It was about a week or so ago that I was in a panel discussion, and it was being videoed, and the question came up about mental illness, and I made the comment, “There’s no such thing as mental illness.” And I was told within a matter of a few hours that blew up the Internet, and one of the headlines was “Doctor and Woman Preacher Take Issue with John MacArthur.” I don’t know about the doctor, but I’m happy to take issue with a woman preacher; that’s fine. But there were lots of other people who weighed in on what a horrendous thing I had just said. And I know it’s been circulating out there because people have been asking me about it.

An interesting phone call came in—I just heard it this morning—from a person who said, “I represent the leading psychologist in this country. And also, we manage the largest facility for juveniles who commit adult crimes. And I’m calling the church to let Pastor MacArthur know that everything he said is exactly true.” Now, you don’t know if I made that up or not; you have to trust me. But I was pretty surprised. And they went on to say, “If he wants to write a book, we’ll supply all the data.”

There’s no such thing as mental illness. That is not a new concept. That goes back to the 1950s, Thomas Szasz, a psychiatrist who wrote the book The Myth of Mental Illness. And that myth has been around for a long time. And it’s been just in the last few years that data has come in, and people in the psychiatric and psychological world have admitted that they have been telling noble lies for decades and decades and decades, identifying, supposedly, mental illness as a way to explain people’s odd behavior, difficult behavior.

But I’m not saying this: I’m not saying there’s no brain disease; there is. But that’s different; that’s pathological; that can be objectively identified. Now, I don’t want to become clinical here, but I just will say enough to let you see the difference.

If you’re talking about brain disease, you’re talking about several categories. The first would be an infection in the brain. That could be meningitis, which is an inflammation of the lining of the brain; or it could be encephalitis, which is the inflammation of the actual brain tissue. Those can be discerned. Those can be seen. Those can be understood. They can be objectively identified.

A second category, next to infections, that fits into the zone of brain disease would be seizures, seizures—because something is wrong, like maybe epilepsy or some other form of seizure. Something is wrong with the electrical system; the current system is misfiring.

The third possibility of real brain disease is tumors and masses. We all know about that. They can be discerned. They can be seen in a CAT scan or in an MRI, sometimes in an X-ray, or certainly in surgical procedure.

And the fourth sort of large category of brain disease would be trauma, like a concussion or some accident or some injury to the brain that takes a toll on the brain’s ability to function because part of the brain is disconnected or taken into disuse; and birth defects could lead to that as well. But all of that can be understood and seen by objective testing.

That is not the case with mental illness. Mental illness is a term that is really not identifiable by any objective means. You can’t see it in an MRI or an X-ray or a CAT scan or a surgery. You can do brain surgery, and you’re not going to see schizophrenia. So this is a misnomer. And I went on to say in that panel discussion there’s no such thing as OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder. There’s no such thing as ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. There’s no such thing as bipolar disorder, where you’re low and high, and somehow this is something that’s embedded in the brain. There’s no such thing as PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder.

This is not to say that people don’t have problems. It is to say they have problems, but they’re not connected to some mental deficiency, even schizophrenia, which is a pretty severe word, and it means, generally speaking, somebody who loses the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

In reading about that a little bit this week, I read that—a particular article that I was looking at from a high level said schizophrenia is permanent. You have it your entire life. This is pretty much typical of the other disorders as well. If this is something that your brain is doing to you, then you’re not responsible for it. You understand that? That’s very important to understand.

Now am I saying that there’s no such thing as obsessive-compulsive behavior? No. There is obsessive-compulsive behavior. Am I saying there’s no such thing as attention deficit hyperactivity? No. There is such a thing. I possessed it as a kid. I am a living illustration—you can recover. You can recover, and you can recover without medication.

There were two things that every teacher I ever had said to my mother: “Johnny doesn’t pay attention, and he never sits still.” That is attention deficit hyperactivity. That had nothing to do with something permanent existing in the fog of my brain.

I’m not saying there’s no such thing as post-traumatic stress. There is post-traumatic stress. You go to a battle, you lose the three guys around you, you walk away, you’ve got survivor guilt; you’ve got profound grief because your friends you are so deeply invested in and battling for survival; you’ve got deep pain, you hurt, you’re suffering, you’re grieving. That’s a very real thing. Is it a mental disorder? No, it’s life. It’s life. This is life. People have grief. Life is very difficult. It’s hard. It’s hard.

