Why Your Best Years Still Have Troubles

In a world that chases comfort and avoids pain, Jesus offers something deeper: joy that is born through sorrow, not apart from it. In John 16, Jesus prepares His disciples—not with easy answers, but with enduring hope. This Vision Sunday message explores the paradox of Christian hope: that even in our darkest seasons, God is shaping us through the pain and leading us toward resurrection joy.

You can take interactive notes here. At the end of the message, you can email the notes to yourself.

Even the best years are filled with pain and trouble. These are the words of Moses in Psalm 90, verse 10, and I think they’re desperately needed for our cultural moment.

And Jonathan Het, he’s a social, social psychologist, cultural commentator. He argues in a really helpful book called The Happiness Hypothesis that are rising rates of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness in our modern age stem from a fundamental lie that we’ve all been taught to believe. The lie goes that the best years cannot be filled with pain and doubt and trouble.

And this has led us to what height would call the hedonistic treadmill. We assume we need a bunch of short fixes like comfort, distraction, and constant stimulation. And if we do this, it’ll somehow add up to everlasting joy. The problem of course, is the more we chase this happiness, the more exhausted we become, because it seems as if these year.

Are always still filled with pain and trouble. And so we find ourselves in a world where when life doesn’t go our way, we’re left with two options. The first option is to become a hopeless romantic. Maybe you know them. They keep dreaming of a life that never seems to arrive, but they keep hoping for tomorrow.

And so they bury their head in the sand. They don’t want to face reality. They keep chasing the right person, the right marriage, the right house, the right salary, the right season. And so they constantly thinking maybe tomorrow is the day. Eventually though, most of us become helplessly frantic. We give up dreaming about a better future.

We feel like our parents lied to us. This life is a whole lot harder than what they said. Uh, we fill our days looking at the tragedy of the news, and we get paralyzed with pain and depression. But what’s interesting is if you study history. This obsession of happiness without pain is really a modern one.

Have you guys ever listened to nursery rhymes? Like actually listen to what we are singing to our children. It’s chaos. I remember when, uh, I had my firstborn and I was learning these nursery rhymes, and one that stood out to me, I was thinking, I sang this all the time in elementary school, was ring around the rosie.

Do you know what ring around the Rosie’s about? It’s insane. It’s about the plagues that were happening in London and the pockets full of Posey that is flowers that actually would help, uh, the scent of death be overcome with the scent of flowers, so that as you walk around, you have ies in your pocket so that you don’t smell the stench of death, and so that when you die, you don’t smell as bad because you have pockets filled with ies.

And that’s why it ends of course, by saying ashes. Ashes, we all fall down and die, right? Happy day child. This is what we were told to, to sing, and I think it’s because our ancestors actually wanted us to know hardships coming. Even the best years are going to be filled with pain and trouble. Yet we find ourselves in a centuries long experiment of trying to avoid pain, trying to excuse it away, numb it out, instead of embracing that this is always a part of life.

As Christians, if I were to give you a test, you would of course answer yes. Suffering’s inevitable. It’s a part of life, and yet this type of hedonism infiltrates our own thinking. When we think about how God is caring for us, uh, I think about this myself as well. I want a life that’s trouble free, risk-free and effort free.

So we think this way when we’re trying to discern God’s will, when we’re asking God, God, what’s next? We often conclude not because of scripture, but because of culture. We think, well, God, if you’re in it. There shouldn’t be any pain involved. God, if you’re in it, this shouldn’t feel risky. God, if you’re in it, this should be easy.

Every door should just open for me. But if you live lifelong enough, you realize that’s not the case. We’re calling this vision Sunday, and let me tell you, we would not be announcing this land in God’s providence if we thought God’s ways are always pain-free, risk-free, and effort free. It’s been a fight.

Jesus here, like any good nursery rhyme, is telling his disciples, you need to confront yourself with reality. Jesus isn’t here to promise them safety and beautiful. Everything’s gonna be amazing all the time. No, he promises something far more durable and far more precious. Let’s look at his teachings again.

I know I read so much in the beginning. Let’s kind of parse this out line by line starting in verse 16. If you have the red letter Bible, that means that’s when Jesus is talking. And so here in verse 16, Jesus is talking to his disciples and he says, in a little while, you will no longer see me. And again, in a little while you will see me.

