Hi, Nathan W. Bingham here. Before we get to today's episode, I wanted to make you aware of an upcoming travel opportunity with other listeners of Renewing Your Mind and Friends of Ligonier, a Caribbean study cruise that sets sail next February. I'll be there and Dr. Derek Thomas and Pastor Ken Jones will be our teachers as they lead us through the rich theological truths of Galatians 3. Enjoy eight days of teaching, refreshment, and fellowship when you travel with us on this Caribbean study cruise.
You can learn more and register at liganeertours.com. I hope to see you there. Now onto today's episode. I've personally been struck by the number of earnest Christians who believe that the only reason the Father loves them is because Christ died for them, and they've never grasped that behind the death of the Lord Jesus for us stands the Father who loves us. Have you grasped that truth? For God so loved the world, John tells us, that He gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.
We're loved by God, therefore He sent Jesus, not the other way around. This is the Thursday edition of Renewing Your Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. As we've spent this week in John's account of Jesus with His disciples, in what are really intimate moments before Jesus will depart and lay down His life, Sinclair Ferguson has helped us glean many gospel and pastoral truths for the Christian life. So I do encourage you to finish this series by requesting lifetime digital access and a copy of Dr. Ferguson's Christmas devotional, Love Came Down at Christmas, when you give a donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org. For the final time in this farewell discourse, here's Dr. Ferguson with a message titled, The Meaning of Christmas at Easter.
What you're saying. And in fact, the great writers of the 17th century who composed the Westminster Confession and the Westminster Catechisms also emphasized that people who preach should preach so that, the phrase they used, so that the meanest may understand. They didn't mean the Scotsman in the congregation should understand. They meant the people who had least understanding.
And I love a word of Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the 19th century preacher, when he said, the Lord Jesus said, feed my sheep, not my giraffes. But sometimes I wonder how Jesus would have got on in a preaching class, because it's pretty clear in the farewell discourse that not everything he said was crystal clear to disciples who had listened to him for a period now of three years. And there are many things that he is saying here that they find a little puzzling. Indeed, as we've seen, Jesus has already emphasized to them that there are actually things they need to know that they're not yet able to bear. The problem, of course, was not lack of intellect. The problem was not lack of clarity in what Jesus was saying. The problem was that they didn't have the spiritual understanding, the disarmament, the grasp of how the kingdom of God works, that would enable them to understand what Jesus was saying.
They needed what I sometimes call Velcro strips in their thinking so that they could grasp, so that what Jesus said to them would actually stick and they would be able to understand it. But it's interesting now as Jesus continues to teach them that he notices, as you sometimes do if you're a preacher or a teacher, that people have begun to talk among themselves. And there they are around this table where they've gathered for the Passover meal, and he notices that one or two of them are looking towards each other and they're whispering to each other, have you any idea what the master is talking about now? It seems as though he is leading them into deeper and deeper truths about himself, about themselves, about what it means to know God as your Father, about what does all this teaching in the Old Testament about the coming of the Holy Spirit and the new heart that he will give, what is this really all about?
We don't really understand. And Jesus is the quintessentially patient teacher with them, and he begins to explain now more and more of what it is that they don't understand. He realizes, of course, that they are perplexed by the truths he is teaching them, and there are some more questions that now arise that puzzle in their minds that Jesus begins to solve. One of the things they're puzzled about is what is all this talk about a little while? Jesus had said to them, you will see me, and then a little while and you won't see me, and then a little while and you will see me again. And then there was another question that arose in their mind. Why is it that Jesus seems to be speaking to us in riddles? And then as they begin to feel dawning on their spirits that there is a dark cloud of trial and tribulation and opposition coming on them, the big question is, how are we ever going to survive this tribulation without the presence of the Lord Jesus?
So let's look at these questions now. Jesus, what do you mean when you keep on speaking about this little while? Look at what he says in chapter 16 and verse 16.
A little while and you will see me no more, and again a little while and you will see me. So some of his disciples said to one another, what is this that he says, a little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me, and what does this mean because I am going to the Father? And he needs to explain this to them.
In a little while he is going to be taken from them. He is going to be crucified and buried and they will not see him. And then after just a little while he will reappear to them and things will become wonderfully crystal clear to them at last. I heard recently from a friend a couple of years ago there was an economic forecast in the United Kingdom where one of the leading economists speaking about the sales there had been that year over the Christmas season.
When stores particularly hoped to make their biggest profit, this economic forecaster said this delightful thing. He said the meaning of Christmas will not become clear until Easter. And of course what he meant was it will take the economist some time to work through how successful the Christmas sales have been and it may be Easter time. But he spoke more than he understood, didn't he? And this is what Jesus is saying here. He is saying the meaning of all this is only going to become clear in the resurrection. You know sometimes when you are puzzling something out there is a missing link.
