Sermon: The Promised Holy Spirit

Invite you to take a copy of God's word and turn with me to the Gospel according to John, chapter 14 this morning. If you are using a pew Bible, you can find John 14 on page 901.

We're spending a few weeks this summer together in the Gospel of John, and particularly here in the upper room, as Jesus is preparing to go to the Father by means of his death and resurrection and ascension. He spends time with his disciples, comforting them and instructing them to prepare them for all that will come. And so this morning we come to John chapter 14, verses 15 through 31. Before we hear the word read and preached, would you join

me as we ask for God's blessing?

Our Father in heaven, we have just sung, and now we ask once again humbly and sincerely, would you speak, oh Lord, speak to us. We do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from your mouth, oh God. And so would you speak so that we may have life. Would you give us ears to hear by the work of your spirit, eyes to see, hearts to believe, hands to do your will? Would you sanctify us in this truth, for your word is truth.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen. John chapter 14, verses 15 through 31. Listen carefully, for this is God's word. "Jesus said, 'If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in the Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.' Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, 'Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us

and not to the world?' Jesus answered him, 'If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, 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 have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, "I am going away and I will come to you." If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father. For the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when

it does take place, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me. But I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise. Let us go from here.'"

Well, I shared with you last week that when I leave for a trip, my kids are usually quite sad and full of questions. Every so often, Sarah will leave to go with me. We both leave the kids. You can imagine how that makes the kids feel. Lots more questions and more sadness. Recently, however, the kids learned from Sarah and I that we would be leaving them this summer. Sarah and I are going to be taking a trip with eight

of our students from URC to go to Malawi for 10, 12 days to visit the churches there and to lead a VBS. So we shared it with the kids, and again, questions. Where are you going? What are you doing? Why are you going? But here was a surprise. You would think sadness, tears upon tears upon tears But it was not that reaction because they found out that in our absence, Grandma was coming.

Woo. And when they found out Grandma was coming, the three older kids huddled together and jumped up and down. "Woo. Grandma is coming." Yeah. It made all the difference for them to know who was coming in our absence, and what Grandma would do for them in our absence. It comforted them. It gave them peace. It changed their perspective. Remember, Jesus's disciples are troubled, perplexed, confused, afraid, sad, because they've heard Jesus tell them, "I am going away."

Jesus, here in these passages, means to comfort his disciples. Last week we saw that he comforted his disciples with the positive, hopeful implications of his going to the Father for them. And Jesus continues this week, in this passage, to comfort his disciples, and here he comforts them with a promise, the promise of one who would come to be with them, and all that would be done for them in his absence. And Jesus, of course, is telling them, is promising to them,

that the Holy Spirit would come to be with them. And he teaches the disciples all that the Holy Spirit will do for them. It's because of who is coming and what the Holy Spirit will do for the disciples that makes all the difference, where Jesus can say to them in verse 27, "Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." This news, the news of the Holy Spirit coming and all that he will do, is news that should provide them with comfort.

So, this morning, what I want to do is to focus on the Holy Spirit. To have us focus on the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit, and the purposes of the Holy Spirit. Those are going to be the two headings this morning, the person of the Holy Spirit, and the purposes of the Holy Spirit. This first point this morning, I'm going to state this right up front. This first point is going to be more densely theological.

I want to take some time this morning to teach and explain what the scripture teaches and what we profess to believe about God, God's nature, and God's persons, the Holy Spirit. And I'm anticipating that some of you, maybe either before we get going or maybe once I get to the end of this first point, someone might be asking, "Why take the time to study through this dense theology? Why take the time? Is it worth it?" Well,

we should study this dense theology because Jesus here, in our passage, is teaching us about the Holy Spirit. So we should study the person of the Holy Spirit, and we should study the Trinity. You notice that Jesus, in this passage, is naming or speaking of all three persons of the Trinity. So that's one reason we should take the time to go through this dense theology. Jesus does so. But there's a second reason, and that's because I want to help you

to know God better.

There's probably a better question that you might ask if you were maybe thinking about a friend. If you were thinking about wanting to get to know a friend better, you wouldn't probably say, "Why take the time to get to know me? Why should I take the time to get to know you?" That's what friends do. They get to know one another. They spend time getting to know one another, and that's what I want us to do this morning.

I want you to know God better, the God who made you, the God who loves you, the God who saves you, the God who sanctifies you, the God whom you commune with, whom you love and worship, whom you will love and adore for all eternity, as you sang this morning. We should want to grow in our knowledge of God, so that's why we're taking the time this morning. So I invite you, let's dive into the deep end together, okay? Let's dive in together.

And here in this first point, under the person of the Holy Spirit, I want to unpack for you just a simple statement of what we believe about the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit is a divine person, one with the Father and the Son.

