The Fullness of Knowing Him

Matthew McDonald

The Trial of the Christ • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

John 16:23–33

Union with Christ

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There is a phrase I heard a lot growing up that goes like this, “The more I learn, the less I know.” Now, I thought I understood that phrase when I was a child. I was pretty sure it meant that the more you learned about things and the more opinions you heard, the more complicated and confusing life got to where you were sure that you didn’t know anything at all.

It wasn’t until I got a lot older that I really began to understand that I had it all wrong. And it wasn’t my fault because I had been very young. And when you’re young, you don’t know what you don’t know. In fact, somewhere between 16-20, most people get it in their heads that they’ve got things figured out, pretty much. At that point, you’ve had just enough education and life experience to muster up a few grains of wisdom, and you begin to speak and to operate in life as though you are someone with great understanding. A scene from the movie, “The Sound of Music,” comes to mind, as the young man tells the slightly younger lady that he is older and wiser and will take care of her.

But then something happens. You go out and you have more education. You live life and you have things happen good and bad. You try big ideas that work, and you step out in what you think is wisdom and make a fool of yourself. You have more life experience. You start to learn more and more. And the more you learn, the more you begin to realize how much more there is to learn that you haven’t even started thinking about learning. And at that point, you begin to see that their are entire libraries filled books written on things that you don’t know. You see, the more you learn, the more it is revealed to you just how little you really know.

Open your Bibles with me to the Gospel of John, chapter 16. That’s the Gospel of John, chapter 16. And as you find your place, I’ll remind you of two things. First, remember that the Gospel of John is written as an eyewitness account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is written as a trial of sorts, where John is working to convince you and I, the jury, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to earth and became man so that He could offer to us forgiveness of our sins and restore to us a relationship with God the Father that would bring us eternal life in His heavenly Kingdom.

And secondly, I’ll remind you that over the course of this chapter, Jesus told us that He was going for a little while, and that the time of His absence from us would be hard for us, but that we need to stay focused on the job He has given us because He will be back in a little while. And while He is gone, He has sent to us the Great Helper, the Holy Spirit, who is also fully God, and who helps us with things that we cannot do for ourselves. He convicts us of our sins, and gives to us right interpretation of Scripture, He reveals through it things about God and ourselves that we didn’t understand before. He intercedes for us, praying for things we don’t even know to ask for. He emboldens us, strengthens us, and fills us with power.

And He will ever point us towards that day, in a little while, when Jesus comes again. That day, when our sorrow and pain will turn into eternal joy. And so this is the context in which we begin with our text this morning. We are going to be reading from John 16, beginning in verse 23. And because we hold the Word of God in great reverence and respect, let us honor our Heavenly Father by standing together, as you are able, as we read it together.

John 16:23–33 NASB95

“In that day you will not question Me about anything. Truly, truly, I say to you, if you ask the Father for anything in My name, He will give it to you. “Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full. “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. “In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.” His disciples said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. “Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.” Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Would you pray with me? Father, I thank You that we are still able to gather in this place, both in person and through technology, to worship you together in Spirit and in truth. You are everything that we long for and desire, and we want You to be glorified in the way that we live our lives before You. We have so many things to learn, and so much that we have yet to understand, and so we ask You to help us as we study Your Word together today. Help us to understand it. Help us to be changed by it. Lord, use it to draw Your children closer to You and to bring dead hearts to life. Help us to do what it says out of our great love for You. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

Thank you, you may be seated. The more I learn, the less I know. In higher academic study, there is a moment of great humility available if we are willing to see it. The highest type of college degree you can achieve is a doctoral degree, or post-graduate. And to earn your P.H.D., you have to read more and write more than you ever have before. And all of these works are geared at helping you to write your dissertation. And a doctoral dissertation is a book. It is supposed to be a new contribution to the field that you have studied, something that nobody else has ever written about. And not only are you to become the expert on what you are writing about, but you have to be able to defend the positions that you take on it once your teachers have read it.

And what is incredible to me in this is that the moment a scholar receives their P.H.D., they have reached the pinnacle of academic study. And yet, their final act as a student is a full on admission that despite all of those years of study, despite all of those degrees achieved by all of those teachers in all of those universities and centers of study, there is still so much left to study. There is still so much that we don’t know, and studying for half of your life can’t even come close to getting you to know a little bit of it.

