John 14: 25-27 “All this I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have told you. Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled; do not be afraid.”
John 16: 7-8 “But I tell you the truth, it is for your benefit that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And when He comes, He will convict the world in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: in regard to sin, because they do not believe in Me.”
Over the past two weeks as we headed into the Christmas time, we spoke about God the Father and then about Jesus, the perfect Christmas gift. Today I want to talk about the Holy Spirit. I grew up in a very conservative church and still pastor a very conservative church. And at times, in response to the abuse of the person of the Holy Spirit in other churches, I find that we conservatives, maybe not all of us but many of us, can become so protective that we almost stop talking about the Holy Spirit. Over the years I have been able, along with the work and study of other pastors, as well as with lectures in my current course of study, to come to learn and now to lean more on the Holy Spirit than ever before.
First of all, if you are saved, if you have accepted the free gift of salvation that Jesus paid for in His own blood, then you have the Holy Spirit living in you.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies.”
This is one of the great mysteries of the New Testament believer that is a genuine treasure.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit came and went on the believers. One of the only people that He stayed with for his entire life was King David. We see this in 1 Samuel 16:13. But we have the Holy Spirit in us, sealing us and securing us in Jesus until the Rapture or death will unite us face to face with Jesus.
When we consider the two sets of verses from John’s gospel that we quoted above, we will see that there are some great benefits to having the Holy Spirit here with us all the time. Let us look at these things together. This is very important.
One of the biggest issues of the last days is deception. Jesus told us in Matthew 24 that false christs will come. He warns us over and over not to be deceived. So, what John has to say to us about the Holy Spirit is relevant to us today, and especially we that are eagerly awaiting our Lord’s return, those of us that are looking and listening for the trump and the shout. We need to have the Holy Spirit in us to temper our enthusiasm and focus us on the right things.
In John 14, Jesus is having a conversation with His disciples, sparked from a question in verse 8 by Philip, asking to see the Father. Jesus promises them a Comforter, the Holy Spirit, and He is tasked with several jobs on our behalf:
The Holy Spirit is our Advocate. In his commentary on John 14, David Guzik offers this: “He will give you another Helper. Helper translates the ancient Greek word parakletos. This means a person summoned to one’s aid, and may refer to an adviser, a legal defender, a mediator, or an intercessor.”
The Holy Spirit is One who is beside us all the time. He is God’s presence with us, helping us. And make no mistake; He is God. The word for another in Greek is allen, meaning another of the same kind. Thus, the Holy Spirit is another just like Jesus; He, like Jesus, is God. Remember one of Jesus’ names at birth was Emmanuel which is translated God with us. When Jesus was leaving to go back home to Heaven, He left us the Holy Spirit to be with us, our Helper our Advocate who never leaves us, ever.
The Holy Spirit is our Teacher. If you want to know the answer, God will show you the answer. The Holy Spirit is there to teach us the truth. Notice, He will teach us all things. There is no area of life that stumps the Holy Spirit. He is never dumbfounded nor caught off guard. Open your Bible and ask God to show you. Seek and you will find God; you will find the answers; you will find what you need to do to change and to grow in the Lord and become more like Jesus. The Holy Spirit, if you listen to Him, will help you be a better man, woman, wife, husband, sibling, church member, pastor, servant, worker, and on we can go. He is here to teach us. Since God cannot lie and the Holy Spirit is God, He will only teach us the truth; thus, we are armed to spot counterfeit teachings, armed to recognizes lies and false teachers.
The Holy Spirit is our Reminder. When our kids leave the house to go out, my wife usually sends them off with “remember whose you are.” This is exactly what the Holy Spirit does for us; He reminds us whose we are when we are down, when we are tempted, when we are doubting, and when we fail.
Remember He is our Helper. The Holy Spirit also reminds us of what we have learned. All those verses that you read but you think they don’t stick, or all the sermons that you have heard but you think they were a blur, or all the devotions that you have done but you are not sure that you got it – the Holy Spirit is there to recall these things for you, to make you understand what that verse meant and how to apply it. But, remember He helps you recall; you have to be an active participant and read, study, attend church and lessons, and you have to listen to the Holy Spirit when He is speaking.
I heard a very famous preacher talk about being in an elevator once with two attractive young ladies who began hitting on him, and how the Holy Spirit helped him to recall verses about purity, faithfulness, and whose he was in Jesus. The Holy Spirit reminded him and equipped him to make the right decision.
The Holy Spirit is our Peace. The whole world wants peace, but they don’t want Jesus. Well, He is the very author of Peace. And, in His absence, He has sent us a Peacemaker just like Him to calm us in this hectic world. Notice Jesus says to the disciples “My peace.” It is His to give, and we have it in the Person of the Holy Spirit. The first kind of peace we have is security. In Ephesians 4:30, we are told that we are sealed until the day of redemption, referring to either the Rapture if we are living or the grave if we die before the Rapture. We are sealed by God with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:13-14 tells us this,
“And in Him, having heard and believed the word of truth—the gospel of your salvation—you were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession, to the praise of His glory.”
The Holy Spirit is the pledge, the down payment on our salvation. He is the Guarantee of our salvation. We are called God’s possession in verse 14 above. There is peace in knowing we are God’s no matter what; we are in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit is in us.
John concludes in John 14:27, don’t let your hearts be troubled; be calm, don’t be anxious, be at peace; God has you. In Romans 15:13, He is not just our peace but also our joy. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God’s Power here. In the second set of verses we highlighted at the beginning, we are told that it is the Holy Spirit that convicts the world. We are not called to convince the people around us about the Lord, about salvation, or about Heaven or Hell. We are simply told to tell the whole world about Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit that does all the other work. What a burden is taken off of us. We are simply watchmen, responsible for making the alarm and warning the people. God will make sure, via the Holy Spirit, that they know about righteousness, judgement and sin.
The Holy Spirit prays for us. He prays for us and intercedes for us before the Lord.
Romans 8:26-27 “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.”
Have you ever just called out the name of the Lord but you are at a loss for words? The Holy Spirit is there praying on your behalf. He takes your mumbled thoughts and turns them into words. He takes your hurt and translates them into words. He always prays for us within God’s will for us. Oh, what a prayer warrior we have in the Holy Spirit! We have not been left to our limited minds and finite vocabularies; no, no, no. We have God the Holy Spirit in His infinite wisdom praying for us.
Jesus promised that He would not leave us alone and friendless. No; rather, He has given us the Holy Spirit, God with us, to comfort, carry, encourage and correct us when needed. The Holy Spirit preserves us, prays for us and offers us God’s peace. We are constantly in the presence of God if you are saved. The Holy Spirit never leaves you, never abandons His post, never forsakes His calling, and never gives up on us.
We/I should discipline ourselves to listen more intently, obey quicker and be in constant gratitude that God would be mindful of us. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit: all One, all God, all Powerful, all here for us all the time.
I pray that as you and I enter this New Year, 2020, we will seek the power and leadership of the Holy Spirit in our lives, that we will bask in His peace no matter what the circumstances of life, and that we will our life in Him. He will never lead us astray and always lead us to truth and obedience.
God bless you,
Pastor Sean Gooding
Mississauga Missionary Baptist Church