John 16: 12-15
Last Sunday, I preached on the subject of the Holy Spirit. We looked at who the Holy Spirit is and what his purpose is and as we only just scratched the surface, I have decided to look at another aspect of the Holy Spirit this morning. However, before we do let’s just recap with a few important points.
The Holy Spirit is God. He is equal in power and personality to the Father and to the Son.
The Holy Spirit is another who is exactly the same as Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is a counsellor. He is the one who makes Jesus real to you and to me.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, who reveals God’s truth to all believers.
The Holy Spirit is Holy. He gives us the desire to confess our sins and the power to separate from those things that are not holy.
And finally, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to empower, enlighten, encourage and to equip us. In other words, He is the power into whom we need to be plugged!
In today’s Gospel reading Jesus introduces us to another facet of the Holy Spirit’s character, the Spirit of Truth. “When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all truth.” In the Old Testament, Joshua, as Moses’ successor, had the task of leading the people into the promised land, so the Holy Spirit as Jesus’ successor, has the task of leading Jesus’ followers, both you and me, in the sphere of truth. Jesus told the disciples, “it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.”
Jesus knew that it was to our advantage that he went away. Why? Jesus, you see, was limited in what he could do. This is something we don’t often think about because we like to think of Jesus able to do anything, able to understand everything, able to see into the future, able to look into people’s hearts and see their deepest secret and all of that is true. Jesus was in tune with God. He knew God’s plan. He knew that he would suffer and die and be resurrected in three days. He knew that he would ascend to heaven and that the Holy Spirit would come to take his place. However, Jesus’ limitation was that he was God wrapped in the flesh, and it was the flesh part, that imposed severe limitations on him, as it does with us.
Being in the flesh, meant that Jesus could only be in one place at a time. Even though he attracted crowds in the thousands, he could personally touch only a few people on any given day. The flesh part also meant that Jesus felt the stress of the crowds, and had to retreat to private places for prayer. It meant he had to stop and eat. It also meant he was limited in the length of time that he lived.
“But I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away.”
What was that advantage? The advantage was that the Holy Spirit would come and he did. Those of us, who have experienced him, know and can testify to that, the very same Spirit that Jesus talked about, dwells in people’s hearts, living inside us, rather than on the outside. The Holy Spirit is able to dwell in all hearts at the same time, limited only by our unwillingness to receive him. The Spirit never has to take time to sleep or to travel to another place. The Spirit is never absent. Whether we are at home, or at work, or on holiday, the Holy Spirit is with us always. We are never alone! Isn’t that just awesome and mind boggling! The Holy Spirit, God, is with us always!!
Jesus also said, “when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.” It’s an amazing thing truth, isn’t it? Truth liberates, but it can also destroy. Some truths are just too much to bear. Just imagine, for example, what it would be like to have people able to read your mind and to know your every thought! In a court of law, people swear to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, but that is different from knowing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Knowing exactly what was ahead of you in the future could be a terrible thing. Jesus did not burden the disciples with truth too heavy to bear, truth that would reveal everything that was ahead of them, truth that would break them. Instead, the Spirit would open each page as circumstances required, and would help the disciples to bear the hard truths that they would face.
God gives us the Spirit of Truth, who guides us into truth as we need it and as we are able to bear it. Just imagine if we were able to see into our futures. I for one might have been tempted to give up if I had known all that was to happen in my life time. The Holy Spirit is utterly dependable because he neither crushes us, with more truth than we can bear nor leads us into a lie. We can have the same confidence that a child has, in the presence of a loving parent. The Spirit of Truth will guide us rightly and the Spirit of Truth will guide us perfectly.
The Spirit of Truth is never far from us. God sends the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth to dwell in our hearts, so that he is always present to meet our needs. He is that still small voice that gives us that sense of peace in the midst of calamity.
The Spirit of Truth inspires and encourages us to speak the truth into the world. Unfortunately, we, in this country of ours, seem to be suffering from what I would call “truth decay!” Those we choose to lead us, fudge the truth, bringing in laws that may have far reaching and damaging long term effects and we allow them to do it.
Another name for the Spirit of Truth is the Advocate. He is our help, God’s presence to defend us and to take our side. The Spirit of Truth is with us in the doctor’s office, he’s with us in the hospital, he’s with us when we are recovering from major surgery, he’s with us when we lose a child through cancer, he’s with us when we’re laid off work, he’s with us when our house is filled with liquid faction, he’s with us when we wake tossing and turning at three o’clock in the morning. The Spirit of Truth is present with us in every time, and every place, and in every circumstance.
The only place the Spirit cannot go to, is to the person who will not receive him. The only limit on the Spirit is our willingness to follow him. The only obstruction to the Spirit is the hardness of our hearts. Let me repeat that.
I wonder where your heart is this morning? Has the busyness of your life changed your focus away from God and left little room for a relationship with Jesus? Maybe you have experienced disappointment in your life and have allowed that to sour your relationship with God. Perhaps you are still hanging onto things of the past and have let the spirit of unforgiveness build an ugly wall against any sense of reconciliation. Whatever place you find yourself in, no place is too hard or a situation too hard for the Holy Spirit to penetrate and heal if you will only allow him into your life. The question is, will you allow Him to do that this morning?
Receptiveness to the Spirit’s guidance varies widely. Some of you may shut out the Spirit, and derive no benefit from his teaching. Others of you will seek the Spirit’s help in times of trouble, but pay no heed in normal times. Still others of you will hear the Spirit’s voice, but only faintly through the din of competing voices. My prayer is that you will all receive the Spirit’s counsel gladly, and produce abundant fruit, and become spiritual giants: people like Bonhoeffer, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and Billy Graham.
Something occurred to me, while I was putting this sermon together that I had never considered before and that is this: the Holy Spirit has the power to bring that kind of spiritual vitality to life within us, if only we will open our lives fully to the Spirit’s guidance and teaching. We can all be spiritual giants. Yes really! The only thing that holds us back is ourselves!!!
I believe the question for us today is not whether the Spirit has the truth we need to hear. The question is whether we will hear the Spirit’s truth. If we will hear, the Spirit will guide us. If we will heed, the Spirit will save us. If we respond, the Spirit will bless us with every blessing. So, I wonder, what on earth are we waiting for?
