SERIES: The Gospel of John
Home Alone 3: Send the Holy Spirit
SPEAKER: Brad Harper
Introduction: In one of the most popular pairs of movies over the past couple of years, “Home Alone” and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York,” child actor Macaulay Culkin has captured the national spotlight through his humorous adventures as a boy who is accidentally abandoned by his family and must fend for himself.
Culkin’s panicked reaction is not unlike the sentiments of the disciples as they are beginning to understand that Jesus, their leader, mentor, and Lord, is really going to leave them. Only in this case, the movie version might be entitled, “Home Alone 3: Send the Holy Spirit.” For Jesus is not leaving his followers accidentally, and he is planning to send them someone to take his place. And it was by the power of this someone, the Holy Spirit, that the church would be founded, and individual believers would be able to live their lives to the glory of Christ. For this Holy Spirit, promised by Jesus, was sent not only to these first-century followers, but to the entire church, to you and me, and he will be with us until Christ returns. Our purpose this morning is to let the words of Jesus teach us about the ministry of this Holy Spirit in our lives.
As we move through the fourteenth chapter of John, we see that the disciples are becoming increasingly upset. And it is no wonder, for Jesus, in a wonderful display of his human nature, has begun to talk to them in a way very common to human conversation. You know how it is when someone sits down with you and says, “Listen, I have to tell you something, but I don’t want you to get upset and I want you to trust me, because everything is going to work out just fine.” Right! You know there’s bad news comin’.
The bad news, as far as the disciples are concerned, is that Jesus is leaving. He’s been talking about the kingdom of God and his own death to release them from the bondage of sin. But they’re still convinced that he must deliver them from the bondage of Rome. They feel like if he leaves them, their mission is lost. The truth is that if he does not leave them, the mission can never be completed. This, they will only fully understand later.
The good news is that he promises to send someone to take his place. Jesus says he will send them “another Counselor.”
The promise of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
How is it that this “Counselor” could take the place of Jesus, the God/man who has been with them for three years? The secret is found in the word “another.” In the language of the New Testament there are two words translated “another.” One means another of a different kind. But the one here means another of the very same kind. This counselor will be like Jesus because, like Jesus, he is a person, and he is God.
Sometimes it seems that when we talk of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the church, we refer to him as some kind of energy force. But this counselor is not some New Age cosmic energy; he is the very being of God, the third person of the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). And as a person, he has a job to do in relation to those who follow Jesus; he is to be their counselor. When we think of the word “counselor,” the first things that may come to our mind are ideas such as camp counselor, someone to help us have fun, or marriage counselor, someone to help us understand and improve ourselves in our marriage relationship.
But the word here has a different connotation. It carries a legal sense and might be better translated “advocate.” Scripture tells us that Jesus left this earth to be our advocate, to plead our case before the Father. In a similar way, the Holy Spirit is God’s advocate, pleading his case before us. And, because we are believers in Jesus, God always stands for us, and not against us. So, this advocate is also a helper who, like Jesus, shows believers how to follow Christ.
And this replacement which Jesus promised to his followers would have a unique relationship with them, a relationship that even Jesus, in his body, could not have. For as a human, Jesus could only be with them, beside them. And up to this point, the Holy Spirit too had been with them, but through the life and ministry of Jesus. But after Jesus left, the Holy Spirit would be in them so that the power that they could formerly only reach out and touch in Jesus, would now reside within each one of them. And as a human, Jesus could only be with them for a while. But the Holy Spirit would be with them forever. So it was that Jesus could say “I will never leave you or forsake you,” for he would return to them by means of the Spirit.
Now, weak as these disciples were in their faith, Jesus gives them an assurance concerning his promise to them. As he had told them on several occasions before, he would leave them, and his leaving would be by way of death. At this point the world would not see him anymore, but his disciples would, because he would rise from the dead and then come to live with them again, even allowing them to inspect his mortal wounds. Then they would fully understand who he was and that his promise of his presence with and in them could be trusted.