That's what I want to unpack in this first point. We believe the Holy Spirit is a divine person, one with the Father and the Son So the Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is not a force like you might think of in Star Wars.

The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power or an attribute of God. The Holy Spirit is a person. Do you see how Jesus describes the Holy Spirit or how he attributes the Holy Spirit in this passage? Not as a thing but a who. Not as an it but a he. Do you see those pronouns that Jesus uses in verse 17 and in 26? "Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him."

And in verse 26, Jesus says, "He will teach you all things." So the pronouns that are attributed to the Holy Spirit tell us that the Holy Spirit is a person and so too do the personal operations of the Holy Spirit, the actions of the Holy Spirit, what we see him doing. You see in verse 26, "The Holy Spirit will teach you. He will recall to your memory." These are actions of a person.

In other places in the Bible, we learn more about what the Holy Spirit does, his operations. Ephesians 4 tells us that we can grieve the Holy Spirit. Acts 5 tells us that we can lie to the Holy Spirit.

That can only happen with a person to a person. The Holy Spirit is a person, not a force. And the Holy Spirit is a divine person. Acts 5 is a passage that you might want to bookmark for later. It's one of the best proof texts that you can find in your Bible of the Holy Spirit's divinity to say that the Holy Spirit is God. In Acts 5, the Holy Spirit is used interchangeably with God. There in Acts 5, the believers are contributing to the needs of the saints and

Ananias has kept some of his belongings for himself, not contributing it to the needs of the saints and when it's found out, Peter says to Ananias in verse 3 that he has lied to the Holy Spirit. But then in verse 5 he says to him, "You have not lied to man but to God." Interchangeably, Holy Spirit and God. And just to say that simply then, the Holy Spirit is God. He is a divine person.

From time to time here at URC, we will recite together one of the ancient creeds of the church. One of the creeds or confessions that Christians have been reciting together for centuries upon centuries about what we believe about God. We believe, dear friends, in one God. One God. We do not believe like Mormons. We do not believe in three Gods. We believe in one God. One God who exists eternally in three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit shares the same divine nature, the same essence as the Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit is equal with the Father and the Son in rank, in power, in glory because there is one God. There's one God. He is one with the Father and the Son. But we believe that in this one God, three persons exist and they are really distinct from one another, distinguishable from one another. Perhaps you've heard of different analogies that people use to

try to describe the Holy Spirit and just to be safe, I would encourage you, there are better ways to speak about the Trinity than by trying to use analogies. One of the analogies that maybe you've heard about the Holy Spirit is the Trinity is like H2O, water, ice, and vapor.

It does not work. That is deficient. God, the one God, does not manifest himself in different modes. There is one God who exists eternally in three persons who are really distinct and distinguishable from one another. How do we distinguish the persons, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit from one another? The best way that theologians have tried to come up with The best way that they've come up with to distinguish the persons of the

Trinity from one another, while maintaining that there's just one essence, one God, is to distinguish the divine persons by their relations to one another. Their relations to one another. That is to say, the Father is unbegotten. He is of none.

The same cannot be said of the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, because the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Son is of the Father, eternally begotten, and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Or to say this a different way, maybe simpler for you, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father.

They are distinguishable, distinct from one another, really and truly. And so to summarize then, this first point, what do we believe about the Holy Spirit, the person of the Holy Spirit? We believe that the Holy Spirit is a divine person, who with the Father and the Son, are one eternal God, the living and true God. And this is the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is the one who Jesus promised to send to his disciples when he goes to the Father.

This Holy Spirit. So, having studied the person of the Holy Spirit, let's turn our attention then to the purposes of the Holy Spirit. The purposes of the Holy Spirit. Why the Holy Spirit has come and what he will do. And we see in our text this morning, three purposes of the Holy Spirit: to be with you, to teach you, and to sanctify you. Jesus says in verse 16, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another helper

to be with you forever." This had to be welcome news to the disciples. Right? They have heard and now they are anticipating, Jesus is going. He is leaving us. The Jesus who has loved us, the Jesus who has taught us, the Jesus who has helped us, counseled us, the Jesus who has healed many, he's leaving. We are going to be like orphans, alone, destitute,

unloved.

And Jesus says, "You will not be like orphans. You will not be like orphans. I will send to you the Holy Spirit to dwell with you and to dwell in you." Perhaps you've maybe heard or been encouraged to practice the ministry of presence. The ministry of presence. It's a concept that tells us or teaches us, encourages us, that just by showing up for somebody, that is a meaningful and effective way to care for someone, to minister to someone else. And maybe you've been on the receiving end

of the ministry of someone else, and you might think back and say, "I can't remember anything that person said to me. I can't remember anything that that person did for me." But what you can remember is that they were there. They were there with you, and that made a difference as you were grieving, as you were hurting, as you were in need. The ministry of presence. Jesus comforts his disciples with a promise that there will be an ongoing ministry of

presence, though he himself is going away to the Father. The Holy Spirit will be with you and in you. But Jesus says that the Holy Spirit's ministry is more than simple presence. You see that the Holy Spirit, in verse 16, is present as a helper. A helper. Or if you have a different translation, you might see that the Holy Spirit is present as a counselor, or comforter, or an advocate.

