“Trouble, Courage, Victory,” John 16:23-33

The last sentences of the last verse of our text are the ones that most of us have heard. They are the ones that are most often quoted and possibly they are the ones that are the most misunderstood. The NIV says it this way, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart I have overcome the world.” In these two sentences there is a reality, an encouraging command and there is a promise: There will be trouble, we must have courage, Jesus has the victory. Unfortunately for many of us the promise of victory has somehow overwritten the reality of trouble in our minds. The truth of Jesus overcoming the world has not given us courage for trouble but an expectation of exclusion from trouble. This morning as we look at our text i’m praying that we will learn to believe that courage must precede rescue, that peace is something in us, not something around us, and that Jesus’ victory is an eternal promise that must change how we live so that we can be used to change the world that we live in.