But having promised to his followers the ministry of the Holy Spirit, Jesus weaves throughout his promise a prerequisite of its fulfillment.
The prerequisite for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Notice he has already said that the world, meaning those who do not believe in Jesus as Lord and Savior, cannot receive this Counselor. Jesus will make himself known, by way of the Spirit, only to his followers.
At this point, Judas (this is not Judas Iscariot, who has already left to betray Jesus), asks a question which betrays the fact that the disciples still do not fully understand Jesus’ mission. “But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?” Judas is still consumed with the idea that when the savior of the world comes, he must startle the entire world with a cataclysmic self-revelation. He does not understand that the savior must first come to offer himself as a sacrifice to those who would believe.
Jesus’ answer to Judas is puzzling. It’s almost as if he doesn’t answer the question at all. He simply repeats what he will say at least four times in this passage. “If anyone loves me, he will obey my commands.” By these words Jesus explains that even if he were to reveal himself in his glory to all the world, those whose hearts were turned against him would still not believe. Jesus had said before that they would not believe even if they saw him raised from the dead. Jesus would reveal himself to those who loved him and whose love was demonstrated by obedience. This loving obedience, says Jesus, is the prerequisite for the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in a person’s life.
Obedience is not a very popular notion in our modern society. It seems that with each succeeding generation there is a greater disregard for authority. Maybe it’s because we haven’t had many good authority figures in our country for a long time. In the 60’s American popular ethics began to leave the realm of moral absolutes and move to the notion that anything was OK, provided it was done in love. Philosopher Joseph Fletcher wrote a book entitled Situation Ethics, which worked to solidify this notion in the American conscience. Unfortunately, without an absolute standard, love degenerates into a vague notion of what makes me feel good about myself.
Even many leaders of Christendom have become confused on the issue of obedience. Several years ago, a group of theologians met at a prestigious Easter seminary to discuss the new, more progressive American morality. Most were in favor of it and suggested that morality should be free from rules and regulations, even those in the Bible. Love would be the controlling factor. Anything was OK as long as it was done in love and did not hurt anyone. Along the way, a Catholic priest involved in the discussion became very quiet and was finally asked what he thought. His simple response was, “If you love me, you will keep my commands.” Love is a valuable guide for morality, but only when it is in line with God’s standards.
For Jesus, to love him means to obey him. Now of course, such a statement is great ammunition for those who fire on Christianity by saying that it’s just a bunch of rules and regulations, but that’s the case only because they completely misunderstand Jesus, and life itself. This is not performance-based religion, which says that God will love us based on how much we obey him. It’s not legalism, which requires a certain number of works for us to be saved. Obedience is not the means here; it is the result.
Christ described his relationship with believers as being like that of a husband to his wife. Over the last few years, I have spent time with many couples in pre-marital counseling. I take them through a series of exercises which reveal the strengths in their relationship, but also the weaknesses, which almost always stem from conflicts in personal behavior patterns and perceptions.
Now I must tell you that when couples come to me for this counseling, they are always obviously in love. Now, say you were privy to one of these counseling sessions and saw that in the discussion of a particular struggle in the couple’s relationship I suggested that the man needed to make some real changes in a particular behavior towards his fiancé, if he wanted to build a strong marriage. But suppose he looked at me and said, “Hey man, I just want a marriage here. I don’t want to have to make serious sacrifices,” what would you say? Well, for those of you who are married, your first response might be, “Dream on, airhead!” But what you would really be saying is, he doesn’t love her.
In a good marriage, a husband and wife make hard sacrifices for each other because they love each other. So Jesus says to his followers, if you love me, you will obey my commands. This loving obedience is the prerequisite for the ministry of the Holy Spirit. But didn’t Jesus just say that the Holy Spirit will enter the life of the believer forever? Yes. It’s not that the Holy Spirit leaves a believer when he is living in disobedience, but scripture tells us that we can drastically affect the ministry of the Spirit to us. The apostle Paul tells us that by choosing to live according to our own ways rather than God’s, we can quench the power of the Holy Spirit within us just as if we were to throw a bucket of water on a campfire. But he also tells us we can be filled with the Spirit by letting God and his ways be in complete control of our lives.