All of those renderings get at the breadth of what the Holy Spirit will come to do.

The Holy Spirit is called to come alongside to help, to defend, to comfort.

The disciples were understandably troubled by all that Jesus had said would happen. But Jesus said, "I will send another helper, one who is just like me, to help you, to counsel you, to comfort you, to reassure you. You will not be alone." As you face the trials of your life, as you face the trials of faith As you face the attacks of the evil one, you will not be alone. And dear believer, that promise is true for you.

You live on the other side of Pentecost, the fulfillment of that promise. The Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit to be with you so that you would not be alone.

The Holy Spirit has come to minister to you, to remind you of the truth, to comfort you in your afflictions, to defend you against the attacks of the evil one, to strengthen you to persevere in the faith, to give you peace. You are not alone. You see that Jesus does not only promise the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit will come to be with them, but He promises His own presence to them in verse 18, "I will come to you."

I think Jesus here is referring to His resurrection, His appearing to them after His resurrection. And I think that's what Jesus is referring to because of what He says in verse 19. He's speaking about living. "Because I live, you also will live." Jesus is not forsaking His disciples. He is not abandoning His disciples.

He's not saying a forever goodbye, but a see you later. He will come to them, and He will come to them in resurrection glory and power. The disciples will see living proof and vindication to all of Jesus' claims. That I am the resurrection and the life, we see it. I am in the Father, and I love the Father, and He loves me. They see it, vindication. But more than that, the disciples will discover and realize that what Jesus has accomplished in

His death, in His resurrection, in His ascension will benefit them. We learn something important about the ministry of the Holy Spirit in verses 19 and 20. The Holy Spirit unites us to Christ, and He applies to us all the benefits that Christ has accomplished.

And so Jesus says to them, "Because I live, you also will live.

And I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." The Spirit takes all that Jesus has accomplished in His death, in His resurrection, and in His ascension, and He applies those benefits to us. And then you see in verse 23, Jesus promises not only that the Spirit will come and that Jesus will come back to them, but that the Father will come to those who love the Son.

We have, in this passage, a threefold triune assurance that we are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.

Jesus says we will make our home with Him.

For most of us, home is a good place. It's a sweet place, a place we desire to be, because home for most of us is a place where love and peace and safety and rest can be enjoyed. And it's a place where we share intimate fellowship with ones that we love.

And these characteristics are true in the place, or we might say in the person, where God makes His home by the Holy Spirit. There is mutual love. The Father will love you, I will love you, and you will love me. There is mutual peace, peace between the believer and God, and God and the believer. There is mutual fellowship.

The Holy Spirit

helps us to fellowship and to commune, believer with God, and God with believer. And so Jesus, as He's teaching about the Holy Spirit, says, "You will not be alone. The Holy Spirit has come to be with you." And second of all, the Holy Spirit will teach you. He will teach you. Jesus says in verse 26, "The Helper, 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 have said to you."

Jesus's disciples, of course, loved that Jesus was with them. They loved having a master teacher with them all the time. It was one of their favorite titles for Jesus, Teacher, and it's a title that Jesus himself owned. And Jesus here promises to his disciples that in his absence, as the teacher leaves them, they will not be without a teacher. You will not be without a teacher. The Holy Spirit will continue Jesus's teaching ministry.

This is a topic, a theme that Jesus is going to come back to again in the upcoming chapters. And so it's a topic we're going to revisit in the upcoming weeks. But for now, what I want you to notice is the subject that the Holy Spirit will teach. What will the Holy Spirit teach? What is the subject? If you flip over in your Bibles to chapter 16, just one page to verse 13, Jesus says to the disciples there, "When the Spirit of truth comes."

The title that we saw in chapter 14 three times, we find it here in these chapters of the upper room. We also find that title for the Holy Spirit in 1 John, the Spirit of Truth. What will he do? He will guide you into all the truth. It's an important word. It's a repeated word in John's Gospel, and especially here in the upper room discourse. Do you remember back to last week? We heard this word truth last week. Jesus said to his disciples, "I am the

way and the truth and the life." When we get to chapter 17, we will hear Jesus pray for his disciples, that they would be sanctified in the truth. Your word, Jesus says, is truth. It's an important and repeated word. What is the subject that the Holy Spirit will teach?

