Well, good morning. Turn with
me to John chapter 16, and we're going to back up a couple of
verses and move into the same text that we were in last week
for the sake of learning a couple of things that we can't see all
at one time. Think about your problems for
a minute. It's always good to reflect upon, right? I mean,
think about how many problems, if you were to sit down and write
them down, how many complaints you might have. If they're not
problems, it's not about complaints. Complaints about the weather, complaints
about the world, complaints about all sorts of things. At the beginning
of our service this morning, I read the first part of Colossians
3, where it reassures us that we are redeemed by the gospel
of free and sovereign grace, that we have been saved by the
work of God for us through Jesus Christ, who died for us. And
because of that, we then see the exhortation, the commands
by the apostle to put away all these things that are of the
dead flesh. We're no longer sinners to be standing in guilt and condemnation. We are saints because Christ
has purchased us and imputed his righteousness to us, so therefore
we can put away these things. Now it's never done perfectly.
It's not evidence of salvation in any means because many people
in cults and many agnostic atheist type mindsets, there are a lot
of people who can also put away these things. But because Christ
has died for these things on our behalf, we certainly should
be motivated out of love to do that. But one of the things that
always sort of strikes me there is that we are not to complain
and to grumble, but in everything we are to have thanksgiving.
And that is the context of Jesus' conversation with these disciples
who he has really, if someone came, if I came before you today
and I laid out a laundry list of problems that we're fissing
to have to face, you would think this was the most discouraging
assembly we've ever had. But why do we think that way?
Because that's our human nature. It's what we do. It's what the
flesh does. We look at all the circumstances and happenstance
of our life and we think, oh, woe is me. Look how bad things
are. And we're all guilty of it. All
of us, even when we are with our mouths able to say, well,
praise the Lord, he's sovereign. You know, he's sovereign. It's
good. Deep down, we're going, it's
not good. I know he's sovereign, but man, this stinks. If I could
just get out of this, I swear I wouldn't complain about anything.
It's like the rollercoaster prayer, you know? First time you ride
a rollercoaster, you say, oh, please, Lord, if I could ever
just get off this, I'll never ride another one until the next line. That's what you do. But there are other problems,
aren't there? If we really started focusing deeper, we would see
problems of our own mind, our own soul, the sinfulness of our
flesh, and how we doubt the Lord at every turn and we will start
to see that we're not even doing well in the commands. We're not even doing well in
the lifestyle of unity. How in the world are we going
to do well in the areas of faith? How are we going to make it to
stay firm in the scripture, to remember the gospel, to explain
and proclaim the goodness of Christ? How are we going to love
one another when we're really not lovable? I mean, are you
lovable? In reality, some of the greatest
rebuke slash wisdom slash love I ever received was from a brother
who said, how in the world are you expecting other people to
live with you when you can't even live with yourself? Would
you live with you? And I thought about it and I
said, no. But when it comes to matters
of faith, we see Jesus. Over these last five or six weeks,
we see many opportunities that Jesus has said to his disciples,
you know, you need to have hope. You need to have love. You need
to have intimacy. You need to walk in this way.
You need to love in this way. When you love, you're actually
loving me. When you love one another, you're actually my friend.
