Gospel of John [16:33]. Why the believer has tribulation in the world. Mat 5:3-12; 2Co 6:1-10.

Title: Gospel of John [16:33]. Why the believer has tribulation in the world. MAT 5:3-12; 2CO 6:1-10.

 

 

JOH 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world."

 

"take courage" - qarse,w[tharseo; always imperative] = be courageous; cheer up!

 

We noted the other places that our Lord used this word and putting them together we get several reasons for why we should have a cheerful courage.

 

Be cheerful … He pardons all sin, His power heals all, His presence will comfort in the most fearful situations, He has a particular destiny for you, and He has thoroughly overcome the world and its evil.

 

We are overcomers because He has first overcome for us.

 

Yet we see that Christ and the disciples and indeed all believers share a common enemy - the world.

 

John defines the world in his epistle.

 

1JO 2:15 Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

 

1JO 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

 

1JO 2:17 And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.

 

All that is in the world does not originate or proceed from the Father, but has its source in the world itself. It is not primarily a thing, but an influence poured out into the very atmosphere of our lives.

 

We might reverse this proposition and say: “All that does not emanate from the Father, which you cannot trace back to His purpose in creation, is that mysterious indefinable influence or spirit which makes the world.”

 

The word kosmos does not refer to the collection of people or matter but the influence over the human spirit that exists in all four corners of the earth. It is like contaminated air that everyone breathes.

 

Christ exposed the poisonous influence of the world:

 

JOH 7:7

"The world cannot hate you; but it hates Me because I testify of it, that its deeds are evil.

 

God allowed the world to be ruled by Satan and allowed the free-will of man to respond as he pleased, within certain limits, and this is what happened.

 

The solution is not to become a monk or a weirdo but to overcome it through Christ's victory, which takes place in the privacy and intimacy of the soul.

 

The spirit of the world insinuates itself everywhere. It is what we call society; the consensus of fashionable opinion; the spirit which finds its satisfaction in that which is openly exhibited and the ephemeral or momentary. It is the ambition that is encircled by the rim of an earthly horizon; the aims, plans, and activities, which are comprehended, as the Preacher Solomon says, “under the sun.” You meet it in the school, where little children judge each other by their dress and the amount of wealth their families have. You find it in the country town, where strict lines are drawn between those who trend morally and immorally, the professional or laborer, the haves and have not’s. It is in social gatherings of all types - the tailgate party and the state dinner.

 

In Christ's ministry, He exposed this shallow hypocrisy by revealing that true blessedness or happiness is only in a relationship with the Father.

 

The sermon on the mount or beatitudes [Latin word for blessing] emphasized the spiritual character of the believer as flowing from within and not merely external.

 

The Pharisees taught that righteousness was an external thing, a matter of obeying rules and regulations. Righteousness could be measured by praying, giving, fasting, etc. In the Beatitudes and His other teachings, Jesus described Christian character that flowed from within.

 

In the sermon on the mount, Christ reveals the contrast between the ways of God and the ways of the world.

 

The contrast is so great that the words themselves (poor, mourn, gentle, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted, and insulted) have a different meaning to the world who sees them as weakness.

 

The sermon on the mount does not treat salvation, but the character and conduct of those that belong to Christ—the true yet rejected King.

 

Some wish to discount the sermon on the mount as eschatelogical or referring to some future date, the Millennium (some of these theologians are highly respectable, grace oriented, dispensational), or the conditions that need to be on earth from Him to return (postmillennial view).

 

While it is certainly clear that the epistles are more precise in delineating the particular responsibility and privilege of Christians in the present age, it would hardly be fitting for Matthew, writing this gospel many years after the death of Christ, to introduce material which would be irrelevant to his con­temporaries.

 

All of these are found in the OT, which shows us that though the plan has changed for the Church, the fact remains that worship of God was never in ritual and rule but within, through the heart. The world corrupted both testaments as is seen in the Pharisees and Sadducees of Christ's day as well as in modern Christianity.

 

As we have already noted, the Jews, while they wanted deliverance from the Romans and fulfillment of the material blessings promised in the millennium, were quite unprepared to accept the view that the millennial kingdom has spiritual implications. It was to be a rule of righteousness as well as a rule of peace and required born again or regenerate people who could fulfill a spiritual righteousness as opposed to a ritualistic, overt, pretend righteousness of rite and rote.

 

However, once read and understood, the sermon applies to much more than the earthly kingdom of Christ. It applies to the Church as well as a state of the soul who has overcome the world yet continues to be persecuted by the world.

 

"Blessed" - spiritual prosperity. Heavens blessings flood the soul of those saints whose heart is clothed with MAT 5:3-12.

 

MAT 5:3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

 

Poor in spirit - humility and insignificance before God.

World - pride, self-assertion, self-reliance, self-dependence.

 

We do not feign persecution from the world so that we may prove our righteousness to God, but it is for the reason that we walk in righteousness that the world persecutes us. We will walk in righteousness in heaven, but there will be no persecution in heaven. In the world system that has so influenced its inhabitants and continues to do so under its demonic ruler from the fallen, ignorant, and often unregenerate people within, the believer who walks in God's deliverance will face what is revealed in the NT.