The United States government has a particular website talking about these mental health issues, and my favorite line is a banner that’s across the website. It says this: “Mental disorders are not caused by character flaws.” Oh. What are they caused by? They’re “not caused by character flaws.” That’s a dead giveaway.

These kinds of things we’re talking about are the result of people’s inability to cope with life. Life is hard. Life is challenging. Life is disappointing. There’s lots of disillusion. There’s lots of pain, lots of suffering, lots of abuse. We all understand that.

How you deal with that is critical if you’re going to live out your life. You’ve got to figure out how to live life. If somebody says to you, “It’s not your problem; it has nothing to do with the flaw in your character. This is something that you are born with, and it’s a disorder and you’re going to have it all your life. And since it’s there and you can’t really do anything to eliminate it, we’re going to put you on these drugs.” And they roll out fifteen different psychotropic drugs to mask the reality that you can’t deal with life, and create more problems, so that you eventually can wind up on skid row, under a bridge, living in half a tent. This is being done to children, and it’s criminal, it’s criminal.

Now, I understand we have a generation of people who can’t cope with life. I understand why: absent father, devastated marriages, absent mother, no family support, high rate of divorce, abuse, disappointment, lack of love—all kinds of things—and particularly, the breakdown of the family, because the family is where you learn how to live life. It’s where you watch people suffer and handle it. It’s where if you can’t get it from your mom and dad, you find your way to grandma’s house because she knows, and you lean on her wisdom. But where you have a society that don’t have those kinds of resources, don’t have those families to turn to, you’re going to have more dysfunctional people.

I was thinking about it the other day as I was watching these ridiculous university students rioting and burning things down, and I was waiting for a psychiatrist to come on television and say, “Oh, wait a minute, wait a minute. You have to understand, they have rebellion hostility violence hate disorder. It’s not their fault. It’s not their fault. It’s not a character flaw; this is a disorder.”

Why don’t they say that? I mean, it’s one thing to irritate a teacher; something else to burn the school down, right? Why do you label somebody who irritates a teacher because he can’t pay attention, and you don’t have a category for somebody who burns the school down? I mean, if you’re going to blame everything on some mental disorder, you might as well blame the really serious things on that.

There’s so much fraud in all of this. I understand life is hard, life is tough, and you need help. We all need help. We needed our moms when we were young, when we were little kids. You had children. When your three-year-old mouths off and talks back to you and takes a whack at mom, you don’t say, “He’s got a MW disorder, a mom-whacking disorder.” If the kid who can’t keep his attention has a disorder, what about the kid who’s bored stiff and sits in the corner and never says anything? Is that a disorder?

What’s a disorder, and what isn’t a disorder? It’s all about mechanisms to learn the skill of living life. And there was a time when people turned to pastors and the church and religion, and now the new religion is psychology and psychiatry. You turn to them, and they don’t have any answer because they don’t even understand that the problem is not physiological. It’s not a disease. They don’t even understand that.

And when they give those drugs to people, those drugs are not like insulin. Insulin is desired to deal with diabetes; it does so directly. When you take drugs for whatever your disorder is, that doesn’t attack the disorder, that attacks you and creates another disorder: the inability to cope with life now because you’re living in some kind of altered state.

It’s horrendous what’s happening to children whose lives are, in some cases, destroyed. And very often, suicidal tendencies overwhelm them, and they actually take their own lives. All the drugs don’t help people face life. Life is hard. You have to have answers.

I understand fear. A lot of things to be afraid of, a lot. I understand depression. You can get tired of being mistreated, misjudged, unloved. That can get old. You can be tired of being disillusioned, disappointed. You can be weary of the grief that you have to bear or the struggle of caring for others who don’t care for you. There’s plenty of abuse out there, plenty of anger. That is life. The question is, How do you handle that—by taking some drug that alters your state of consciousness and does nothing for your supposed disorder, which is some life sentence?

So I would say, I think it’s important for people who have these kinds of problems—and we all do—to talk to somebody else, right? We need help. We need moms and dads and brothers and sisters and grandmas and grandpas and friends and mentors and teachers and counselors and everybody who can kind of teach us how to develop skills to live life. And the young generation coming along should expect the older generation to teach them that. We’ve got a young generation that obviously haven’t been taught anything about life. They’re just violent and angry.

So what is the solution? The solution is to recognize that you don’t have a mental illness, you have a problem with—are you ready for this? Here’s a word my mother said to me very often: self-control. Get a grip on your life. To survive, you have to find some skills for dealing with the things that go wrong.