So then some of the disciples said to one another, what is this? He’s telling us In a little while, you will not see me again in a little while you will see me. And because I’m going to the Father, they said, what is he saying in a little while? We don’t know what he’s talking about. So they feel like Jesus is being vague here.

What are you trying to do? So verse 19, Jesus knew they wanted to ask him. And so he said to them, are you asking one another about what I said In a little while, you will not see me again in a little while. You will see me. Truly, I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice. You will become sorrowful.

But your sorrow will turn to joy. That’s a lot for us to figure out. Let’s kind of parse this out. First of all, Jesus is referring to what we now call historical gospel events that are about to unfold just moments after Jesus has this talk with his disciples. He’s about to be betrayed in John 17 and 18, uh, by Judas.

He goes to get crucified on the cross after going through trial in court, and the world’s going to rejoice that Saturday. Satan thinks that he’s won. This person who claimed to be God is now dead. The people are mocking the disciples. Saturday’s very disorienting. Jesus’s body is actually in that tomb.

All hope is lost. I thought this was the king of the world, and yet now he’s there in the grave. And so of course though, that’s why he says they, you will mourn, but joy is coming because Sundays coming, their sorrow will turn into joy. The whole narrative we have to remember since Genesis three is that our whole lives have been filled with sorrow.

Look at all of human history. You can define it in one word, and that’s sorrow. Our world is fractured, bent out of shape, marred, destroyed because of the flesh, the devil, and the lies of this world. We find ourselves in a reality that’s shaped by sin. Sin done by us. Which has brought about so much chaos in life, sin done to us, which has brought about so much wounds in life and sin done all around us, which is why we’re so exhausted.

But Jesus is saying, this reality is about to be changed because joy will come resurrection Sunday. ’cause that’s what I mean by saying I will come back and when I come back, I will prove that on the cross, I defeated sin on the cross. I disarm Satan on the cross. I defeated death by rising again on the third day.

And so for us, just remember this part of the teaching. If you believe in the person of Jesus, and I believe he can be historically proven, this makes sense. It’s like, come on guys. He’s saying he won’t be there because he is gonna die. He’s saying you’ll see him again because he’s gonna rise again. But we have to remember the disciples are confused ’cause none of this has happened yet.

They don’t really know the timeline. They don’t understand what’s about to unfold. And I just want us to notice how Jesus remains intentionally vague here. He hints at what’s to come, but it’s only gonna make sense in hindsight. That’s why when the disciples encounter Jesus after post-resurrection, everything made sense.

But before he allows there to be room of confusion and chaos, what does a little while mean? Jesus doesn’t answer that. What do you mean going to the Father? Jesus doesn’t quite describe that yet either. At least not yet. Why? Well, when saints are touched by sorrow, God gives them just enough to stir up their faith, but never enough to stay in control.

Think about it, in the beginning of the Christian life, if you’re anything like me, I thought if I came to believe in God, I everything’s gonna be okay, because it’s life becomes predictable. I am now in control of the future. I understand what’s gonna happen ’cause God has me. And so I know what’s gonna happen next.

And I’ve been reading this book, um, it’s called Your Brain at Work. I forget the name of the author, but it’s a really helpful book talking about neuroscience and how literally our brains are hardwired to look for patterns. We’re constantly trying to find what’s predictable. We are anxious, we are worried when we don’t know what’s coming next.

And so it’s even fascinating in this book, it argues our brains are even willing to believe a lie as long as it makes us feel better about our future. We just don’t want an unknown future. We want to feel like we’re in control. And Jesus here in his kindness, is not giving the disciples that sense of control ’cause he wants to give them something better.

If you begin to mature in your Christian life, you’ll begin to embrace this old line. I honestly don’t know who said it first, but I’ve heard it my whole childhood. I don’t know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds tomorrow. That’s actually what peace is all about. But we assume, no. If I know what tomorrow holds, then I’ll be at peace.