And just that one piece, that one missing link when it is put into your thinking or put into the puzzle, it changes everything. And Jesus is saying that is the way you will come to understand the gospel. You are trying to understand a resurrection-less Christ. You are trying to grasp a resurrection-less gospel. So all you see is opposition and difficulty and trial and you are filled with fear.
But when the key element becomes clear to you, everything else will begin to make sense. And he is teaching them one of the fundamental principles of the Christian life, isn't it? We live the Christian life in the light of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and in the assurance that his Holy Spirit will be with us to help us. But out of that principle, Jesus draws a very significant lesson for the disciples and you will see it in verse 20. Notice again it is one of those sayings that begins with the Amen, Amen.
It is all important but here is a very specially important principle. Truly, truly I say to you, you will weep and lament and the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she is sorrow because her hour has come. But when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.
Now what is Jesus saying here? He is saying there will be joy that will follow on the sorrow. But I think by using this illustration of the woman in labor, he is actually teaching us a deeper truth than that. The joy that the child has been born doesn't just follow the pain of the labor. The pain of the labor is absolutely essential to the joy of the birth. The pain in a sense is productive of the joy. And this in fact is the general New Testament teaching about the relationship between suffering and joy, tribulation and glory. It isn't just that there is suffering now and there will be glory then. It is that the glory is actually apparently produced out of the raw materials of the suffering.
Just as the raw materials of the labor pain of the woman is the very reality that gives birth to the child and to the joy that the child is born. In other words, isn't this something everyone wants to know about suffering and tribulation? You notice when people who are not Christians go through suffering and tribulation, the thing they most want to be able to do is to make sense of it. But they don't have a framework of reference and so they try to create that sense. People go through tremendous tragic losses and they're not able to make any sense of it.
So for example, they may start a foundation or a trust because they desperately want to make sense of the tragedy and the sorrow, but it doesn't seem to have any sense in itself. And Jesus is saying that the Christian sees something that the non-Christian doesn't see. The Christian understands that the sufferings, the tribulation through which he or she goes, actually is the raw materials in the Father's hand.
The potter's fingers are on that suffering and he's crafting something out of it. Remember the line of the hymn that speaks about the exalted Jesus and His wounds glorified above. The wonder of who the Savior is is actually related to the sufferings through which the Savior went.
Remember how Paul puts it. He says, this light affliction that I'm going through is working an exceeding weight of glory. You see, when the disciples begin to understand that this is the meaning of the little while, the little while of tribulation will give place to the day of joy and splendor and glory, not only for Jesus but also for them, then it's this that will sustain them through suffering, and the same surely for us. We flinch from suffering.
None of us desires to go through it. It can so easily overwhelm us and sink us. But when we see that in the Father's hands that suffering may be productive of something glorious and fruitful in our lives, we submit to Him and we say to Him, Father, this is so sore for me, but will you not produce glory through it? It was actually almost the first lesson that Jesus taught the disciples on His resurrection.
Remember the two on the Emmaus rod? Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer in order that He would enter into His glory? And the same in a miniature sense is also true for us. So, He says we have this privilege that we can call upon the name of the Father and make our requests known to Him because we know that His sovereign hand is over all the affliction that we go through. But then there's a second question that arises, and this comes out in verses 25 through 27. Jesus says, I've 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. Now, He has used the figure of speech here, hasn't He?
Well, He'd used the figure of speech of the vine and the branches. And now He's used this figure of speech of the woman who is in labor, and He's not sure that they're quite able to grasp the truth. Indeed, He sees that they're not grasping the truth, and so He uses these riddles, these wise sayings, these illustrations, these parables to help them to get at least the beginning of a grasp on what He wants them to understand. Just like we do with children, we say to them now, you don't understand this, but it's a bit like this.
And if you see your experience through the lenses of this picture, then you'll begin to be able to make sense of your own experience. So, the reason He is speaking to them in riddles is to help them get the beginning of a grasp of the truth of the gospel. And the day will come when He will speak plainly to them about the Father. And actually, that's the first thing Jesus does on His resurrection.
I wonder if you've ever noticed that? When He is encountered by Mary in the garden, the first person to have a conversation with the risen Jesus. And remember His parting words to her? His parting words were, No, go home and tell my brothers that I am ascending to my God and Father and to their God and Father. If you think about it, all the way through the wonderful revelation of the Old Testament Scriptures, you don't really find anybody coming to God and saying, Abba, Father. All these hundreds of years, all these great saints of old, and they don't have this wonderful sense that you can go to God and you can call Him your dear Heavenly Father.
