Sermon Tone Analysis

2008-08-31 (pm) John 16.5-16 God the Holy Spirit

 

            What comes to mind when you think of the Holy Spirit?

Do you think about spiritual gifts?

Do you think about charismatic, jumping around, dancing, being slain in the Spirit, the laughing people at the Toronto Airport Church.

Do you think of spiritual warefare, of angels and demons, and the great spiritual battle going on beyond what we can see with our eyes?

Do thoughts of the Holy Spirit comfort you?  Do they frighten you?  Do you think of the Holy Spirit in the same sense as the Narnians thought of Aslan in the children’s books by C.S. Lewis, you know when they said of Aslan, “He’s not a TAME Lion.”

The Holy Spirit isn’t a tame spirit, he does what he wants.

Do you know much about the Holy Spirit?

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit does not get much attention in Reformed churches.

Also, the Holy Spirit is given very little specific attention in the Heidelberg Catechism, just one Lord’s Day, and then four more Lord’s Days that explain the Holy Spirit’s work in greater detail.

Even this Lord’s Day is limited to just one Q&A, and only part of that speaks about the person of the Holy Spirit.

Most of the Lord’s Day is devoted to how the Holy Spirit benefits us.

And this is right.

This is not to say that the Holy Spirit is inferior in any way to the Father or the Son, but that the person of the Holy Spirit functions, relates, and works in a specific way that, to our eyes might seem to be inferior, hopefully it will be shown otherwise.

The Holy Spirit fulfills the promise Christ made to his disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night he was betrayed.

The Father, through the Holy Spirit, made Jesus utterly aware of what was going to happen that night.

Jesus had already warned the disciples what would happen.

They were distraught, sorrowful and already feeling the pain of missing their friend and incredible teacher.

But Jesus makes it clear that unless he departed, unless he suffered, was crucified, died, was buried, was risen and ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit would not come.

Jesus wanted them to know that having the Holy Spirit was of much greater benefit than simply having Jesus with them without the cross.

For, in order to go to the Father and send the Spirit, Jesus had to face the cross.

At the cross, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sin.

He propitiated the Father’s anger that was directed at us because of sin, and imparted to us, gave to us his very own perfect righteousness.

And it is because of that righteousness, that the Holy Spirit could come.

And the Holy Spirit came not only upon one here and upon one there, the Spirit came upon many!

That first Pentecost, 3000 people converted to Christ!

It is important for us to note that Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the helper.

Do you think of the Holy Spirit as the helper in our lives?

If you only think of the Holy Spirit as some vague force, or unknowable spirit, what good is that?

We need to know that the Holy Spirit is our helper.

Now, we know that the Holy Spirit was with Jesus and he helped Jesus.

If we were to turn to the book of Mark, at the very beginning we have the announcement of Jesus’ arrival, we have John the Baptist preparing the way by preaching repentance, confession and forgiveness of sin.

Jesus also came and was baptised.

There at his baptism, as Jesus was coming out of the water, God the Father said, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.”

And the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus as a dove.

And immediately after his baptism, that same Spirit, the Spirit Jesus says is our helper, the Holy Spirit who helped him, the Holy Spirit, cast Jesus into the wilderness where he fasted and was tempted for 40 days.

Not only did the Spirit immediately send Jesus into the wilderness, the Holy Spirit helped Jesus suffer through the wilderness and the temptations Satan threw at him.

So, the Holy Spirit is our helper too!

But we must not be surprised when temptations come our way, or when we have to travel through wilderness experiences.

For these are presented to us by the Holy Spirit in order to strengthen us, and to prepare us for the future.

And that same Spirit who leads us and guides us, who might even cast us into these wilderness experiences is the one who helps us and strengthens us.

Jesus suffering in the wilderness prepared him for the cross.

Christ’s suffering and death on the cross was necessary in order for us to receive righteousness, and it was necessary for sending the Holy Spirit.

The disciples would learn very quickly that Jesus was right, that His departure would be of greater benefit than if he’d stayed.

Though I am sure that they missed having Jesus with them face to face, they most assuredly realised that Jesus was completely true to his word.

Having the Holy Spirit was of much greater value than having had a pre-cross Christ.

Furthermore, the disciples also would have discovered the value of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the perfect person for Christ’s ongoing ministry.

The disciple’s greatest need, our greatest need isn’t a gigantic teddy bear.

Life is too harsh, Satan too worthy an adversary for that.

Jesus doesn’t pretend the bad stuff isn’t there.

Sure, he’s conquered it, and we never have to fear it, but still, we have to face it.

And what we need is a helper, someone who will give us the courage and strength to do God’s will, to do God’s will boldly and to live for truth amid all sorts of temptations and trials.

Nor is the Holy Spirit’s work limited to the church!

The Holy Spirit works in the world, bringing people into our lives.

You see, this is the most amazing thing.

God chose us to work with the Holy Spirit, not only in the process of sanctification in our own lives, but also in the lives of others.

The Holy Spirit works to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgement.

And he conscripts us into participating in His ministry.

Doesn’t it strike you as amazing when people in the church, not necessarily our church, but when Christians say, we don’t need to talk about sin anymore, we need to focus on something more positive?

It amazes me that some churches, some Christians are not comfortable calling sin, sin.

Not so long ago I was in a conversation where a person expressed reluctance to define homosexuality as sinful!

Some churches have concluded that as long as they are in a committed relationship, then it is okay, that God’s honouring of the commitment is greater than his wrath against homosexuality.

That is, they might say, if there is such a thing as a sin of homosexuality today.

What’s then becomes the criteria for defining anything?

Do we simply say, if the intentions are pure, is it okay to seal, cheat and lie?  That’s what some churches end up saying to homosexual couples, if the intentions are pure, then it is pure.

Do we need to remind people that the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

May be we do!

But then again, we’re not allowed to talk about hell either.

God’s standard is truth.

And God will never violate his truth, nor will he change it.

And because the Holy Spirit is our helper, we ought always to be able to come to agreement on what truth is!

It is not as thought we can really get away with saying, “Well, we just interpret the truth differently.”

As our helper, our guide, our leader, the Holy Spirit will always, always, always agree with scripture.

If we’re listening to the Holy Spirit, we’ll interpret the scriptures correctly.

But if we’re listening to ourselves, or to false spirits, we’ll interpret it wrong.

At times, in moments like these, Paul uses strong words.

“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned” (Galatians 1.8)!

This is serious stuff!

We must remain faithful to the truth!

When the Holy Spirit works in the life of a non-believer there is only one of two results.

Either that person will come to faith, and will be born again, or that person will harden his heart toward the gospel, and go to everlasting punishment.

The Holy Spirit bares all sin.

For some, the Holy Spirit’s work will awaken them to a consciousness of guilt, which will lead to repentance.

Those whom the Holy Spirit moves, will express genuine sorrow and that will produce in them a passionate desire to flee to the Saviour for shelter and pardon.

There have been many true conversions and there will continue to be many true conversions.

But it is not all fairy tales and apple pie.

Not everyone who is confronted by the Holy Spirit will convert.

Many will rebel.

They will attack.

The persecution against the church has been going on for centuries.

It will continue.

Persecution happens precisely because of what we’re told by Jesus.

People do not believe in him, and they will not like to be told that they are sinning in their unbelief!

The church participates in the work of the Holy Spirit by preaching the Word, the gospel.

This is what convicts men of their sin.

The Gospel is this: humanity sinned by falling short of the glory of God.

That is to say, we exchanged perfect glory for false glory.

Instead of remaining desiring God, we desired what Satan had to offer.

Because of this treachery, our relationship with God went from good to bad.