Surely, at this stage in the journey, the disciples felt like they knew Jesus. They had walked with Him, they saw His miracles, listened to Him preach. They had sat around many late night fires discussing things with Him. They had eaten together more times than they could count. Surely, Christian, you and I would say that we know Jesus. If you have walked in the Christian faith any length of time, you share in that sense that you know who Jesus is. If your faith is true, you have a relationship with Him. But as we approach this text this morning, the very first thing that I want you to write down, and in some ways this is the central theme of what we’re talking about here this morning, is this:

There is so much more to Jesus than you and I could ever understand

Jesus Christ is the full revelation of God. God exists in three persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is only one of these three. Yet, our God is one in nature. And these things are different. Jesus is not God in a way that is different from the way that God the Father is God. The Holy Spirit is not God in the same way that God the Father and God the Son are God. Being God doesn’t take on a new definition. God is one in nature, even though He exists in three persons. And so, what we see in Jesus is that He reveals fully to us the nature of who God is.

What is true about the character of Jesus is true of the character of the Father. What the Son hates the Spirit hates. What the Spirit loves the Father loves. And so, in knowing Jesus, we see the full character of God on display for all of the world to see. And yet, there is more for us to see in Jesus that can ever be seen. There is more to know about Him than can ever be known. And we should expect this to be true, because He is God.

There are many faiths that would tell you that they know and understand the nature of the god they worship. I would say, beloved, that if you can full understand the nature of your God, your God is too small. There should be things that we don’t understand about God. He is infinite, we are not. But the good news for us in that we can continue to know Him more and more. Look at the first couple verses with me. Verse 23:

John 16:23–25 NASB95

Jesus starts off this section by saying “in that day.” Well, what does He mean? What day is He talking about? Last week you’ll remember we were talking about a little while, and how it referred both to the time after His resurrection and the day at the end of time, when Jesus comes back. We were talking about how both of these returns of Jesus, first from among the dead and later to bring the glory of God in judgment and redemption.

And what Jesus says in these three verses is really, truly earth shattering stuff. When Jesus starts this with “in that day”, what He is saying to us is this:

From Christ’s resurrection throughout all of eternity, we will learn the fullness of God

The word in this passage that is translated as “ask for” is most of the time translated “ask” or to ask a question. And Jesus starts verse 23 saying “you won’t have to question me.” You’re not going to have to have any doubts. There aren’t going to be any secrets. Through the person of Jesus Christ, you and I are now in relationship with the Father.

And Jesus is saying to us that for you and me, right now, God is no longer hidden. Right now, you and I can ask the Father to reveal to us truths of who He is and because of Jesus, He will show them to us. The process has already begun, and it will take all of eternity to be completed, and yet Jesus tells us here that we will know the fullness of God. We can ask Him to reveal Himself to us and He will! And that is a big deal for us, because of what verse 24 says. Look again.

John 16:24 NASB95

“Until now you have asked for nothing in My name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.

We can ask for anything that is accordance with God’s will and it will be given to us. We can ask God to make what is unclear clear, and to reveal Himself more fully to us, and He will do it, and what Jesus says is that

Knowing the fullness of God is the very definition of joy

Knowing God to the fullest will complete your joy. What we lack in joy in the here and now comes from our lack of understanding of God. Let me say that again. What we lack in joy right now comes from our lack of understanding of God. If we truly knew God, if we knew His nature, His purposes, His character, His love, His power, His mercy and forgiveness, if we truly knew and understood God, I truly believe that there is nothing on this earth that could tear away our joy because to understand God is the fullness of understanding.

If you understand God, there is nothing you won’t understand. Look at verse 25:

John 16:25 NASB95

“These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father.

When we’re trying to help others understand something we’re sharing, we use analogies and similes, and metaphors. I’ve used a couple this morning. We do this because we want something the other person might not understand to be clear. And Scripture is full of these things. Why? It’s because God knows that you and I have limited understanding.

Do you know why we allow grief to consume us when a loved one in Christ dies? It is because of limited understanding. Sure we miss them, but our grief is shortened and lessened when we confidently know that this life is short and eternity is long, and we will be with them again.

Why does the agony of long suffering tear so many people apart? It’s because we think that this life is long.

Why do we sometimes get angry with God when bad things happen? Is it not born out of our limited understanding?