The Holy Spirit will teach the truth about Jesus, who Jesus is, what Jesus said, and all that Jesus has done. We have here, dear friends, a very important reminder, a very important reminder and a very practical reminder, that the Spirit always works in accordance with the Word. The Spirit of truth always works in accordance with the word of truth. George Muller rightly said, "If the Holy Spirit guides us at all, he will do it according to the

Scriptures and never contrary to them."

And so, dear friends, we should never think that we are being led by the Holy Spirit to do something when it is contrary to the word of God. The Holy Spirit will not lead you to do what is contrary to the word of God, because the living and active Spirit of truth uses his living and active word to teach, to reprove, to correct, to train us in righteousness so that we may be complete and equipped for every good work. And that leads us then to the third purpose of the

Holy Spirit that we find in our passage. The Holy Spirit will sanctify you.

He will train us in righteousness that we may be complete and equipped for every good work.

Sometimes Sarah and I don't go away for weeks at a time, but just for a night. We'll ask a babysitter to come over and spend the evening with our kids so that we can go out. And usually, as we're hustling and bustling to get ready and to leave the house, we remember to either gather the kids or just call out to them if they've already gone to the four winds, a few final instructions. "Kids, make sure you listen. Listen to the babysitter. Behave yourselves.

Be kind to one another. Please be kind to one another."

Jesus is doing something very similar in this passage. As he's preparing to go to the Father, anticipating his departure, he gives a few final instructions for his disciples, some exhortations,

and he exhorts his disciples in this passage to show their love for him by keeping his commandments.

We all know this is true, right? That love is more than a feeling.

We at least know it as we experience and share love with other people. It's not enough for me to just say, "Sarah, I feel like I'm in love with you."

It's got to be shown. Love is an action. Love is an action and And we show our love for Christ by keeping his commandments. At the very heart of the gospel is love in action. I want to show you this first.

Because we're reminded in 1 John that we love because He first loved us. Our love is a response. At the heart of the gospel is the love of God the Father in action. John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son." And at the very heart of the gospel is the love of God the Son in action. John 13, verse 1, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end," by humbling himself,

by serving his disciples, even to the point of death on the cross. Our love is a response. Our love is to be patterned after Christ's love, and we see that again in our passage. Look at verse 31. Our lives are to be patterned after Jesus' own life. Jesus says, "I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father." Love is Jesus' motivation for keeping the Father's commands, and that is our motivation.

It should be our motivation to keep Christ's commands. Keeping Christ's commands is not legalism.

Keeping Christ's commands is an expression of our love. It is love in action. It's the way we show our love for Christ.

But we were reminded last week, it's true of me and I think it's true of you as well, certainly true for these first disciples, don't we often find that our love for Christ and our commitment to Christ is weak? It falters.

That's exactly why we need the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit.

John Blanchard, talking about the Spirit's ministry, says, "It is the Spirit's ministry to bring a sinner to the Savior." To bring a sinner to the Savior. Someone whose love is weak and imperfect, whose love falters, to bring that sinner to Christ the Savior, to receive grace, forgiveness, salvation. That is the Spirit's ministry, and John Blanchard said, "It is the Spirit's ministry to make a sinner like the Savior."

Not only to bring a sinner to the Savior, but to take a sinner and make him like the Savior.

The Holy Spirit's ministry is to transform us, to renew us after the image of Christ, to be like Him, and to live a life that pleases God. To love God, to keep His commandments. You remember the first fruit of the Holy Spirit, love. Love. The Holy Spirit empowers us, transforms us from the inside out, so that we would love God and love His Word and love His commandments and keep them, just as Jesus the Son loved His Father and kept His

commands. So we've seen three purposes of the Holy Spirit, to sanctify, to teach, and to be with us. And what is Jesus' intent? What is His purpose in teaching us about the Holy Spirit and teaching us all that the Holy Spirit will do?

His purpose is to comfort us, to give us peace. Jesus says in verse 27, "Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid."

Do you know this peace? Peace that does not come from the world. Do you have this peace? Peace that only comes from God and is produced by God the Holy Spirit in you. Do you know this peace? Do you have this peace? That is what the Spirit's ministry, His purpose is to bring about in us, and that is why Jesus encourages His disciples with this news, "I am going, but the Holy Spirit will come." Amen. Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we thank you, O God, for

sending your Son into the world to save sinners, to redeem us from our sin, and we thank you, O God, for your Holy Spirit to apply all the benefits of Christ's redemption to us. And we pray, O Lord, that more and more the Spirit's ministry would bear fruit in our lives, that we would look more like Christ, that we would be more in step with the Spirit, following the truth, loving the truth, keeping the truth, and we pray, O Lord, that you would comfort us

in all our troubles by the presence of the Holy Spirit, that you are with us. And we pray, O Lord, with thanksgiving for this word. We ask that you would make it fruitful and bear fruit in our lives that brings glory to your name. This we pray in Jesus' name, amen.