You're being my friend when your love is for one another. Now
see we understand, I'm going to remind you church, that these
things that we see in Jesus teaching and we see in Paul's writing
to the Hebrews and James writing to the Hebrews, we see that these
are not conditions for election or conditions for justification
or conditions for salvation, but these are things that we
are called to because of the love of God for us. And we will
do them well in some seasons by the mercies of God and in
other seasons we fail miserably but thankfully we are not measured
by how well we grow and mature in the faith. We are not measured
for some wicked idea of final salvation whereby we will prove
that we are the children of God because of the manner in which
our lives have grown. We are saved by the finished
work of Christ alone and by faith alone in that proclamation do
we stand this day. But most of us would say, you
know, it would be easier if Jesus was here, right? Have you ever
said that? I've said that before. Man, if
the Lord would just... But it's always in the context of His
second coming, right? If He'd just come on back and
wipe the world away. But wouldn't it also, in some
sense, logically, be easier if Jesus were here? Like if we're
dealing with problems and Jesus just ding-dong, he rings our
doorbell, says, hey, I know you're having problems, I'll come and
sit with you for a few minutes. It would just take everything away, wouldn't
it? In some way, for a minute, until he had to go. And then
we'd be like our great-grandparents. He says, you gotta go now? Well,
I've been here seven hours. You just got here, for those
of you who have experienced that. You feel guilty for staying a
week, because it's too short. And we think, well, Jesus, if
Jesus were here, if the Lord would just make himself visible,
if there was just some obvious presence of the Lord, we would
be in a better spirit. Our faith would be stronger.
We would have a quicker attitude of resolution to stay the course. Jesus says that's not so. He says that's not so. He says,
as a matter of fact, for him to be physically present with
us in the world is a lack of hope. That's what He teaches
here. And I'm going to show you that
today, as the Lord would open the Word to us. Chapter 15, verse
26, let's read together, down through verse 15 of 16.
But when the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father,
the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear
witness about Me. And you also will bear witness,
because you have been with Me from the beginning. I have said
these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will
put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when
whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
And they will do these things because they have not known the
father, nor have they known me. But I have said these things
to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told
them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning,
because I was with you. But now I am going to Him who
sent me, and none of you asks, where are you going? But because
I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, here's the key, it is
to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the
Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him
to you. And when he comes, he will convict
the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning
sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father. And you will see me no longer.
Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say
to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth
comes, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak
on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and
He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify
Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All
that the Father has is Mine, therefore I said that He will
take what is Mine and declare it to you." There is a lot here. A lot. And if you were to look
at commentary on verse 26 of chapter 15, you could easily
find, and I'm not exaggerating, 8 to 10 pages on that verse. Point after point after point,
idea after idea. And then if you look on down,
you will see in verse 5 where Jesus says, but now I am going
to him who sent me and none of you asks, where are you going? Yet in chapter 14 and 15, they
ask that question twice. So when people who pretext their
way through academic scriptural journeys, who aren't seeing the
picture, yes, I'm being a little condescending, See stuff like that, the first
thing that pops into your head, well I've heard that before. Something
must be wrong with the Bible. Let's go. And it's like Mission
Impossible. We're going to find the error
and we're going to stamp it out. And we're going to teach all
these sheeple how smart we are. My friends, if I walk outside
my house, let me just go ahead and answer this so we can get
through to the text. When I leave my house, like I'm
going to the mailbox, one of my children will inevitably go,
where you going daddy? Sometimes it's from the motive
of, I don't want dad to leave because I like everyone to be
home. Sometimes it's, I hope he is
leaving so I can get away with something that he won't let me
do. Or typically for the teens, maybe he's going near a place
I could get a soda, or an ice cream, or some cash. Either way, see all the youth
in the room looking, yeah, that sounds good. Either way, they
don't mean anything by the question. If I turned around and says,
well, I'm going to walk 43 steps to the front step, to the front
sidewalk and take a left and walk out to the postal delivery
receptacle and open it, and I'm going to thumb through all these,
they'd be like, no, no, no, no, start picking their nose and
walk off very quickly. If I was going to tell them what I was
going to do about maintaining the car or go get the oil change
or whatever it might be, they would be really bored. They don't
care where I'm going. They're just suggesting, I don't
want you to leave. I want to make note that I don't
want you to leave. I want you to stay here. Or I want something from
you. And if you're not here, or if you're going that way,
you might can get it for me. This is sort of the questioning, where
are you going? Just like in John 6, when Jesus walked across the
sea to Capernaum, remember? and teleported the disciples
in their boat three miles in one second. And they were on
the shore. And then all the other people that God pushed boats
over there for, they got on these boats that didn't belong to them.