So how do you do that? Well, you could go to a counselor, and you might be helped by somebody who could teach you skills about how to cope with life. But ultimately, no earthly counselor, not even the best, not even your parents, can deliver you from the most profound fear, which you have all your life long. And the Bible says it’s the fear of what? Death.

That’s what I want to know. Who can deliver me from the fear of death? That’s the issue. No counselor, no drug; there is One who can. All of that to say, open your Bible to John 13, and I’m going to try to throw this at you as fast as I can.

John 13, 14, 15, and 16 are four chapters of our Lord’s teaching His disciples in the upper room the night of His betrayal, the night before His crucifixion. And it’s a really hard night. It’s a really hard night for the disciples. They’re in some serious trauma. They’re in mid-trauma because Jesus has told them He’s leaving.

In chapter 13, look at verses 36 and 37, chapter 13. We’re just going to jump through these four chapters. “Simon Peter said to [our Lord], ‘Lord, where are You going?’” Jesus has been saying, “I’m leaving; I’m going,” and they’re saying, “Where are You going?”

“Jesus answered, ‘Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later.’” “Well, that’s not acceptable. We can’t live without You. You can’t do that to us. You can’t abandon us. You can’t desert us. You’ve led us this far. We’ve followed you faithfully for three years. We thought there was a kingdom at the end of this thing. It doesn’t look like it’s going that way. You’re telling us You’re going to die and You’re going to leave. You can’t do that. If You’re leaving, we want to go with You.”

So Peter says, “Lord,” verse 37, “why can I not follow You right now?”—“I don’t care what the price is.” “I will lay down my life for You”—“You’re everything to me. You can’t do this to me. You can’t leave me. You can’t walk away from me. You can’t disappear out of my life.”

I mean, Peter is a grown man, but for three years his dependency was all on Christ for everything, for everything, as it was for all the disciples who were basically on the road, and they were cared for by our Lord Himself. “You can’t do this. We put everything in Your hands. You can’t do this.”

You see that same attitude in chapter 14, verse 1. Jesus says, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” Actually, “Stop letting your hearts be troubled. Stop.” Verse 5, “Thomas said to Him, ‘Lord, we [don’t] know where You are going; how do we know the way?’” “You can’t abandon us. We don’t know how to get there because we have no idea where You’re going.” Chapter 14, verse 27, second half of the verse, Jesus says the same thing: “Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” “Stop being afraid.”

Chapter 16, verse 6—verse 5 actually, He says, “I’m going.” And they keep saying to Him, “Where are You going?” In verse 6, “But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.” In other words, it’s pushed out every other attitude or emotion that could balance out the sorrow. These men are devastated—devastated, frightened of the future. They know there’s a hostile world around them. They have nothing to lean on. They put everything in Jesus’ hands, and now He’s going to leave them.

So what do you do when you’re in the middle of the stress, and the fear takes over? This is a marvelous picture. Jesus won’t leave them that way. So in these four chapters, He gives them promises that are staggering, and they’re the same promises for any who know and love Him.

But to begin with, He affirms His love for them, and that’s what they needed to know. Go to chapter 13, verse 1. It’s before the feast of the Passover. Jesus knows that His hour has come to depart out of the world to the Father. He’s leaving. And it says, “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the [max].” What He has to do is demonstrate that He loves them. He’s leaving, but He loves them. And that love will go eis telos, “to the max,” “to the end,” if you will, “forever.”

He’s leaving, but He’s not done loving. And He shows them in the first 15 verses of chapter 13 by washing their feet. He literally washes their dirty feet. They wouldn’t do it for each other because they wouldn’t lower themselves to do that. Jesus lowered Himself to do it. And in verse 15 of chapter 13, “He says, “I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” And over in verse 34, He says, “A new commandment I give you . . . love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.”

How had He loved them? By stooping to wash their feet. In other words, “I love you, and I’ll show you the depth of My love by stooping down to wash your dirty feet. I love you enough to take care of the most basic need that you have. I don’t care how low I have to go.”

But it was more than that. Look at chapter 15, same upper room, same context. But verse 13, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends. [And] you are My friends.” “Not only will My love be demonstrated to you in Me humbling Myself to meet even your most menial need, but I’m going to lay down my life for you. I love you enough to die for you. I love you enough to take your sin to the cross and bear the punishment for it. I love you.”

I would say that’s probably the basic need for anybody to survive in life—wouldn’t you? To be loved, to be loved with a great love, with a love that is willing to humble itself to the lowest level, and a love that is so magnanimous that it would literally give its life for you. Wouldn’t you want to be loved like that? That’s the kind of love Jesus offers. You want to live life? You want to navigate life? You want to find your way through the tough things of life—the suffering and the grief of life, the disappointment? Then become a friend of one who will love you like you could never be loved by any other person.

