This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day three of our look together through John chapter 16
in Daily Drive Time Devotions. We're going to be looking at the subject of joy
today. Jesus is going to be talking about the subject of joy.

As we begin our look at this, let me just ask you, which of these words do you
think would describe the typical Christian today or your typical life today? Let
me just give you a list of eight or nine words. Worried, secure, uptight,
peaceful, pressured, burdened, stressed, joyful.

I think I'm afraid of the fact that for many of us, the worried, uptight,
burdened life is ours more than the secure, peaceful, joyful life that God wants
for us. You see, what makes life exciting really isn't the events in your day.
It's not the money in the bank that you have.

It's the joy in your heart. If you don't have joy in your heart over the events
of the day or the resources that God has placed at your disposal, then life
isn't going to be exciting no matter how much you have or how busy your life is.
And there's just some people, you've met them, that they can live every day with
excitement and enthusiasm, while other people, they face the most exciting of
days with only anxiety or apathy.

It is joy that makes the difference. It's joy that builds genuine excitement.
It's joy that doesn't disappoint or disappear in our lives.

It's Jesus' kind of joy. If you've ever been uptight in your life as a believer
in Jesus Christ, then you realize that, "Well, I'm needing something. There's
something missing in my life.

" Well, Jesus understands that there are things missing in our lives. He
understands that the circumstances don't turn out like we want them to turn out.
But even in the midst of that kind of a life, he talks to us about joy.

Listen to what he said to his disciples the night before he died in verses 16 to
18 of John 16. "In a little while, Jesus said, 'You will see me no more. ' And
then, 'After a little while, you will see me.

' Some of the disciples said to one another, 'What does he mean by saying, 'In a
little while, you'll see me no more,' and then, 'After a little while, you will
see me, and because I'm going to the Father? ' And they kept asking, 'What does
he mean by a little while? ' We do not understand what he's saying.

" We're going to take a look together at God's process of joy the next couple of
days, a three-part process that Jesus talks about in these verses. Now, the
process isn't nearly so simple as the word "process" sounds. It doesn't always
happen in the same amount of time as you might think.

The steps don't take the same length of time, but you always go through these
three things when you come to the point of joy in your life. Want to understand
God's process? Step number one in God's process is what the disciples were going
through right here.

Step number one is confusion. Step number one in God's process of faith is
problems. We find that out in Romans 5 and in James chapter 1.

And step number one in God's process of joy is often confusion. Things just
don't make sense at the beginning. Here, Jesus was leaving, and they were
confused.

We don't understand, "Jesus, why do you have to be going? Why should you be
going? " You see, we tend to depend on, all of us, we tend to depend on things
that we can hold on to for joy.

And when God allows one of those things to be taken away, our first response is
almost always confusion. "God, why would you do that? You put that into my life.

Obviously God sent Jesus into the world. There's nothing as obvious as that. So
why would you take it out of my life?

" If you read through the New Testament, you find out that the disciples of
Jesus were often confused. I don't know about you, but in a strange way, that is
encouraging to me. Because I realize that's part of the process of life.

All of us are sometimes confused at, "What's God doing? Why is he doing it? How
is it working out?

" And so when you're confused, what should you do? You should do what the
disciples finally end up doing here. When you're confused, to build your joy in
a time of confusion, you ask Jesus a question.

You ask Jesus what's going on. Now the answer doesn't always come back
immediately, but at least it gets you listening. Now the disciples here, they do
what we usually begin to do.

Whether I think about it in my own mind, I'm confused. Or the greatest extent
that we go to is we do what they did. We discuss it amongst ourselves.

Let me give you a simple principle about Bible study. Ask Jesus before you ask
anybody else. "Oh, it's okay to talk with other people.

In fact, I've learned things from other people that I would never have learned
if I hadn't been in a Bible study with them. So I'm not discounting learning
from other people. " But ask Jesus first.

Sometimes He just wants to show you personally. Sometimes you need to listen and
learn from Him. And sometimes, in fact all the time, I don't ask Jesus and no
one else in the Bible study is asking Him.