Then I’ll be in control. We talked about this in May. When we went through our prayer practice, we talked about the ABCs of God’s voice and we argued God’s voice is a ambiguous, be brief, and c costly. When he’s calling you to something or casting a vision of what your future’s gonna be like, it’s never fully clear.

It’s always just enough to get you going and it’s gonna cost you something. We mentioned this in the teaching, and I’ll mention it again. John Ortberg applies this to Abraham’s life, and I think it’s so helpful here. Quote, God was deliberately, repeatedly ambiguous with Abraham. Why? Because God was aiming at something far more glorious for Abraham than just someone who could follow rules.

God wanted a friend. We at this church believe in the Trinity. God is Jesus. Jesus is God. They, they have the same character. Jesus is doing the very same thing with his disciples and with you and me as God did with Abraham. Maybe you’re in a season of life where you feel like God is being ambiguous towards you.

Maybe that’s on purpose because he wants something more beautiful for you, and that thing he wants to give you is his presence, and we could only embrace his presence when we learn to trust him. As I think about this vision Sunday, us announcing our land, I think about just, um. How much trust I thought I had in God 10 years ago.

’cause I could tell you the definition, I could answer all the right questions. But what I have learned, and I know many saints among here can agree, usually that kind of yielding to God, that trust in God takes a lot of time, takes a lot of trials, and it takes a whole lot of detours. So this Vision Sunday, we called it that because we’re announcing the land.

Woo-hoo. Uh, we talked about start here, stay here. Some of our new language, we knew this was coming, but even then, as we’ve been prepping for Vision Sunday, we knew this is gonna come. For the last few months, I have just been remembering, just thinking about God, how he has led us so far. And I just kept thinking, I still don’t have a ton of certainty.

I’ve learned vision Sunday means this is the direction we’re going. But we don’t fully know all the next steps. We just know the next step. When I think about our story at Passion Creek, I was watching some old YouTube videos this week to try to put together a fun building video to let people know that we got land.

And I saw one video that was kind of embarrassing. Caleb, I don’t know if you even remember this. It was in February of 2019. Uh, I’m not gonna lie. Mustache looks good on you, brother. You look so young. Six years ago. And, um, but we had a verbal agreement to get a a, a building. Like the building was already done.

It was three acres. Kind of a great deal. It actually makes me sad to think about how much, anyways, it didn’t happen, but he’s like, keep moving. Um, but we told, this is, I was so dumb. I told, I we had a handshake agreement on Friday that I told you guys on Sunday, and then Monday we were supposed to meet at the bank.

They never met us. So complete flop. I was so stupid. I learned at that, okay, I need to slow things down. I thought I figured out God, but I didn’t. February of 2022, many of you know the story. I thought God was calling my family away. We didn’t want it, but it felt like God was saying, go move to California to pastor another church.

And then when we were literally driving there to just start the uh, process, God made it very clear to go right back. We never even missed a Sunday. And so I have grown all that to say. I have grown to realize God is never like fully clear with his children because the moment we think we, it’s fully clear.

We try to take full control. We leave God in the dust. Okay, I got the plan. I know what’s next, and that’s never the purpose of life. So this year when God began to unfold us getting property, uh, July 10th, uh, just this last week, we signed the title. And I remember thinking, it’s not ours yet. And they kept saying, no, signing the title, like that’s a big, like it’s your property.

I don’t believe it. And so we went to the property and my wife’s like, does it feel like it’s ours? I was like, no, I’m still waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so I thought, no, I don’t know. And then July 15th, our real estate agent came and said, okay, here’s the key. So I was like, I knew July 10th wasn’t real.

Now it’s real. Let me get the key. They gave me the key. I went to the house. Wrong key. So that was fun. So I’m like, this doesn’t feel like it’s ours. But I asked her, the real estate agent assured me, no takebacks, this is actually our property. So I told Jordan, this is ours. We can’t lose it. And she says, well, if we stop making payments, we might lose.

Okay, okay, whatever. Right? But this is ours. But even then, it’s like I’ve learned to say, okay, God, but you’re the one in control. I’m not gonna be grasping. No. Where do you want us to go next? Because here’s what I’ve learned, peace doesn’t come from predictability comes from his presence. I think that’s the heartbeat of the passage.