And how does He demonstrate this love? Go to John 14, verse 1: “[Stop letting] your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” Here’s the first promise of His love: “I’m preparing a place for you in the Father’s house.”

Look, that’s what I want to know. I want to know, “Do You love me enough, do You love me enough to protect me from the ultimate fear: the fear of death?” “Yes, I love you enough to prepare a room for you in the Father’s house.” Amazing. That’s heaven.

In the New Testament, heaven is called a country because of its vastness. It’s called a city because of its large population. It’s called a kingdom because of its order. It’s called a paradise because of its beauty. But most of all, it’s called the Father’s house because of its intimacy as a family. Jesus says, “I’m going to take you home with Me forever.” That ought to set your heart at rest. “You believe in God, then believe Me for the hope of heaven. Stop being troubled.”

What a place heaven is for the Christian. Our Savior is there, our name is there, our life is there, our affections are there, our treasure is there, our heart is there, our inheritance is there, our citizenship is there. But most importantly, our room is there in the Father’s house. I can face anything if I know I’m going to the Father’s house, can’t you? I couldn’t face anything if I didn’t know I was going to the Father’s house.

Then in John 14:11, Jesus again says, “Believe in Me as you believe in the Father.” And verse 12, “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”

The disciples were thinking, “Look, we thought our lives had some value. I mean, we were going everywhere, and we had been given the power to do miracles and preach the gospel of the kingdom. The crowds were gathered around us. We had high-impact lives. We had all this influence. Now You’re going to leave us. You’re going to leave us, and we’re going to go back to being absolutely insignificant nobodies. Is this the end of our power? Is this the end of our influence? Is this the end of the exhilarating reality of having a high-impact life?” And the Lord says, “No. No. Because I go to the Father, because I go to the Father,” verse 12, “greater works than these you will do. No, when I’m leaving, you won’t do less; you’ll do far more.”

Now wait a minute. What do you mean, “greater”? Well, it’s a compound of mega mean, it’s significant. It’s extensive. It’s not greater in power, but greater in extent. It’s not possible that you could do greater works than the Lord did in power—raise the dead and give salvation, do all the miracles that He did. You couldn’t do greater works power-wise. The disciples will carry on some of the miracle power as long as the apostles were alive. But it’s not the greatness of the power; it’s the extent of it.

Jesus never preached outside Israel. His voice was never heard beyond the crowd that could hear it. Nobody ever recorded His voice. He didn’t make any CD. He never left the land. But as soon as the disciples received the Holy Spirit, they went into the world, and the gospel began to spread in incredible ways. Three thousand people on the day of Pentecost, five thousand people a little later, and the gospel explodes and begins to move through the world, and it does that through the apostolic era as the apostles are proclaiming the gospel. And that’s all recorded in the book of Acts, the whole story of the fulfillment of the promise that the works that you do will be on a greater scale.

Just to give you a hint of that, the fifth chapter of Acts and verse—well, you can look at verse 12: “At the hands of the apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people; they were all with one accord in Solomon’s portico.” And then in verse 14, “And all the more believers in the Lord, multitudes of men and women, were constantly added to their number.”

On the day of Pentecost, how many were there? One hundred and twenty. Now you’ve got multitudes being added. And the power, verse 15—people are carrying the sick into the streets, laying them on cots and pallets, so that when Peter walks by the shadow might fall on any of them. And “the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.” There was no lessening of the power; it exploded through the apostles.

And the greatest miracle, of course, is the miracle of salvation, and the Lord used His apostles as the instruments by which He saved many. I mean, this is a fulfillment of Ephesians 3:20, “Now unto Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all [you can] ask or think.” And it all happened because they were filled with the Holy Spirit, Acts 1:8, “You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You shall be witnesses unto Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost part of the earth.”

It’s pretty staggering when you think about it today, isn’t it? Compare the globe-saturating gospel with one voice in one little country, even though it was the voice of Jesus. Because He went back to heaven, greater works will you do because when He goes back, He’s going to send His Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit who had been with them in Christ would be in them as He is in us.

In the moment of your most dire trauma, if you turn to Jesus, you find one who will love you completely and forever, who will love you enough to meet every need you have, even the most lowly, who will give His life for you, who will give you a room in the Father’s house, and who will guarantee that your life is a life of massive spiritual impact.