When they spoke about God as the Father, they usually meant that He is the creator of the ends of the earth, or perhaps that He is the creator of the nation of Israel. But the idea that the ordinary believer could go into the presence of God, He couldn't do that. Only the high priest could do that.
And then only He could do it once a year. And when He was there, His prayers never began, Our Father in Heaven. His first words were never, Abba, Father. But Jesus is saying, I'm telling you these things in what seem to be riddles to you, but when I'm risen from the grave and you understand the new relationship that I've brought with my Heavenly Father, then on that day I will speak plainly to you about the Father. But He says, for the moment, look at what He says in verse 27, For the moment, I want you to understand this, 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.
That's what they've been expecting Him to do. Jesus asked the Father for this. He's your Father. So, there's no way we could go to Him and say, Heavenly Father, will you give us this? But you're able to do that, Jesus.
We've heard you do that, Jesus. And He's saying, now the day is dawning when you will no longer be coming to Me and saying, Will you ask the Father? Because, verse 27, these amazing words, For the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came from God.
Now, my friends, just focus on those words because they can make all the difference to your Christian life. The Father Himself loves you. The Father Himself loves you. I wonder if you've ever heard the Gospel preached this way, as I have. The reason the Father loves you is because Christ died on the cross for you.
The reason the Father loves you is because Christ died on the cross for you. You know, that's not the Gospel. That's actually a distortion of the Gospel.
That's a distortion of John 3.16, isn't it? John 3.16 says, The Father so loved the world Himself that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. And one of the things I've found throughout Christian pastoral ministry, I've personally been struck by the number of earnest Christians who have believed that the only reason the Father loves them is because Christ died for them. And they've never grasped that behind the death of the Lord Jesus for us stands the Father who loves us.
What difference does that make? If you think that the Father loves you only because Christ died for you, you begin to be a little suspicious of the Father. Jesus loves you, but Jesus has had to persuade the Father to love you by giving Himself as a sacrifice to, as I sometimes say, almost to twist the Father's arm. Father, if I die for them, will you please start loving them?
But that's not the Gospel, is it? And that can produce a terrible mistrust of the Heavenly Father, a love for Jesus, but a sense of distance from the Father. And Jesus is saying to them, What you are going to understand in the fullness of time is that the Father Himself loves you. Perhaps you're one of those Christians and at least for the next season, every single day you rise and you realize it's a new day, you need to say to yourself, the Father Himself loves me. The Son Himself loves me.
The Spirit Himself loves me. And I have fellowship in the love of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit together. And you see that, in a sense, is part answer to their third question that arises in verses 29 through 33. How are you going to help us through this season when you are distant from us and in the season to come when we will not see you again until we see you in glory? And Jesus begins to explain in these very poignant and touching words, as they say, Now you're speaking plainly and not using figurative speech.
Now we know that you know all things and don't need anyone to question you. This is why we believe that you came from God and you see that they are saying, I've got it now and I'll never lose it, just as we sometimes do ourselves. I'll never be the same again because I understand this truth of the Gospel. And Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves. He says to them, do you notice how He says to them, Do you now believe?
You think you believe, but do you now believe? The hour is coming when you will be scattered each to his own home and you will leave me alone. But He's saying, you don't need to worry about Me because I am not alone because the Father is with Me. And because you are so weak, I have said these things to you that in Me you may have peace.
In the world you will have tribulation, but I have overcome the world. Do you see the big words here? They're two words with which you're all familiar. The first is shalom. In me you will have peace. And the second, interestingly, is the verb from which the sports manufacturer gets its name.
It's the word Nike, and it means triumph and victory. And this, in a sense, is his closing teaching. When you trust in me, you will have peace in a disturbed world and victory over all the enemies of the Gospel. And that's what I'll mean for you, to be my disciples. Well, may we learn these lessons and be truly Christ's disciples for His glory.
Amen. You're listening to Renewing Your Mind, and that was Ligonier Ministries teaching fellow Sinclair Ferguson. Today is the final day that you'll hear from Dr Ferguson's series, Lessons from the Upper Room. But this 12-message series can be yours for life when you give a year-end donation of any amount at renewingyourmind.org, or when you call us at 800-435-4343. Your generosity will help more people to be reached in 2025 with the truth of God's Word and clear, faithful teaching. As our way of saying thank you, in addition to access to Lessons from the Upper Room and its study guide, we'll send you Dr Ferguson's popular Christmas devotional, Love Came Down at Christmas. This offer does end today, so please use the link in the podcast show notes or visit renewingyourmind.org to give your gift before midnight tonight. Sinclair Ferguson will be with us again tomorrow, but you'll hear a conversation I had with him about the Christian life, and about a brand new resource from him that I believe will be a help for you in 2025. So don't miss tomorrow's episode here on Renewing Your Mind. .