Jesus doesn’t want to get these disciples. Okay, I know the plan. See ya. He wants to keep ’em anchored in prayer through the power of the Holy Spirit. So let’s keep going. Verse 21. It says, when a woman is in labor, she has pain because her time has come. But when she has given birth to a child, she no longer remembers the suffering because of the joy that a person has been born into the world.

So you also have sorrow now, but I will see you again. Your hearts will rejoice and no one will take away your joy from you. Now, I know I need to tread on light water here. That’s not even the right phrase. I need to tread on water here because I’m a dude and I know I’ve never had a baby. Okay? And I will not strap that thing on to imitate your pain.

I believe you. I don’t need that kind of experiment done in my life. But Jesus, let’s walk with this metaphor here. Jesus is using an illustration of a mother in labor. And remember, this was even before medical advancements. Now, I’m not saying it doesn’t hurt now again, I’d want to have a good day today, but even back then, just think about how much pain they endured.

But Jesus is saying, okay, this is a ton of pain, but the moment the baby is born, guess what? You’re still in pain, but you’ve shifted your perspective. It’s not like your body recovered right away, but that is replaced with the joy of your baby actually being here. This is worth noting. Let me just make it even more clear.

The same baby that caused the pain is the same baby that caused the joy. This is what Jesus wants us to see. See, Jesus doesn’t remove our sorrow. He just transforms it into joy. A lot of us think, God, if you just take this thing away, then I’ll have joy. And God is saying, no, this is not how I work. It’s actually that thing.

I am gonna transform it to that thing that brought pain is actually the very thing that now brings joy. Think of Peter, James and John. They were here listening to these words and as a church family last year, we studied through the whole book of Acts and you’ll see Peter, James and John repeatedly.

They’re filled with joy and they’re filled with boldness, and it’s because they endured Good Friday. They endured silent Saturday, they went through to see Resurrection Sunday. If you read their story in the book of Acts, they’re thrown in prison. They are threatened. They are run off from town to town.

They are stoned, left for dead, and yet no one can take away their joy, just as Jesus said would happen. They praise God, in fact, for being worthy of persecution. I say all that to say to you, maybe God in His grace isn’t sparing you from sorrow because he wants to shape you through it. But here’s what we have to remember.

He will do that shaping. He will bring about joy. That is unimaginable, as long as you keep leaning into God’s transforming work. ’cause this isn’t true for all the disciples. What did Judas do? He ran off and betrayed and never came back. And so it means for us, we need to keep leaning into God for him to do what only he can do.

And a primary way we do that is through prayer. Let’s keep going. Verse 23. In that day, you will not ask me anything. Truly I tell you, anything you ask the father in my name, he will give you. Until now, you have asked for nothing in my name. Ask and you’ll receive so that your joy may be complete. And I’ve spoken these things to you in figures of speech.

The time is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures because, uh, but I will tell you plainly about the father on that day. You will ask him my name. And I’m not telling you that I will ask the father on your behalf for the father himself loves you. In other words, you don’t. You, you can just talk to God the Father, for the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God.

It’s easy for us to rush past this, but Jesus is teaching us an important lesson about prayer that we covered in May, but I want us to cover again. Here’s what’s fascinating in the Old Testament, did you know God is actually very rarely called Father? In fact, one, uh, one commentator I read this week says, if you were to read the Sermon on the Mount, like even just Matthew chapter five, you will already have heard God as Father reference more than all of the Old Testament combined.

What is happening here is the New Testament. Shows what’s always been true, but the father shows who he is by sending his son. This is what’s called in theology terms progressive revelation. Now, don’t confuse this with progressive theology or even progressive politics. What this means is God has always been father, but he hasn’t always revealed that to his people.

So it’s important for us to read all of the story of scripture, and you’ll notice there are key themes and theological positions that are developed over time. Jesus argues this himself in this same chapter in verse 12, of which we talked about on summer Sunday, last Sunday in verse 12, Jesus says to his disciples, I have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now.

So God in his grace slowly reveals himself. So now in the New Testament, okay, when you pray, you’re ready for this because you know his son. Pray to God as your father. And when we learn to in our prayer practice constantly, remember, the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer is our Father who’s in the heavens.

