Overcoming the World

Overcoming the World (Jn 16)
Intro: In this world you will have tribulation (v1-6)
Purpose of the passage (v1,33). Importance of knowing God, "Eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God" (Jn 17:3, cf 16:3). Negatively illustrated from Schleiermacher's The Christian Faith.

1. Holy Spirit is coming to convict world of sin (v7-11)
   Jesus said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Mt 15:24). But the H.S. is now going to come (v8), & convict world of sin & righteousness & judgment. Of sin which is yours, of righteousness which may be yours, & of judgment which must be yours.

2. He will reveal Jesus to us more fully as Jesus goes to his Father (v12-22)
   "It's only as I leave that you will come to know Me as I want you to know Me." Their sorrow in his death will be swallowed up with joy in his resurrection. Because as he overcomes world, we also will overcome the world.

Packer: "the Spirit... is, so to speak, the hidden floodlight shining on the Saviour" (Keep in Step with the Spirit, 66).

3. The Father Himself loves & cares for us as His children (v23-28)
   The Father doesn't love us because Christ intercedes for us; but Christ intercedes for us because we are the objects of the Father's special love. Therefore, we need to have boldness in our prayers & approach to the Father.

Conclusion: The trial & triumph of faith (v29-33)
These men in the upper room, if they had learned the lessons that He was teaching them then, would not have gone out to sleep in Gethsemane, to tell lies in the high priest's hall, & to flee at the Cross, & to despair at the tomb.