament times,
how difficult it was for people to be able to access God, to be
able to come into his presence. And you remember all those
courts they had to go through and a lot of the courts, a lot
of those parts of the temple nobody could ever enter.
They didn't qualify. Well, now, as a result of Jesus,
we can all boldly enter the presence of God.
We can boldly access, according to Hebrews 416, the throne of
grace. When we're told, we can boldly
come into God's presence. Guys, that's the same Greek word
translated here. We can hear from the Father
plainly. You know, the third evidence of
the Father's love for us is maybe the best one of all, and
that's this. The Father wants to answer our
prayers. Matter of fact, He is waiting
impatiently for us to come into His presence and ask in the name
of his son. Now that deserves a bit of an
explanation, so here it is. In the Bible, God's name
represents God himself. So for example in Proverbs 1810
it says there the name of the Lord is a strong tower, the
righteous run into it and are safe.
God's name represents God, Jesus's name.
Obviously represents him as the Son of God.
When we are praying in Jesus name, that means we're asking
God to do something just like Jesus would ask his father to do
something. Number of years ago all of us
were kind of running around with these bracelets or these hats or
T-shirts and that had 4 letters all in caps.
WWJD. What would Jesus do?
Based upon an old old book called In His Steps by Charles
Sheldon. What Jesus is talking about here
is not WWJD. What would Jesus do?
Think of it this way, when we pray to the Father in Jesus
name, it is WWJP. What would Jesus pray?
And now you might say, OK, Vance, that's about as helpful
as nothing. How in the world are we supposed
to figure out what Jesus would pray?
I mean, I know what I pray. I know what I want right now.
My dresser at home, I've had it for over a year, is a gift
certificate to the wars. I know what I want, OK?
Linda keeps putting me off and it's drives me crazy.
But what does Jesus want? You know what helps us to figure
that out guys is 2 things. First thing to understand what's
important to Jesus is to look at what and how did Jesus pray?
For example, Jesus gave us a pattern for prayer.
We call it the Lord's Prayer. It starts off our Father who are
in heaven, who is in heaven hallowed or make holy your name.
Oh, God wants us to honor and glorify his Father.
Jesus wants us to do that. Forgive us our sins as we
forgive those who sin against us.
Oh, Jesus wants us to extend forgiveness to others, whether
we want to or not. Jesus also would pull all
nighters when it came to prayer. Before he picked his 12
disciples, we're told he spent the whole night in prayer to
God. The next morning he picked the
12, including Judas. Pastor Daniel's sermon next
Sunday is chapter 17 of John. Chapter 17 is Jesus's prayer.
It shows us what's important to him.
And by the way, what's important to him is us.
He's going to go to Gethsemane where he'll be arrested.
He will pray, Father, not my will, but yours be done.
He will go to the cross, and he will pray for those soldiers who
are murdering him. And he will say, Father, forgive
them for they do not know what they do.
If we look at how Jesus prayed and if we look how he prayed,
we're going to learn a lot about what we should pray about.
Secondly, we have to have to spend time with Jesus.
There is no quick three steps. There is No 4 principles.
It's not that easy. We get to know somebody by
spending time with somebody. It's the same thing with Jesus,
spending time in his word, pursuing him in prayer,
meditating, which simply means to think over and over again
about maybe a scripture that jumps out at us.
You ever notice how people who have been married a long time,
like say 50 or 60 years, and a picture is taken of them?
You ever notice how they start to look alike?
We spend time with Jesus. We're going to start looking a
little bit like Jesus, Amen. And we're going to have a
clearer understanding of what it means to pray in such a way that
it honors Jesus, that it honors His Father.
Let me tell you something I've learned in prayer.
And sometimes when I am praying and I don't know how to pray for
a situation, I will actually ask the Lord Lord, how should I pray
about this? And He will give me direction.
I wish I would have figured that out a long time ago.
If we're walking with Him, we'll have a better understanding of
His heart. Here's an easy way to remember
this quality. Time with Jesus equals coming to
know Jesus equals learning to pray like Jesus.
Now I think the Lord wanted to immediately follow this up with
what He's going to say next at verse 33, but at this point
Jesus got interrupted by his disciples.
So let's take a look at verses 29 and 30 for just a moment.
His disciples said, 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.
This is why we believe that you came from God.
We got it. You came from God, guys.
