Farewell: The way of the Holy Spirit
Read John 14: 15-27 & 16: 5-16 and then pray; Precious Holy Spirit, be my teacher and my guide throughout my life, and empower me to live to the glory, honour, and praise of God – Father, Son, and Spirit. Amen.
We are spending time looking at Jesus’s farewell discourse and teaching with his disciples before his arrest, mock trial, extreme suffering, and death on the cross. This is teaching which begins in John 13:31 with the command to “love one another,” (a teaching that is repeated several times in this final discourse John 15: 12, 17) and stretches to the end of chapter 16. Then, after concluding his teaching, Jesus prays for his disciples; he prays for their mutual love and unity in God, Father, Son, and Spirit.
As I have stressed before, Jesus here is predominantly addressing the fact that he is about to return to the Father, to the Father’s side in glory, to the Father’s house from where he came. Many times, Jesus emphasises that He is “going to the Father.” (14:2, 4, 12) And it because of what will happen soon after His resurrection and ascension, that Jesus makes two hugely important promises in John 14, both of which mean that the disciples do not need to let their hearts be troubled. This theme of trouble-free hearts which are occupied by the peace of Jesus begins and ends this section of teaching. (14:1, 27).
Jesus promises two things that can ensure trouble free hearts and peace of mind and soul. What does he faithfully promise? These promises are very important for us. The first promise relates to what I spoke about last week – the promise of the Father’s house and eternal life. (Read John 14: 1-4) This is a very precious promise and helps to put their hearts and our hearts at rest. These 11 disciples, and all disciples will one day enjoy the bliss and the joy and the glory of the Father’s house with eternal life. But the second promise is for something extremely precious and imminent. It is the promise of the Holy Spirit who will be sent soon to fill the gap left by Jesus’s departure and return to the Father.
The Father’s house is for the future. The Holy Spirit, on the other hand, is God’s gift to believers for the here and now, to help and support them as they live out their lives of faith, hope and loving action in this world of trouble and difficulty. The world will be a troubling place for disciples, and I will deal with this topic and reality next week. In this world you will have trouble says Jesus. (16:33) But take heart, I have overcome the world. And the way to overcome, and to be more than a conqueror will be through the possession of a great Divine gift, the gift of the Holy Spirit. His presence will help them and us in this world, and will keep and strengthen each disciple to the end of life.
It is in John’s gospel and this farewell speech, where we receive some of the most sublime and the fullest teaching on the person and work of the Spirit – and this teaching comes from the lips of the Master – Jesus. What does the Lord Jesus teach us about the Holy Spirit? I can only give the briefest of summaries today, but if you and I can grasp this teaching and live in the light of it, our Christian lives and discipleship will be truly revolutionised and magnificently empowered.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth. (John: 14:16)
The first crucial thing that Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit will be a direct replacement for Jesus. The Father and the Son will send “another Counsellor” to be with them. The Greek word “another” here is “allos” which means another of the same kind not another of a different kind. Although Jesus is leaving, the One who is coming will be the same as Jesus – but in what way? He will be God, a personal Divine Being. God the Spirit. God the Father and God the Son will together send God the Holy Spirit to be with the disciples. They will continue to enjoy and know the Presence of God with them, but it will be God the Holy Spirit. He is the third person in the Trinity. Some very important truths emerge from this concerning the Holy Spirit. Firstly, He is Divine and secondly, He is a Divine Person, not merely a force or a power. This is a Person who we learn can speak, teach, guide, empower; One who searches, cries out, prays, forbids, be offended. HE can be grieved and resisted. He can be followed and honoured. The Spirit is a Glorious, Holy, Powerful, Divine Person, equal with the Father and the Son. In 14:23, Jesus says;
If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
This means that although Jesus was promising the Divine gift of the Spirit to believers, the Father and Son would also live in them. But how if they are in heaven? They would do so because of the real presence of the Spirit. Having the Spirit, will also mean having the Father and Son because we have the One God – in three persons dwelling in believers. The Spirit comes and makes the eternal presence of the Father and Son known to us and in us. The Spirit can do this because He too is God.
This leads into the big part of this promise. The coming of the Spirit means that the disciples (you and I) will have God continually living in them as well as alongside them. God will truly set up home inside the believer. As Paul puts it several times, each Christian believer becomes a “temple of the Holy Spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:19, Ephesians 2:22) Whilst Jesus was in this world with his disciples, He could only be in one place at one time. He could be in Nazareth; he could be in Samaria; he could be in Jerusalem. When the Sprit comes, he will live in the hearts of all believers at the same time wherever they are. He is Spirit. Whether believers are Jerusalem, Rome, or in the countries of Scotland, Argentina or Nigeria, the Spirit will abide in Christian lives wherever they are. This is how Christian mission and expansion will be enabled to happen. As the gospel goes to the end of the earth, to all nations in the power of the Spirit, people will come into a knowledge of the complete forgiveness of sins and the present abiding gift of the Spirit. (Read Acts 2: 37-39)
Now this means, and this is true for all believers, that we have this Divine Person living and working in us. You and I can personally know the Holy Spirit. We can love Him, obey Him, speak to Him, and walk with Him. We can listen to Him and communicate with Him. We can pray to Him and He can pray for us and through us. We can know and enjoy what the bible refers to as fellowship with the Spirit. May the grace of the Lord Jesus, the love of God (the Father) and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us. (2 Corinthians 13:14) This “fellowship” or friendship with the Spirit can and should revolutionise Christian experience, living and serving.