Then that Bible study, that trying to figure out what God's doing in our lives,
it turns into an exchange of our ignorance, an opportunity to share our opinions
rather than really hearing the voice of God, what Jesus has to say. Now I want
you to see that Jesus cares enough about us that even though we need to ask a
question and we can't quite get to it, sometimes He brings it up anyway through
some other person, through some other event. He brings it up because He wants to
give us the answer.

Look at what happened here, John 16, 19 to 20. Jesus saw that they wanted to ask
Him about this and so He said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant
when I said in a little while you'll see me no more and then after a little
while you'll see me? " And then He gives them the answer.

I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will
grieve but your grief will turn to joy. Jesus knows that He's going to die on
the cross the next day and He knows that there's going to be some people that
rejoice in that moment but not the disciples.

He knows that the disciples are going to weep and mourn when that happens. You
will grieve but your grief will turn to joy. Step number two in God's process of
joy in our lives, first there's confusion, second grief.

Grief to build faith, to build joy during a time of grief, remember that grief
is an inevitable part of the process of joy. You see, grief in our lives, it's
the result of a loss and loss is an unavoidable part of life on this earth. In
heaven, there's going to be no more loss, no more crying, no more tears, no more
pain, no more loss but on earth we constantly have losses so we grieve.

We grieve over the loss of a family member, we grieve over the loss of a job, we
grieve over the loss of a dream, we grieve over the loss of so many things in
our lives and when that loss comes, always along with loss comes the emotion of
grief. Jesus says you will weep, you will mourn but your grief will turn to joy.
We're going to talk about turn to joy tomorrow but today I want to focus on the
grief part.

I want to say that I've discovered in my life as a pastor, in my own personal
life that those who don't allow themselves to grieve don't experience joy. Why
is that? It's because in refusing to grieve, we're pretending.

We're pretending the loss really isn't there. We're pretending the loss really
doesn't affect us. When it does in some way, it affects people differently but
it affects you in some way and when you pretend that there's no loss and you
don't allow yourself to grieve, to be honest about the feeling of loss, then you
can't get through the grief to the joy and so because you're pretending, you
never get to joy.

Grieving is not the way to joy. When I talk about grief, you will grieve. Let me
just remind you that we all grieve in different ways.

When a family goes through grief over the loss of somebody who dies in the
family, I've often seen that people expect everyone to grieve like they do. Why
aren't they able to sit and be quiet like I am? That's how everybody should
grieve.

No, people grieve differently. Why don't they want to get out and be with people
and talk about it like I do? Why do they sit and be quiet?

Why can't they do that? They should grieve like I grieve. No, people grieve in
different ways.

Grieving is one of the most personal things that we do in our lives and so it's
going to fit your personality and who you are. We all grieve in different ways.
It takes us different amounts of time to get through a grief but what I'm saying
here and what Jesus is saying is you will grieve.

The Bible tells us in Thessalonians, Paul wrote and told them, we grieve as
Christians but we don't grieve as those who have no hope. So instead of
pretending, thinking that because I'm a Christian, I have to pretend that this
really isn't a loss, I'm going to go to heaven someday, I won't feel this
anymore, so I'll pretend I don't feel it now, Jesus says, you will grieve.
You're going to weep, you're going to mourn.

Other people around you might be rejoicing, you will grieve. So recognize the
loss and when you do that, you're looking forward to something. You don't even
know it in that moment but in a great way you're looking forward.

We're going to talk about that tomorrow but before that, before that you might
need as we pray today, just talk to Jesus for a few moments. You might need
right now to ask for God's comfort for a loss in your life. God come and comfort
me.

Now you may be listening to this devotion at the very moment where you've just
experienced a loss. This is God's timing in life to bring you this word of
comfort right now. Or you may be hearing this and there's a loss in your life
that happened maybe years ago but you've never asked for God's comfort.

You've never grieved that loss, you've always pretended it wasn't a loss. Jesus
says we have losses in this life so come to me for comfort. Right now say Jesus
Christ, comfort my heart.

Jesus thank you that you understand that we weep and that we mourn. And thank
you that you comfort me in my grief. Thank you that in my loss I can know that
you are there.

In Jesus name I pray, Amen. Tomorrow we're going to look together at the third
step in God's process of joy.