They've been hanging out with him for over three years.
Talk about Captain Obvious. But they're so proud of their
insight. Jesus, do we get gold stars now?
You see their insight, and granted, it's a true insight
that they do have about Jesus. He indeed is from God.
He indeed knows their hearts even before they speak it, just
as He knows each and every one of our hearts.
The problem guys, is this. This is false confidence.
They think they finally have the inside track on understanding
Jesus. One guy, DA Carson, wrote this.
No misunderstanding is more pathetic than that which thinks
it no longer exists. You need to catch the skepticism
in Jesus's question. Do you now believe you see?
And he tells them immediately after he asked them that
question. He tells them their immediate
future, their professed belief, is so fragile it will
immediately collapse In a few hours.
They will all desert the one they said they would never
desert. They would all fail.
There is not a disciple of Jesus who does not fail repeatedly.
We all do it, We all screw up, but Jesus still loves us.
Remember this, Our faith is rooted in Christ, not upon our
failures. I have struggled since I was a
teenager with a ferocious temper.
I'm so thankful. Here I am, 65 years old, and
it's at least finally God's knocked enough edges off, beat
me all over the head enough times.
I've apologized I don't know how many times, but at least I'm
finally growing in that area of my life.
But I failed and I failed and I failed.
My students were sometimes scared of me.
My family was sometimes scared of me.
Our failure, our faith, is rooted in Christ, not upon our
failures. Jesus never gives up on any
child of His. So the disciples are approaching
failure brought on by false confidence.
But you know what? That's not His last word to
them. His last word that He teaches
them is in verse 33. I have said these things to you,
that in me you may have peace, in the world you will have
tribulation or trouble. But take heart, I have overcome
the world. Now, just at the face value,
Jesus statement doesn't seem to make much sense because we know
what's going to happen. If you've read the gospels, he's
going to be arrested, He's going to be falsely accused in trials.
He's going to be savagely beaten.
He's going to be crucified, which I'm so thankful that all
of the gospel simply tell us he was crucified.
They don't go into the details because it was probably one of
the most horrible deaths that anyone could ever experience.
And he's going to die in spite of all of that.
He says I have overcome. Here's why.
Jesus says that there's two stories, both of them absolutely
true, that are happening at this time. 1 is what we read about
the events in the gospels. The other is true about what was
happening behind the scenes spiritually.
So, for example, Paul, he wrote to the Philippian Christians.
Most of what he wrote in Philippians 2, beginning at
verse 5 to 11 is a worship song. But here's what he wrote
describing Jesus's victory, because that's the second
certainty sharing Jesus's victory.
He wrote this in your relationship with one another
have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature
God, did not consider a quality with God something to be used to
His own advantage, but rather he made himself nothing.
By taking the very nature of a servant being made in human
likeness and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled
himself by becoming obedient to the faith, obedient to death,
sorry, even death on a cross. Therefore God exalted him in the
highest place and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on
earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that
Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
Second certainty again, Jesus. We are sharing in Jesus victory
to the Christians living in the little city of Colossae.
Paul wrote this. When you were dead in your sins
and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive in
Christ. He forgave all our sins.
Having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which
stood against us and condemned us, He has taken it away,
nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers
and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them,
triumphing over them by the cross.
Paul is telling us this Jesus clobbered, Jesus stomped, Jesus
crushed, Jesus ground his 2 feet into Satan's face and plans and
we share Jesus's victory. That's pretty awesome.
That's why he says I, I have overcome.
He hasn't even gone through the horrible death yet, but already
his victory is assured. Now what's it like to share in
someone else's victory like what Jesus did for us?
The picture you're going to see momentarily on the screens is my
daughter Kathleen. And what she's doing in this
picture is she is completing not her first, but her second
marathon, 26 miles, five hours. I took that picture.
I was there. I was taking pictures as fast as
I could with my little phone. Why?
Because I was excited. That's my girl now.
I didn't act like that she would have killed me, but that's how I
felt. I got to celebrate.
Even though I didn't run the marathon, I still got to
celebrate her finishing that grueling experience.
You see where I'm going with this?
I hope you do. Jesus went through all kinds of
hard, hard things for us, and we can share, and we do share.
Every believer shares in Jesus's victory.