It re, it reprioritizes it. It changes the game of our prayer life. Let me show you three ways it does that. First of all, praying to God as father gives us boldness. I love Tim Keller gives a great illustration. He says, who in the world would ever wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a cup of water? Who would dare do that?

Of course, his son or daughter would ’cause that’s just dad. Dad is here for me. I get to just ask Dad what I want. It gives you a sense of boldness. So when we pray, we have to remember because of the sacrifice of Jesus, I’m coming to you God as your child, and you are a good dad who loves to give good gifts to your children.

So that helps anchor our prayer. The second thing it does is it reframes prayer. It’s not about marking off tallies for God, but marking out time with God. Prayer for many of us, and we, again, we address this in May, but we often get through our list, our to-do lists really quick, and we don’t know what else to say to God.

When we recognize that prayer is a relational thing we do when it’s talking to God, we all of a sudden have way more things to pray about. And that leads to number three. When we pray to God as Father, it roots us in three Father facts. God is here. God is able, and God is good since he’s our father. We know like any good dad, he’s here with us.

He’s closer than we think, and like any good dad, he’s able, he has the power to save us, to deliver us, to protect us. And like any good dad, he’s a good God. We can trust him with our deepest happiness. We can give him our deepest secrets. So Jesus is saying, okay, look, disciples, your whole world’s about to turn upside down.

Sorrow is coming, and in fact, it’s here now. Here’s the way to keep your joy. Here’s the way to keep your peace, pray to the Father in the name of the Son through the power of the Spirit quickly. This is why when we pray, we say in the name of Jesus, amen. Now, the name of Jesus is not like some magic formula.

God’s not in heaven going, shoot. Now I have to say yes because he said in the name of Jesus, and the name of Jesus is saying, okay God, this because I’m able to approach you because of your son. So I’m doing this in your name, but in your name means two things, and your name means according to your authority, not mine.

I’m asking these things not because of I’m, I’m great. No, I’m asking these things because Jesus, you’re faithful. But number two, it’s also according to His will this, I’m asking this in the name of Jesus. So I’m asking this in a way that Jesus himself would pray for this. This is what he wants as well. And so we’re willing to say God in Jesus’ name, I might be wrong.

So anything that was wrong, don’t answer it. That is the heartbeat of the disciple in prayer. I love it. My oldest, when she prays lately, instead of saying, she says in Jesus’ name, but then she also adds and may everything I just said, be a yes. Amen. I’m like, I love that. I love that heart. Like make sure it’s all a yes God.

Uh, she’s in the room and if I say her name, I owe her a dollar. So notice how I said it’s my oldest daughter. Praise the Lord. I’m getting smart up here and less broke. ’cause we have a building to pay for. Okay? I love how the disciples though now they think they have it figured out. Look at verse 29. His disciples said, look, now you’re speaking plainly and not using figurative language.

Think about it. Jesus is constantly using figurative language like, I’m the bread of life. I’m the living water. I’m the light of the world. Now he’s just saying, dad and son. Okay, this is starting to make sense to me. Verse 30. Now we know that you know everything and don’t need anyone to question you. And by this, we believe that you came from God.

Wonderful testimony. But look at verse 31. Jesus responded to them. Do you now believe indeed an hour is coming and has come when each of you’ll be scattered to his own home and you’ll leave me alone? Yet I’m not alone because the father is with me. Disciples are saying we get it. Vision Sunday makes sense.

I get where we’re going. I understand the dream and the vision, God, that you have for our lives. It’s finally coming true. We’re on team Jesus. Let’s rock and roll. And Jesus is saying, hold on, that’s great, but no, you’re still gonna experience a lot of pain and trouble. In fact, it’s gonna be so overwhelming within this hour we’re you guys are gonna scatter.

Once Judas comes to betray me and the trial starts, you’re gonna be running to your homes denying my name, and that’s a sobering reminder for you and me. Even God-given dreams are filled with disappointments. Even if it’s something we sign up for, it makes sense. Let’s go for it. Jesus is saying, you’re still gonna be shocked.