And they came to Capernaum and they see him and they say, Oh,
Rabbi, when did you get here? If I were Jesus, I'd have given
them a 30-minute lecture of everything I'd done the night before. Well,
I vanished from among you, as you know, and how that works,
and I'd give them some weird scientific explanation of how
my powers worked. And then I'd tell them I walked
out on the sea and got my friends and teleported the boat, and
then talk about teleportation. And I've just bored them to death.
No, Jesus rebukes them. They're not interested in when
he got there. They're just interested in what He's doing next. It's
sort of like, hey, how's the weather? Where are you going? You're leaving?
Where are you going? We don't want to be without you. We need you. We need what you have. We want
what's in your pocket. That's the point. None of the
disciples sincerely cared about what Jesus was up to or where
He was going, for they took for granted the reality that every
time He vanished, He always came back. And no matter how hard
things were, and no matter what the cost of their discipleship
was, Jesus always took the brunt of their suffering. Because people
really hated Him, see, not necessarily them. But they loved Him so much
and appreciated Him so much and wanted to be His disciples so
much that they were willing to suffer while He was with them.
Now it's one thing to suffer for the sake of someone that's
with you, but when they scat and they're gone, Do you really
want to be left holding the bag of pain? Now this is what's on the hearts
of the disciples. And Jesus encourages them and says, the Spirit's coming,
the Helper's coming, God the Spirit is coming, I'm sending
Him, you ask in my name, you pray to me, you pray to the Father,
we will give you our presence. And that's what you need to understand
about the Spirit. He is God. because they're going to kill
you, they're going to arrest you, they're going to destroy
you, because they're looking for me, they got rid of me, I'm
going to rise and go to where I came from, they're going to
be extremely angry, because they can't get to where I'm going,
physically or spiritually, and they're going to take it out
on you. And that's not going to stop, and I'm not going to
stop it, because that's the point of intimacy. If you've got my
love, and you've got my peace, and you've got my power, and
you've got my atoning sacrifice, you've got my suffering. It's
all or none, baby. You know, not that Jesus would
say it that way, but that's what it's that's the context here.
There's nowhere in the Bible that God promises a life without
suffering, a life without discipline, a life without pain. There's
nowhere in the Bible that it promises that until the day of
Christ, when he sets all things under his feet and he stomps
in judgment the reprobate. Including the prince of the power
of the air, the one whom God sovereignly has used since the
beginning of time to bring about his purposes in redemption and
reprobation. So let's go through this. Verse
26, when the helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father.
So now we see something here. This is where we need to take
lightly. We need to keep simple the reading of scripture in context. Keep it all right there. And
here we see several things. Jesus has already said, if you
ask me, I will send. If you pray anything in my name,
the Father will give. And what's the context there?
To be able to maintain the call of ministry, to be able to maintain
a true and lively faith, to be able to maintain certain hope
in the cross of Christ. This is the point. Jesus is saying,
I'm leaving, I'm not going to be here with you anymore, but
somebody else is going to take my place. Someone, notice it's
He. It's not it. Someone else is going to, He
is coming. And just as I am with you, He's going to be with you
in a more powerful and real way. And so what verse 26 is trying
to teach us is not the existence of the Spirit or the ontology
of the Spirit. But what verse 26 is teaching
us is the reality of the person of God who is the Spirit. It's
the same reality as the Son of God who is God. God the Holy
Spirit, God the Son, God the Father, one God, triune, three
persons, one being. Eternally God, eternally triune. And the Spirit is not just something,
but it's someone. And He's always everywhere. Understand that. This is about
the mission and the person of the Spirit. It's not how the
Spirit came about. It's not how the Spirit operates.