We celebrate with Jesus. Now there are three important
things that Jesus is telling us in verse 33, and I want to just
point them out to you. All right, first of all, please
notice that Jesus says we may have peace.
Whether we have Jesus peace or not depends upon our choice.
He wants to give us His peace. We have to choose to accept it.
We have to let go of our uncertainties, our anxieties,
our fears so that we can receive His peace.
Sort of like, you know, imagine a dog with a nasty smelling,
filthy chew toy and the owner is trying to get that out of the
dog's mouth because the owner got a really nice new chewed toy
and it even still has the squeaker in it and the dog won't
let go. We have to let go to experience
his peace. Secondly, Jesus tells us up
front we will have trouble. Unavoidable.
We will have trouble, but that's how we grow in the Christian
life. I like what one guy said.
We are not saved from trouble, we are saved in trouble.
You know, about a week and a half ago, there was absolutely
no way I could be up here doing this message.
See, I came down with that nasty thing called the norovirus.
I had every one of those symptoms.
You know how people, we like to say that when you're sick, you
feel like it got hit by a truck? Well, I think I got hit by a
truck and then I got hit again by the truck.
And then the truck just kind of parked on top of me.
And I kept saying, Lord, I got to preach.
I got to preach as I'm running to the bathroom again.
We will have trouble, but Jesus is right with us through every
trouble. The third thing he says is that
he has overcome. You know that word overcome.
Nike stole that word. It's nikao in Greek.
It simply means to be victorious.
And The thing is, the way Jesus said that is that victory is
permanent. Jesus won, we share that
victory. That's a certainty.
And you know what? A year from now, I could tell
you again, Jesus won. We share that victory. 10,000
years from now it is still true. There will never be a time when
Jesus did not win and we share that victory.
That's a certainty. So again, true certainty
outshines false confidence. Now, maybe you're here this
morning and you're not a Christian.
At least you don't think you are.
You're not a Christian and but you're curious.
First of all, let me tell you, we're glad you're here.
We're glad you're here to here and to share and be with us.
But if you're not a Christian, let me just ask you to consider
something. We all experience uncertainties,
fears every single day. But what if you had someone in
your life who would always be there?
Who would be the one certain person to help you, who loves
you, who wants to have a relationship with you?
Would you come to him? That's the gospel Jesus offers
to take away every wrong we've ever done.
It's called sin so that we can have a relationship with God
Himself. Now, if you would like to have
that relationship, I'm going to pray a prayer in just a moment,
and I would invite you to pray with me.
And all you're doing at that time is inviting Jesus into your
life to be your Lord and to be your Savior.
So I'm going to ask now that we all bow our heads and close our
eyes simply so that there's no distractions.
Again, if you want to know Jesus, pray this prayer either
out loud or silently with me. Dear Jesus, I ask you to come
into my heart. I ask you to be my Savior and
Lord. I ask you to cleanse me of my
sin, to give me a new heart. I want to know you.
I want to walk with you. I want you in my life.
Lord Jesus. Now if you prayed that prayer
with me, would you simply raise your hand so that I can see it?
Thank you. Amen.
Let's go ahead and stand, please.
We have a few things that are going to happen before we have
communion. But let me say, first of all, if
you prayed to ask Jesus into your life, welcome to the
family. If you'll notice over here and
over here on the back wall, we have two tables that says, I
raised my hand. We have people there.
And if you just ask Jesus to come into your life, I would
invite you to visit the folks we have at those tables simply
because we want to help you in your new walk with the Lord.
Now, Christians, let me talk to you for just a moment, All
right? If you're struggling with
uncertainty like all of us do, there are two things that we can
do from this text that will help us, all right?
These are both applications, all right?
And both of them have the same word focus.
If we're struggling with uncertainty, anxiety, with
fears, first thing, focus upon the Father's love.
Secondly, focus upon Jesus victory.
And when I say focus, I mean the kind of focus that we do when
we're playing some kind of computer game or we're watching
something. It's like everything else sort
of fades away, and that's what we're dealing with.
That's the kind of focus we have to have.
If we do that, God will come alongside and give us that
certainty, even though we live in a very uncertain world.
But we have to focus on Him now. I'm going to invite the prayer
team to come forward. If you want to come forward with
prayer, which I think is a great thing to do, please come forward
as Lee prays. And then after this time, we
will be celebrating communion. You come as the Lord leads.