The church in America needs to be filled with the Spirit of God. We have largely quenched the power of the Spirit. Part of the reason is because there is great sin in the church that has not been called to account. But maybe even a greater reason is that in the comfort of this great nation the church has become apathetic and materialistic rather than truly obedient to the commands of Christ to love God with all our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves.
So, we’ve seen that Jesus has promised us the Holy Spirit, and that there is a prerequisite to receiving that promise. Finally, we need to see exactly what it is this Holy Spirit wants to do in our lives.
The results of the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
The ministry of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers is a vast subject which spans much of the scriptures. This morning I want to concentrate primarily on the teaching from the text in front of us. As we have seen, scattered throughout this text is the statement of Jesus that if we love him, we will keep his commands. In fact, the passage opens with such a statement. But notice what immediately follows it. Right after Jesus tells his followers that to love him is to obey him, he tells them he will send them the Counselor, the advocate from the Father who will not only encourage them and support them in their obedience, but, as the Spirit of truth, will help them determine exactly how to obey Christ.
Jesus knows the weaknesses of his disciples. He knows that they are sinners and that they are selfish. For him to tell them to suddenly become self-sacrificing individuals whose first priority is to obey Christ without giving them any help makes about as much sense as me telling my two-year-old daughter to stop crying in the middle of a temper tantrum. (I’ve been known to do that, by the way). Such changes are not immediately made by human effort. So, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to indwell each believer, bringing to him the very power of God to walk in obedience to Christ’s commands.
Would this Spirit immediately make the disciples into perfectly obedient saints without sin or fault? No. Scripture shows that the Holy Spirit had to teach the disciples over a long period, purifying their lives slowly. But did the Spirit make an immediate and evident change in the character and priorities of these believers? Absolutely! Peter alone serves as a priceless example. The Peter who was not yet indwelt with the Spirit was the man who could not stand up to the accusations of a lowly servant girl and three times denied his Lord. The Peter who was filled with the Spirit of God only weeks later was the man who stood up in the marketplace before thousands of his countrymen, many who were hostile to Jesus, and preached the good news of his resurrection. The Holy Spirit had taken charge of Peter’s life and, from now on, Peter’s priority and passion would be to love and obey Jesus.
Obedience is not a popular thing today, but power is. Everyone wants power, it seems. Even Christians are hungry for power. But it’s not often enough that what we’re seeking is the power to obey Christ. Too often we are seeking God’s power to change our circumstances. We need more money, we need more success in business, we need to find a mate, we need to be healed from sickness. Is it wrong to pray for God’s power in these things? Not necessarily. And sometimes he does great work in those areas. But if you look at this passage and scan the rest of scripture what you’ll find is that God wants to give us the power to live right.
I’m sorry, but I just can’t listen to about half of the preachers on Christian radio. It seems they spend most of their time claiming God’s power for this blessing and claiming God’s deliverance from that circumstance. Just once I would like to hear one of them claim the power of the Holy Spirit to help him obey Jesus. I’m sure I’m exaggerating, but you get the point. Jesus gave us the Holy Spirit primarily to help us do something we could not do on our own, to love, serve and obey our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Serving, and obeying Jesus is difficult. But he commands it. How often do we stop and ask him for the power to obey him? How often in our jobs, in our marriages, in our relationships with others do we say, “Lord, show me what to do and give me the power to do it, because I can’t do it on my own.”? This is the power that Jesus offers us through the Holy Spirit.