It's not teaching you anything specifically about the origins
of God the Spirit. That's like trying to learn the
origins of God. It's absurd. God is eternal by
definition. He has no origin. He is. And
all that has originated comes from Him. He calls Him the Helper because
this is what they need in this time of trial. This is what they're
thinking. Who's going to help us? What
are we going to do now? How are we going to get out of this?
How are we going to survive this? How are we going to love in this
environment? What in the world are we going to do? Jesus says
the Helper is coming. And it's not just somebody else.
It's just not like Peter, well trained. It's not just like an
angel coming alongside to keep things moving. This is God, just
as Jesus is God. And that's what Jesus is saying.
I leave, I send to you from the Father. Now does that ring a
bell? In the beginning was the Word. See, Jesus is called the Word. And the Word was with God and
the Word was God. He, the Word, was in the beginning
with God and all things were made through Him. And the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us. And everywhere we've looked
now for 15 chapters, Jesus has constantly made two things very
clear. A lot of things clear, but two
things specifically that are always being taught. I am not
here to do my will, bidding, and work. I do that which the
Father is doing. I say that which the Father is
saying. I come to give glory to the Father.
I come from God. I am God because I come from
God, you see. So now all of a sudden in the
same way Jesus is saying the one that I'm going to send is coming
from me, from the Father. You see it now? It's very simple.
That's the point of that text. Friends, if we have to dig for
years, if we have to dig for hours, if we have to go through
languages and establish some type of pretextual, circumstantial
proof text to prove something that's written in a narrative,
then we are not understanding what the Scripture says concerning
itself. We don't have to be smart to
understand this. And the smarter we are, the less
we see. And I'm not talking about intellect. I'm talking about
brain food, thinking the Bible is something that we've got to
be smart enough to grasp. Now, with all that in mind, listen
to it. Jesus comes from the Father. He is God. He becomes man, yet
He's still God, and He comes from the Father because He is
God. Now He's leaving, and as He was
sent by the Father, He Himself is sending from the Father the
Spirit. Now what does it say? That God
is with you. God, the Spirit, is God. The presence of God is
with you. And He will bear witness about
me. I bear witness of the Father,
Jesus said, over and over and over again. In John chapter 5,
Moses bore witness of the Son. Speaking of the prophet that
was to come, the law of righteousness bears witness to Christ. If you
haven't heard Trey's message from Wednesday, listen to it.
It's phenomenal. And then go back and listen to
the one that I sent out earlier in the week from Romans 10, 1 through
14. I think week 58 or somewhere
along there. Because here Jesus is fulfilling
the will of the Father and He bears witness to the Father.
He's already said it again, no one can come to the Father except
through Me. If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father. We have
seen His glory. Glory as the only Son of the
Father, full of grace and truth. And from His fullness we all
receive grace upon grace. The presence of Jesus is not
the most significant reality of the Christian faith, of the
Christian experience, of the Christian life. For Jesus did
not come in the flesh that He might dwell with His people in
a human body. He came in the flesh in a human
body so that He might suffer the penalty of their sins in
His human body, then be raised to life and be glorified to the
place where He was before the foundation of the world with
the Father, with the Spirit, who created the world and everything
in it. God. In teaching on Tuesday to our
high school students, the book of Hebrews, those first few weeks,
I made much to do about the reality that many of us have a lesser
caricature of Jesus in a divine way than we do of God the Father.
We think of God the Father as this magnificent presence of
power and wrath and justice and the God of the Old Testament.
You hear people say this a lot. He's just like, burn it all down. I've been doing research this
week in the Old Testament, Jeremiah 31 and some other places. And
I'm in Samuel chapter 15, 1 Samuel chapter 15, which is the demise
and the rejection of Saul. And the rejection of Saul is
for the purpose of election that God would bring David, the ruddy
David, into the throne. And poor Saul has to remain on
the throne for 15 years after he's told. You are not the man anymore.
I am sorry that I anointed you king. And Saul pleads, please don't
do this. And if you know the story there, the captured king, Samuel has
to take the sword from Saul and hack the king to pieces to obey
God. And that's what people think.