The understanding of this truth has done more to help my ministry than almost any other Christian truth. My days are days in which I seek to be led by the Spirit, meaning that I regularly talk to and rely upon the power and guidance of the Spirit throughout each day. (Illustration of Paul Yonggi Cho – Good Morning Holy Spirit). Learn to fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Enjoy fellowship with the Spirit who abides in you and walks alongside you. This is God’s gift to each disciple – including you. You can see this fellowship with the Spirit in operation in Acts of the Apostles many times. Look at all the references to the Holy Spirit in Acts. There you find a dynamic Person on the move, also but living in their hearts and minds of God’s people.
What does the Spirit do for disciples? What will the Spirit do for me and you? Great question and the answers are multiple and very exciting. The One “who comes alongside us,” the Paraclete (Paracletos in greek) or as it translated into English – the Counsellor, the Comforter, the Helper: He would do many things as He came along and inside each disciple, helping and assisting the disciples who are now without the physical presence of Jesus. Jesus says the Spirit would be their Guide as he had been their Guide. The Spirit guides the disciple in the way to live, in the way to serve, in the way to use gifts and grow fruit, in the way to live out their lives to the glory of the Father and the Son.
The Spirit will also lead disciples into all truth – all truth about God and about Jesus and his salvation. The Spirit will teach them and remind them of all the important things they need know about Jesus who is the Way, the Truth and Life. Some of these disciples are going to be uniquely led, inspired and equipped to write gospels that will change the world. Matthew and John are two examples. But in the same way, God leads, teaches, and guides us today, especially as we listen to the Spirit through the Scriptures which He alone inspired to be written. (2 Timothy: 16, 2 Peter 1: 20-21).
The Holy Spirit grows and guides our knowledge of the truth about God because He uniquely knows searches the deep things of God. (Read 1 Corinthians 2: 9-12). Bible study should be done always with our hearts open to the Spirit who lives in us and who inspired the writing of the bible. You will constantly find the Spirit speaking to you about his favourite subject – holiness, as he acts within us to inspire our personal change into the likeness of Jesus.
The Spirit will also encourage and assure disciples in many ways. He obviously assures us of God’s presence with us and in us. The Spirit, by His presence assures us of God’s great love for us. Paul, in Romans writes; And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts (how?) by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us. (Romans 5:5) The Holy Spirit constantly reminds me of Jesus’s love for me. The Spirit’s presence also assures me of my salvation and the place prepared for me in my Father’s house. The real presence of the Spirit in my heart is the first-fruit of my salvation or as Paul describes it, the downpayment, the sure deposit of what is to come. Paul says to the Christians in Ephesus (and to us); Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession – to the praise of his glorious grace. (Ephesians 1: 13b-14)
This links beautifully the two great promises in John 14 where we began today: the promise of the specially prepared place in the Father’s house, and the promise of the Spirit now. The second promise of the Spirit who will live in us throughout life, guarantees the first promise of the place with the Father and the Son in the glory of the Father’s house. (see also 2 Corinthians 5: 1-5)
Let me close with this. What I have shared with you is some of the wonderful and special blessings that come from having the second Counsellor (The Holy Spirit) living in us in our lives whilst in this troubled world. But what is the work of the Holy Spirit in the troubled world itself? The Holy Spirit does not solely work in the life of the Church and the individual believer; He also works widely and purposefully in mission to a world currently outside of Christ and His kingdom. How does Jesus describe this work in His farewell speech?
He tells the disciples that the world (which hates Christ and God) does not know, accept, see, or care about the Holy Spirit who comes to live in Jesus’s followers. (Read John 14:6-17) The men and women of the world do not according to the apostle Paul understand the things of the Spirit because they are foolishness to them. (1 Corinthians 2:12-14) Despite this fact, the Spirit is still out there, moving powerfully like a wind, working purposefully to do a specific evangelistic work. He is the Spirit who leads the mission of the kingdom! But what and how does the Spirit do this? Jesus reveals this to his disciples. (Read John 16: 7-11) The easiest way I find to understand this missionary work of the Spirit is to remember and to pray around three words all beginning the letters c o n.
- Convicts (The Spirit deeply convicts individuals of their sin and real need for forgiveness)
- Convinces (The Spirit directs individuals to Jesus who alone in the Way, the Truth, and the Life)
- Converts (The Spirit alone causes such individual to be born again of the Spirit – John 3: 5-8)
This is how we should pray to the Spirit. Ask the Spirit to do his special work of convicting, convincing and converting in the hearts of friends and family who do yet know Jesus or the abundant life he freely offers. Let us pray that the Spirit will blaze a trail through this land and bring many people into a firm knowledge of God’s love and peace in Jesus. Jesus answers all our questions about the Holy Spirit in this final speech to his beloved disciples.
Thank God that we can sing a simple yet profound truth with heartfelt assurance and deep conviction:
Thank you, O, my Father, for giving us your Son, and leaving your Sprit till the work on earth is done.
And now to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit we ascribe all the glory, the honour, and the praise. Amen.
(Revd Peter J Clarkson 18.5.25)