It’s still gonna be much harder than you could ever imagine. Just read your Bible. Every mountaintop has valleys, every breakthrough has breakdowns. In fact, as I said earlier, there’s no predictability in the Christian life. There is a pattern, and it’s a pattern We don’t like. A lot of saints of old look at the, uh, passion of the Christ as a template for the Christian life.

You have Good Friday, which represents suffering. Well, you’ll see as many of us, we are giving our lives to God and we get excited about this vision. But then Friday comes, it’s a death maybe for you. It’s death of your ego. It’s a death of dreams of yesteryear, or it’s a literal death in your family and you feel like everything’s been shattered.

And that leads to Saturday. Many of us skip Saturday, but Saturday is the day of silence and a day of waiting. This is hard because when we read even this story, great, Saturday was just 24 hours, but for some people’s story, it feels like Saturday is 24 months, maybe even it’s 24 years. What do you do? Then we hold onto hope and the Christian life Sunday is coming in some senses.

I think today as the story of Passion Creek. This is a bit of a Sunday finally getting property. We’re so excited, and yet I know we’re about to go right back to Friday and this journey of getting a building, some of you, you’re finally getting breakthroughs and where you want in your family, all of this thing, praise the Lord.

But our ultimate Sunday is when Jesus comes back, when he comes again to make this whole world right, but Friday and Saturday are still a reality in this world. It’s still disorienting, it’s confusing. It’s a dark night of the soul. And so Jesus here is trying to comfort us by giving us a dose of reality here to give you, I, I’m coming to give you peace, but you’re still gonna have suffering.

I’m here, I’m faithful, but life won’t be predictable. And one of the hardest times of my own journey of following Jesus, I had a really disorienting season. I think it was a year long straight where I just was like, am I supposed to pastor? Am I any good at this? Should I be God? Can you give me another job?

I was so disoriented, and this line from Andy Squires and a little like magazine book just grabbed my heart. He puts it this way. He says, God is always faithful, but he is extremely unpredictable. You cannot rely on your assumptions about what he will do or will not do. Look at the apostles in the early days of the church, Peter.

Was supernaturally delivered out of prison from the edge of Herod’s sword, the same sword, which only days previously beheaded James the son of Thunder. So why all the difficulty? Why does God insist that the world remain unyielding, chaotic? Like my conclusion is this, only in a world where faith is difficult, can faith exist only in a world where pain is real, can love be proved only in a world where dreams don’t come true?

Will a dream coming true matter? I know that’s certainly true for us, and I know I’m speaking. For our experience as a church, but we had so many of our dreams this past decade shattered so many opportunities we thought were ours and they passed us by. And yet I can say with full assurance, clinging to Jesus is so much more beautiful and joyful because of those dashed dreams.

And so we just are approaching this vision Sunday. We want to celebrate God’s provision. We’re so excited about God, we gifting us with five acres. We want to build a house of prayer. We wanna form our children through a Christian academy. We want to be able to linger longer, to worship longer, to have worldview workshops and theology lessons throughout the week.

But I do want you to hear this. We are filled with vision about what we’re building, but more than that. We are so passionate about who we’re building. And to be honest, as a pastor, I don’t think I would’ve been that excited if God gave us our dreams right away. But a decade in, I now see who we’re building is a million times more important than what we’re building.

And so I just ask you to join us in this journey. I do think, I believe we’re about to enter into a season of our best years, but let’s not be ignorant. These best years will be filled with pain and trouble, and the only way to make those worth worse is to be shocked by that. This is why Jesus ends verse 33.

I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace, you will have suffering in this world. But be courageous. I have conquered the world. We still have an enemy. He’s gonna try to divide and devour us more than ever. We still have the culture. We have the world who’s gonna try to delay us and discourage us.

We have our own flesh. We’re gonna be tempted to hold back and to hoard and to carry bitterness. But friends, we have Jesus. We have a king who’s defeated sin, satan and death. We have a priest who intercedes for us daily, looking to give us hope and courage in his presence. We have a savior who’s walked along us in every single sorrow and has gifted us eternal life in eternal joy.

Joy through the cross and the resurrection. And I want us more than ever to be a people that realize, yes, the best years are to come, but so is pain and trouble, but it’s worth it because we have him.  ​