But Jesus tells us that a day is coming when this will no longer be a problem for us. We can ask any question, we can make any request, and what we ask for will come to us because we have been granted full access to our God, and knowing His fullness will make us full of joy. The more that we know God, the more that we will understand and the harder it will be to rip away our joy. This is why James can write and say:

James 1:5 NASB95

But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

Let’s continue together in our passage. Look at verse 26 with me.

John 16:26–28 NASB95

“In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. “I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.”

Friends,

Our key to God’s fullness is our position in Christ

You and I have so many things that we don’t know or understand. That is true about life in general. That is true in this tangible place that we can touch and taste and see and smell and hear and experience. When you consider the thousands of years of human history that have passed and we still don’t know everything about our own planet, collectively together. And as amazing as Google is, as amazing as it is that I have most of the things that humanity has ever learned literally laying in the palm of my hand when I pick up my smart phone, there are still questions to be answered. There are still things that we don’t know, and that’s just talking about the planet that we live in, much less our solar system, or our galaxy, or our universe.

How much more so is this true about God? There is so much about God that we don’t know. There is so much that mankind has never known or understood about God. But because of Jesus, that door has been unlocked for us. Because of Jesus, we can begin to understand. We can ask God to reveal Himself to us, and He does. Colossians 1:26-27 says it like this:

Colossians 1:26–27 NASB95

that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to His saints, to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

For ages and ages and ages, it was impossible for mankind to know and experience the fullness of God, but then Jesus came. And in Christ, you and I have access to the Father. Through Jesus, you and I can ask God anything, we can ask Him for anything. And the really cool part is that we can go directly to the source.

When I was growing up, we had friends over to the house all the time. Our house was always full of people. And the first few times that a friend would come over they would ask me for things, and I would go ask my parents on their behalf. “Hey, can we have some of that cake.” Umm, I don’t know, hold on. “Mom, can we have some of this cake.”

And it was like that because they didn’t know my parents, they knew me, and I was their only connection in being where they were. But as time went by, my parents grew a love for my friends. They loved my friends because my friends loved me. And they would go to my parents themselves to ask for things. They came to be part of the family because they were my friends. And I remember, during my second year in college, I came home for the weekend to surprise my parents. And when I walked in the door, I found my mom and dad sitting at the table talking with one of my high school friends. I hadn’t talked to them in quite some time, but they had needed some advice and so they had come to see my parents.

Beloved, our Father in heaven loves us because we love Jesus and Jesus loves us. And Jesus has gone to the Father. He is with the Father, in His right hand of power. And what Jesus is saying here is that He knows that what we know is not enough. He is saying that you and I need to continue to grow in our knowledge and understanding of God. We need to continue to grow in the fullness of God, and because we belong to Jesus, because of the relationship we have with Him, we now also have that relationship with the Father.

And we can go to God, we can go to our Father that we long to know and desperately need, we can go directly to Him because we go in the name of Jesus. And anything that we ask of the Father, it is as though Jesus Himself were asking for it. And we have to let that sink in for a moment, because I think that reality is really more than I think we can fully understand in a lifetime of consideration, that Jesus has opened the door for us to go directly to God and to know Him fully because we are known by Jesus.

Jesus just laid a bombshell on us. Jesus just told us something that changes everything, and in some ways, we’re back to where we started because, the more I learn, the less I know. Jesus has given you access to the fullness of the eternal God. You can spend a thousand lifetimes searching Him, and not know all there is to know. And the deeper you go, the more you will see that it is true. And I have to chuckle, because sometimes we forget this.

We get content with what we know. We get a glimpse, an amazing flash at the brilliance of one part of who God is, and all of a sudden we think we have arrived. Look at the disciples response to Jesus here in verse 29:

John 16:29–30 NASB95

His disciples said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. “Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.”

What did the disciples just say? They said “OH! Now we get it! Now we understand! Now we see that you know everything, and we don’t even need anybody else to help us see it. Now we believe you are from God! Jesus, now we get YOU! Now we don’t need anybody to explain you to us anymore! Now we believe!

Basically, Jesus, we’ve arrived! And while most of us would never admit it, down inside of us, sometimes we think like this. I’m reminded of this time in college a new guy walked in to a Bible study I was leading in my dorm building. We were in the lounge of the building, and so anyone could come, and this fellow, Doug, came in and sat down. He asked what we were studying, and I said “Ephesians.” And he responded, “oh, can we study something else, I’ve already read that one.”

