I Believe in the Holy Spirit

John 16:5-15
Lords Day 20
Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI
September 24, 2006
Confessional Preaching 2006

Love is a funny thing – romantic love I mean; especially those first, heady

days of it. A friend of mine, a confirmed bachelor at the time, suddenly found

himself smitten and it was a thing to behold. He was normally a level-headed,

reasonably reliable guy – the kind of person who sets all his clocks and watches

ten minutes fast to make sure he gets everywhere on time. But then he fell in

love. It’s like time didn’t matter anymore! The poor guy, started showing up late

to everything. He walked around somewhat dazed.

I remember one time, he was supposed to be part of a leaders’ meeting for

a youth group he was helping with, but he never showed. You know what

happened? Before the leaders’ meeting, the church had a picnic and she was

there. He actually got to talk to her – alone. He left the picnic on time to make it

to the meeting, but he was so wrapped up in thinking about the time he’d just

spent with her that driving from the picnic to the meeting he forgot where he was

going and stopped at McDonald’s instead. He was so oblivious that it was only

when he was asked several hours later what had happened to him did he

remember the meeting and realize what he’d done.

Love is strange. It takes normally rational adults and turns them into

goofballs. We will the do the dumbest things under the influence of love. It’s
almost as if we get possessed, or something – we’re not ourselves and it shows

through erratic behavior – we do things we wouldn’t normally do.

Emotions, in general, can be quite powerful. In Montreal, a week or so

ago, a young man’s rage and despair turned into a murderous rampage. Fear

can paralyze us, prevent us from taking necessary action. Sorrow and sadness

can numb us, dulling our minds and blinding us to everything except the enormity

of our pain. And love – well we have heard what love can do.

Emotions can have a huge impact on how people behave. Take for

example our passage this morning. Prior to this, Jesus has been explaining what

the disciples are going to face in the future; hatred, persecution, rejection,

hardship – all because they are his disciples. The world hates him so it will hate

them too.

But worse than all of this was the news that he will not be them. In John

13:33, just after Judas goes out on his accursed errand, Jesus tells the remaining

disciples “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for

me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you

cannot come.”

This news confounds them. They can’t seem to wrap their heads around it

and so blinds them to the good news he shares with them. There is another one

coming – one who will serve you better for the days ahead….

But the disciples don’t hear this – at least not yet. All they hear, “Is I am

going away….” “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks
me, ‘Where are you going?’ Because I have said these things, you are filled

with grief.”

They are so distressed they don’t even ask where he is going. Like the

family who hears that dad has terminal cancer, the shock and horror of the news

floods them with grief and fear. They simply shut down. There are no words for

comfort – even promises of eternal life and being reunited fall on deaf ears.

That’s comfort for another time. Now, their brains have to grapple with the reality

that the one they love, the one they adore – the one they idolize – will soon be

gone.

They are filled with grief. In other words, their grief is so intense, so

intoxicating, that it begins to drive them – controlling them. Gone are the

promises to stay with Jesus in the time of his trial – “Let them come, Jesus! I will

stand with you! I will even die for you!” All such claims are gone now. The only

thing they can do now is obey the grief – mourning the passing of what might

have been. If Jesus is going to die, how can he be the Messiah – the Anointed

One? Obey the grief, listen to the fear! Fold now; maybe in time people will

forget they were ever part of this and life can return to normal.

Have you ever been there? So entrenched in grief and fear that the only

thing you could do was submit to it? You knew there were things to do, but you

just couldn’t. Your life became defined by your grief; each day was measured in

tears. That’s where the disciples are in this passage.

But Jesus has good news for them – if only they can hear it.
 But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away.

Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send

him to you

When I read this passage, I can’t help but think of one of those break-ups

where the person tries to let you down easy. It is better for you if I go away…. It

sounds sort of like the person breaking up with you saying, “It’s not you! You’re

wonderful. It’s me….” Sounds nice, but just impossible. How can the disciples

be better off without Jesus, the Messiah? I mean this guy heals every disease,

casts out demons, walks on water, knows the hearts and minds of men,

commands the winds to be still, raises people from the dead – he even turns

water into wine. When you are hanging with someone who can make a loaf of

bread feed thousands, how are you going to improve on that? Just by being

around him, your “cool quotient” shoots through the roof! Yet, Jesus tells them,

“It is for your good that I am going away….” How?

Because if he goes away, the Counselor will come. Who is this Counselor

and what is so great about him that it is actually a benefit that he is here rather

than Jesus Christ? In John 14 Jesus tells his disciples,

“If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the
Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever
— 17 the Spirit of truth…. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to
you…. All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the
Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said
to you.
 The Counselor is the Holy Spirit and there are some real benefits to his

presence in the life of the believer. The first, and by far the most significant, is

that the Holy Spirit indwells us – he lives in us communicating the grace of God

directly to our hearts. The Heidelberg Catechism says that the Holy Spirit “has

been given to me personally, so that, by true faith, he makes me share in Christ

and all his blessings, comforts me, and remains with me forever.”

Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Christ

supernaturally abides with us. That’s how Jesus can say, “I will not leave you as

orphans, I will come to you….” Through the Spirit, each person who believes in

Jesus Christ moves behind the velvet ropes and basks in the real presence of

Christ. Even more, through the Spirit, we are united to Christ – grafted into his

life in the same way farmer splices a branch from one apple tree into another.

Folks, this is both a comforting thought and a sobering one. In those times

when life is just kicking us around like yesterday’s beer can, we can turn to Jesus

because of the indwelling Spirit. We can find comfort in the arms of our God,

whether we are talking about a period of profound sadness or a time frustration

and anger – we are not left alone to deal with it ourselves. We have a friend who

sticks closer than a brother and who is right there with us in the toughest time –

someone who doesn’t despise us because we are weak or shun us because we

are an embarrassment.