There’s a fourth thing that Jesus promises right there in chapter 14, verses 13 and 14: “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”

This is a benefactor beyond all imaginable benefactors. Even though He’s absent, He says, “The distance is going to be closed by prayer—anything you ask, anything you ask in My name.” “What do you mean ‘in Your name’?” Consistent with who You are. So when we pray, we say, “For Jesus’ sake,” don’t we? “All of this I’m asking for Jesus’ sake. Amen.” I’m standing, identifying with Him, and I’m saying, “For His sake, for His glory, O God, meet this need. Do this, Lord, because it will put His perfections on display. It will give Him glory. And if it will give Him glory, then all of heaven will move to make it happen.” When you pray and seek what He seeks to promote His will and His glory, He’ll do it.

What else could you ask for? What else do you want, other than all the treasures of heaven at your disposal? You say, “Yeah, but it’s got to be according to His will.” You don’t want anything that isn’t His will, do you? He does it so He’ll be glorified. “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” right, Philippians 4:19.

So you’re trying to navigate life, figure out how to sort it out, as tough as it is. Let me introduce you to Jesus, who will love you everlastingly, enough to meet every need you have, to take your sin to the cross and forgive you, to give you a room in the Father’s house, to guarantee a life of power and influence and an assurance of everything that heaven could possibly give for you to fulfill His will.

A fifth part of the promise, while you’re right there in John 14, is verse 16: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper”—a comforter, paraklētos another comforter—“that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth.” Jesus said, “I’m going, but I’m going to give you the Holy Spirit. I’m going to send the Comforter, the one called alongside, to help.”

Paraklētos means “to be called alongside.” “I’m going to give you one alongside of you, another.” There are two words in the Greek for “another.” One is allos another of the exact same kind; the other is heterōs, another of a different kind. This is allos—“I’m going to send another exactly as I am.” And that’s why the Spirit in Romans 8 is called the Spirit of Christ: “and He will abide with you forever,” the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of Christ.

What an incredible gift. You’re the temple of the Holy Spirit, are you not? And what does the Holy Spirit do for you? Oh, produce fruit like love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control; empower your redeemed heart to overcome sin and temptation; give you the ability to love God, to understand His Word; guide you, direct you; grant you assurance of your salvation—every ministry of the Holy Spirit.

You want to be able to live life to the max? Then let the Spirit of God take residence in your heart and guide you through every moment of every day. That’s the gift of the Spirit. What a promise.

So Jesus says this: “I’m the one who can help you navigate life no matter how hard it is. I’ll love you perfectly and everlastingly, enough to meet every need and take your sins away. I’ll give you a room in the Father’s house, a life of influence, the assurance of all the supply you need. I’ll give you My Holy Spirit.” And, sixth, “I’ll give you the truth, the knowledge of the truth.” Chapter 14, verse 17, “The Spirit of truth.” “He has been with you; He will be in you. He has been with you in Me,” Jesus is saying, “but He will be in you.”

Go down to verse 26: “But the Helper, [the Comforter,] the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” That is a promise, to the apostles, of recall so that they can write the four gospels and the rest of the New Testament.

But it’s more than that. It is also the fact that the Holy Spirit takes up residence in every believer. In 1 John it says we have an anointing from God; we don’t need men to teach us because of that anointing from God, who teaches us all things. And that is, of course, the Holy Spirit.

In chapter 16, verse 13, still in that upper room discourse, Jesus says more about this promise of the Holy Spirit: “When He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak.” In other words, He’ll speak the Word of God and the Word of Christ. He will speak God’s Word. “He will disclose to you what is to come.” In other words, you could say He will give you theology, and He will give you eschatology. “He will disclose to you what is to come.”

And verse 14, “He will glorify Me.” He’ll give you Christology, for “[He’ll] take of Mine and . . . disclose it to you.” What more could you possibly ever ask for, than to know the truth about God, about Christ, about the future?

This legacy that Jesus promised His people is beyond comprehension: everlasting love, a room in the Father’s house, the guarantee of greater works, the assurance of all the supply we need, the gift of the Spirit, the knowledge of the truth.

Number seven, peace. Back to verse 27 of chapter 14: “Peace I leave with you.” What kind of peace is it? “My peace.” “What do you mean? What do you mean, Your peace?” Well, Christ was perfect peace. Why? Because He had perfect trust in the Father, right? He had perfect trust in the Father, so He was always at perfect peace. That’s what He gives us. You trust as Christ did. You trust your heavenly Father.