And we chuckle at that, but Doug was serious, and I think that he said something that we sometimes gets in our heads. Like that 16 year old or that 20 year old, we start to think we’re wise. We start to thing we’ve got it down, that we fully understand. We learn a few things and we don’t realize how much we don’t know because we’re comfortable where we are. And I want us to look at how Jesus responds here:

John 16:31 NASB95

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

The disciples tell Jesus, hey! We get it! Now we understand. Now we believe. And Jesus answers them, by saying “do you now?” And I wish we could hear His tone of voice in the way He asked that question, because to me it seems a bit rhetorical to me. “Oh, now you believe?” “Oh, NOW you get it, do you?” And we need to hear this, because as wonderful as it is that we can know the fullness of God, As extraordinary it is that Jesus has opened the door for us to truly know the fullness of joy that can only come through knowing God, we need to have in us a holy discontent. We need a holy humility to truly believe that we know and understand very little. We need an unquenchable desire to know more of the fullness of God. Because, here’s the thing: you are going to arrive in a moment when what you have and what you know is not sufficient for what is in front of you.

We’re almost done, let’s look at the last two verses:

John 16:32–33 NASB95

“Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Jesus says, basically, “you don’t know what you think you know! And an hour is coming when you are going to be scattered. You are going to be all alone, and you are going to leave Me all alone, but I won’t be alone because I have the Father, and I’m trying to tell you that you don’t have to be alone because you can have the Father as well, and you are going to need Him.

And our final point this morning is found in this, friends:

The fullness of God is our key to surviving our current suffering

The fullness of God has to become what defines you. And the depth to which you know God will be the depth to which you can stand against the trials and suffering that this world will throw at you because of Jesus. Let me repeat that. The depth to which you know God will be the depth to which you can stand against the trials and suffering that this world will throw at you because of Jesus.

Jesus uses the word tribulation here. Tribulation means “a state of great trouble or suffering. We talked about this when we studied the book of Job together. Jesus isn’t talking about a little bit of suffering or an occasional problem. He is talking about a long periods of suffering. Suffering that is born out of the brokenness of sin and death. Suffering that comes to His followers because they are the living amongst the dead.

And we’re told to take courage. We’re told that Jesus has overcome the world. We’re told that we can have peace. But we are only going to know these things in our lives to the extent that we know God our Father. Do you want to know peace? grow in knowing the Father. Do you want to know the joy? Grow in knowing the Father. Do you want courage to face the battle ahead of you? Grow in knowing the Father. How do you know the Father? Know the Son. Because when you belong to Jesus, there is nothing of Himself that God the Father will hold back from you.

This morning, we sit more than 4 months into being scattered. We are isolated and alone, and as a country we are more divided than we have been in over a hundred and 150 years. And as fears and anger and frustration and doubt and angst and apathy and hatred collide; as men draw lines in the sand and demand that you pick a side racially or politically; As friends and neighbors squabble over wearing a mask and being forced to, I ask you beloved, what you know of His fullness?

Are you shaking your fist in the battle cry of your causes, declaring what you know and have figured out? Or are you on your knees before our Father, asking Him to reveal what you can’t see? Have you grown to contentment with where you are, convinced that you know Him enough, or are you desperate for more of His fullness because you simply can’t get enough?

The altar is open this morning. It is here for those that would come to the Father in the Name of the Son to find that He is more than enough for all that we have need of. It is here for those that do not know the Son and are desperate for His love. Come to the Father. Come know His joy and His peace, that can only be yours in His fullness.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, Jesus, how privileged we are to be able to come to the Father because of your love for us. Thank you for revealing Him to us. Thank you for opening the door for us to have a relationship with You. And Lord, we come before you this morning with our arms open wide and our hearts laid bare because we have only just begun to realize how much we have to learn about You. But we come because we would ask to know You in your fullness. We ask that You would stir our hearts and awaken our souls to our desperate need for more of You. We are hurting and broken and we know that our joy and peace and hope can only be found in You. And this morning, You have promised us that if we ask in Christ’s Name, You will give us what we are lacking in your fullness, and so we cry out to you to fill us. Fill us, Oh God. Fill us with the knowledge and understanding of who You are so that in You our joy may be full. In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.

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