But that also means that when we are at our worst – when we forsake the

paths of righteousness and walk in the fields of reproach – Christ walks with us.
It means that when we abandon our marriage vows for a cheap, momentary thrill,

when we cling to and nurture our anger and excite our wounded pride, when we

share that juicy piece of damning gossip, not because it is expedient and

necessary, but so that we can be seen as an insider – when we sin, we drag

Jesus along for the ride.

Paul makes this clear when he warns the Corinthians about being part of

the cultic practices of the city. Corinth, you see, was a center for the worship of

Aphrodite – the goddess of love – and sex with a temple prostitute was how you

honored her.

The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and
the Lord for the body. 14 By his power God raised the Lord from the
dead, and he will raise us also. 15 Do you not know that your bodies
are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of
Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!

The second benefit of having the Holy Spirit – and this is directly related to

God’s eternal presence dwelling in us through the Spirit – is that the Christ’s

blessings are passed on to us. When the catechism speaks of Christ’s

blessings, what it has in mind primarily is that through the life and death of Christ

our sin is removed and that because Jesus now dwells eternally before the

Father, he becomes our Mediator before God, pointing to his scars saying “This

one is mine. I have engraved his name upon my palm.” Along with our

redemption in Christ comes the promise of eternal life – for just as we have been

united with him in his death, so we shall certainly also be united with him in his

resurrection.
 God gives the Holy Spirit as his pledge that these blessings are ours.

According to Ephesians 1:13, the Holy Spirit is God’s seal of ownership upon us.

2 Corinthians 1:20-22 says, “For no matter how many promises God has

made, they are “Yes” in Christ. And so through him the “Amen” is spoken

by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand

firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his

Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” The

indwelling Spirit is our guarantee that the work God has begun in us will be

completed and that we will enjoy eternal life with him. The presence of the Spirit

is a renewing source of hope for us as we wrestle daily against the fleshly nature

and the powers and principalities of this world.

The third benefit we enjoy with the coming of the Holy Spirit is probably the

one least appreciated – the Spirit guides us into all truth. Today, more than any

other time in history, we have at our fingertips resources for dissecting the Word

of God and understanding its structure, what the author intended to say, the

audience he was speaking to. In all honesty, you don’t need a seminary

education to dive that deeply into God’s Word – there are abundant resources

out there to lead even the average 6th grader into understanding what the Bible

has to say. But even with all that, unless you have the indwelling Spirit, you will

never understand – I mean really understand – God’s Word. Without the Spirit’s

quickening power, the Bible will remain a dead letter to you and you will never

see God in its pages. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The man without the
Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they

are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are

spiritually discerned.”

Have you ever wondered why Acts does not record the disciples running

about the streets of Jerusalem immediately after the resurrection, telling

everybody that Christ had risen? Or why they didn’t gather the chief priests and

elders together and have them meet with Jesus to verify their story? It’s because

without the Spirit, even the testimony of their eyes would not be enough to

believe. When we understand this we begin to see why Jesus told his disciples

to wait in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit before trying to set the world

on fire with the message of his resurrection.

In John, Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would lead them

into all truth, reminding them of everything that he taught them. Even more – and

this is really incredible – he promises that the Holy Spirit will teach them things

that Jesus can’t. “There are some things you’re not ready to bear yet” he says

“but when the Spirit comes, he’ll reveal them to you.” In other words, without the

Holy Spirit quickening our hearts and minds, the gospel would remain foolishness

to us.

But because the Spirit came, because he indwells us, opening our eyes

once blinded by sin, we not only understand the words of the Scriptures, we also

understand its message – we find God revealed in his Word and we see his plan

of redemption unfolded. And because we see God’s heart through his Word, we
believe him when he tells us that Jesus died to save sinners and our faith is

accounted to us as righteousness.

All of these benefits – the indwelling presence, the blessings of Christ,

guiding us into all truth – all would be lost to us if Christ had remained upon the

earth. But because he ascended to the Father Jesus sent the Holy Spirit and

now dwells with each believer personally. That is a level of intimacy that

believers before the Spirit came could only dream of.

But there is one catch – if you can call it that – to fully enjoying that

intimacy. Remember earlier when I was talking about how the disciples were

filled with grief – meaning that their grief controlled them, filled their thoughts,

framed every action? In Ephesians 5:18, believers are commanded “Do not get

drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”

There’s that word again, filled. And it’s not the in the “fill my glass” sense

as if our level of Holy Spirit is somehow depleted and we need a refill. Like the

disciples’ grief, being filled with the Spirit is to be under his control. Think of it in

terms of being overwhelmed – like a massive tide surge that sweeps you away

when you are standing on the beach. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, be swept

away by him, like the young lover intoxicated by the presence of his beloved.

How? How do we do that – how can we be so full of the Spirit? In the

Ephesians passage, Paul offers us the contrast of the drunkard. What he is

saying by this comparison is, “You know how when you drink too much and you

end up dropping on all fours and chasing your neighbors wife around the couch?
How you say things you’d never say otherwise when you are under the

influence? Be so open to God’s Spirit that you come under his influence – that

he begins to shape the way you think, the way you speak, and the way you act.”

There is only one way to be filled with the Spirit. And that is to pursue, to

drink in, to search and long deeply for God. We must make the study of God our

priority; make talking to him in prayer as important as eating. Only when we

continually expose ourselves to his presence and his thoughts (as revealed to us

in the Scriptures) can we be so impacted by the Spirit of God that our thoughts,

words and deeds are shaped by him.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, that he has been given to me personally, so

that, by true faith, he makes me share in Christ and all his blessings, comforts

me, and remains with me forever.