“[My] peace I leave with you.” It’s “not [the kind of peace] the world gives,” comes and goes. “Don’t let your heart be troubled. Don’t let it be fearful. Be at peace. Be at peace. My Father has everything under control.”

All this ends in chapter 16 and verse 33. The whole discourse is summed up: “These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace.” This is not just peace with God, this is the peace of God. It’s not just the peace with God that means the battle is over, the fight is ended, He’s no longer our enemy, we’re at peace. This is the subjective peace, the tranquility of heart. You have this peace.

“In the world you have tribulation,” amen? Life is hard. “But take courage; I’ve overcome the world.” That’s all I need to know. I’m connected to the one who’s overcome the world. What do I have to fear? Nothing. You want to navigate life, you need to come to Christ. Somebody can teach you a few skills; nobody can give you these promises but Him.

And quickly, chapter 15, verse 5—I’ll give you three more quick elements of His provision and promise—15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches; he . . . abides in Me and I in Him, he bears much fruit,” fruit, eternal fruit. Your life now takes on an eternal significance. Paul says, “Who’s adequate for this? Who could matter that much, that your life is a life unto life or death unto death?” In other words, your life has eternal impact.

And oh, by the way, there’s something else, number nine in my list, the refining of persecution. Chapter 15, verse 18, He asked to include this: “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master’”—back in Matthew. “‘If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin”—in other words, “They wouldn’t be guilty of rejecting Me.” “But now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also.”

Verse 25, “They hated Me without a cause.” And you’re going to feel this hatred. Chapter 16, verse 1, “These things I have spoken to you so that you may be kept from stumbling.” “I don’t want you to be surprised. I mean, I’ve given you a lot of really good things, but you don’t want to be surprised. They’re going to make you outcast from the synagogue. An hour is coming for everyone who kills you to think that he’s offering service to God.” He’s telling His disciples they’re going to be martyred. “These things they will do because they have not known the Father or Me. But these things I have spoken to you, so that when their hour comes”—when it starts—“you . . . remember that I told you [these things]. . . . I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you. [But I’m telling you now. I’m telling you now. You’ll have to suffer from My name.]” But suffering is purification. Suffering is sanctification: “Count it all joy when you fall into various trials” because they have a perfecting work.

And one final element in the legacy of Christ is in chapter 15, verse 11. This kind of sums it up: “These things I have spoken to you, so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be made [to] full.” You know what overcomes everything is joy. People want to be happy. Joy is the opposite of all the negative emotions.

How can you live a life of joy? You can live a life of joy if you’re living in the midst of all the promises of Christ, all the promises of Christ. That’s where joy comes from. Verse 24 of chapter 16, He says, “Ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be made full.”

You know, the Lord wants to give us full joy—not minimal joy—full joy, full joy. He loves us with a saving love. He’s given us a room in the Father’s house, a life of spiritual impact, all the provisions we could ever need. He’s given us the Holy Spirit, the truth, His peace, fruitfulness, the refinement of persecution, so that in the end, our life is filled with joy, joy.

Does it work out that way? Let me give you a closing illustration. Turn to Philippians 4, Philippians 4. Here’s Paul. Things aren’t going real well. He’s a prisoner—tough, really tough. Life is in constant threat. And what’s his attitude? Chapter 4, verse 4, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!” There’s the joy, right? There’s the joy. This is a living illustration of someone who knew all that was his in Christ.

So, “let your gentle spirit,” your moderation, your temperateness, your calmness, your tranquility be visible to everyone. And why? Because “the Lord is near.” The Lord is near, and I have all His promises. So, verse 6, “Be anxious”—for what?—“for nothing.” And oh, by the way, he said, “If you prayed for anything, He would give it to you if it’s in His name.” So “in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

You want peace? Pray. Give it to Him, and “the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and . . . minds in Christ Jesus.” What else would you want in life but joy and peace?

And oh, by the way, you have the truth, verse 8, so concentrate on it: Whatever is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and good report, worthy of praise, dwell on those things, “the things that you have learned and received . . . and seen in Me.”

So sums it up in verse 13: “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.” He’s not saying that in some fickle way; he’s saying, “I have received all the promises of Christ for my life, and this is plenty to do what He’s called me to do. I can do all things through Him who strengthened me.”

There’s a guy who could handle life, right? And life was really tough for him. But the promises were true, and he believed them. Amen?

Father, thank You for Your generous promises to us. Forgive us for the folly of our doubting, and help us to rest in the fullness of what You have provided for us. We thank You. We thank You from the depths of our hearts. Amen.