A second result of the ministry of the Holy Spirit, seen in vs. 23, is that, through him, the Father and the Son make their home in the life of the believer. When a person becomes a Christian, when he receives forgiveness of his sins through faith in the death of Jesus and begins to follow him as Lord, God the Father, the creator of the universe and Jesus, the Son of God, take up residence in his body through the Holy Spirit. Paul puts it another way in 1 Corinthians, saying that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God moves into our lives, lock, stock, and barrel.
And notice that when our body becomes God’s home, it is no longer ours. It’s as if an owner with all the resources in the world has taken us on as a rehabilitation project. But too often we cast ourselves as slumlords and return to take control and stop the owner in the midst of his work. The ministry of the Holy Spirit is to take up residence in our lives, which are dilapidated by sin, and turn them into a dwelling that reflects the character of Jesus Christ. But he will only do that if we give him complete control.
Third, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would teach the disciples all things and remind them of everything he said. I believe this ministry was accomplished in a unique way in the lives of the apostles, so that they could accurately record God’s truth in the form of scripture. Does the Holy Spirit still do this today? I believe so. But in the lives of Christians today I believe the Holy Spirit does this primarily through calling to our minds the truths of God’s Word, which has been faithfully preserved for us. Scripture tells us that it contains everything we need to live godly lives and that we are to know it well, so that we can obey its teaching. The key for being taught by God’s Spirit is to do two things. Study God’s Word and ask God to help us understand by his Spirit how to apply it to our lives.
Finally, Jesus says that, by his Spirit, he will leave us his peace. See here that Jesus makes a clear distinction between the peace he offers through his indwelling Spirit and the peace the world has to offer. The world talks of peace and offers it in certain forms. But I’m afraid the world’s peace, dependent as it is on circumstances, is too often like the peace offered by Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of Britain, after a meeting with Adolph Hitler, as he returned home to cheering crowds waving useless documents over his head and proclaiming, “We have achieved peace in our time.” But as God spoke through the prophet Isaiah concerning the peace the world offers, “The way of peace they do not know; there is no justice in their paths. They have turned them into crooked roads; no one who walks in them will know peace.”
Peace is often described negatively, as the absence of hostility, war, fear, etc. Sometimes it is described as having good feelings about yourself and life. But the peace Jesus offers is more than the absence of trouble or the presence of positive feelings. Listen to the words of Paul at the beginning of Romans 5: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The peace of Jesus is the result of a right relationship with a loving and powerful God who has forgiven us of sin and is in control of our lives. And in the midst of life’s struggles, he indwells us by his Holy Spirit, who speaks to us saying, “I love you, I forgive you, I am enough for you.”
At the end of this chapter, we have the ultimate example of the effects of the peace of God, which he offers us by his Spirit. Jesus, filled as he always was with God’s Spirit, is comforting and encouraging his poor and downtrodden disciples when it is he who is about to do battle face to face with the prince of darkness. And how, through the power of the Spirit, will he show his love for God? Look at the last verse. By doing exactly as the Father had commanded him.
Conclusion: A few months ago our four year old was getting in the van with his mother and sister after a morning at Community Bible Study. Before Robin started the car, he asked her for her Bible and said he wanted to receive Jesus and to obey him. So, Robin prayed with him and later that night I talked to him about God’s Spirit coming to live inside of him. Well, just the other day Drew asked me, “Dad, how big is the Holy Spirit?” I tried hard to explain to him that size does not apply to a spirit. Then he asked, “Dad, how big is my heart?” It was then that I realized that he was trying to figure out how the Holy Spirit could fit inside his heart.
Maybe we adults need to be asking ourselves how the Holy Spirit can fit inside of our hearts. We have not been left home alone. But sometimes we live as if there’s no one there. God has sent us his Spirit to give us power, understanding, and peace. The prerequisite is love and obedience of Christ. What steps are we taking to lovingly obey Christ and give the Holy Spirit total control in the rehabilitation of this house in which he lives?
DATE: May 16, 1993
Tags:
Holy Spirit
Obedience
Peace