Oh, this is the God of the Old Testament. The God of the New
Testament is just so loving, so sweet. Really? God put forth
Christ, His Son, as propitiation. By definition, the wrath of God
is satisfied and the destruction of the flesh of Jesus, the Son
of God. It's no different God. It's the
same God. It's the same message. It's the
same redemptive covenant. It's the same story. We still have a lesser view sometimes
of Christ, don't we? An even lesser view of God, the
spirit. Since Christ is with you for
the spirit is with you. And the spirit of God is omnipresent
at all times and all places throughout all of history. from the moment
that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters of the deep,
when the earth was void, was dark and without form, and when
He said, let there be light, there was the revelation of God
to His creation in the person of Christ. And Christ has finished
the work of glorifying the Father, and now the Spirit is coming, just as Jesus has come. He will bear witness about me.
What's that important? You'll see in a minute. And you
also will bear witness. You will proclaim me. He will
proclaim me. What does it mean? In other words,
if I teach the Bible, if I read the Bible, and the Spirit of God does not
bear witness to those that hear it, nobody sees it. It's not about preparation. It's not about presentation. It's not. I think about it for
a moment. Yeah, I've been teaching in public
since I was a kid. So I've not even honed the craft. I just have my style of talking. And every person and personality
has their style of talking. But if you hear some people say,
well, you know what, you've got to really do it this way if you
want to be successful in preaching. How about open your mouth, read
the English, trip through it, and when the Holy Spirit bears
witness to the Son, so have you. And if the Spirit doesn't, neither
have you. How are we supposed to go around
telling people of you when you're gone? You know the Jesus we walk
with? The Jesus we nearly died for?
The Jesus who's no longer here? Yeah, that Jesus. Well, we want
you to believe in Him. How convincing is that? Where is He? When's
He coming back? Where did He go? What time is
He going to be home? How did He get here? Can you see it?
That's why it's not in the will of man to just say, you know
what, I think I'm just going to believe in Jesus today. It's the Spirit's
work that testifies concerning the Son. bears witness that we,
specifically the disciples, would bear witness. Now we also bear
witness through the disciples' words. And as we saw last week, because
you've been with me from the beginning, Jesus says, I've said
all these things, verse 116, I better move on, I won't get
it all in, to keep you from falling away. The biggest fear, the problems
were they were going to have a hard time loving one another. They were going to have a hard
time staying in the call. They were going to have a hard
time continuing in the covenant community. They were going to
have a hard time not loving the world. You know, 1 John chapter
2 verse 15 through 19 really. They were going to have a hard
time not leaving the faith in their flesh. Because they equated
the solidity of their hope with the presence of Jesus in their
life physically. But it's not enough. It wasn't
good enough. It wasn't the reason that he
came. Jesus didn't come down here to set the record straight.
Jesus didn't come to the world to make right the wrongs of society. Jesus didn't come into the world
to deal with politics. Jesus didn't come into the world
to deal with morals or values or earthly righteousness. He
could care less about those things for all of them, even in the
morbid wicked of them, or in the sovereignty of His hand for
His purposes, to bring about the righteousness and the obedience
of faith for His people. So Jesus, He's telling them,
you're going to fall away. If it's left up for you, if it's
left up to you, if you think you've got the resolve to be
strong, you're going to fall away. Now the cool thing is, is we
know that when someone leaves, now I want you to listen to what
I'm about to say. When someone leaves the faith, it's because
they never were born of God. You hear that? When someone leaves
the fellowship of the saints, the true and lively intimate
fellowship of the true gospel saints, they never were in the faith. When people hear the doctrines
of grace and they're like, yeah, yeah, this is good, I believe
that, and the next thing you know, well, you know, I'm not so sure, it
doesn't really matter, who cares about that, it's all Jesus, let's
do team Jesus. I mean, you know, it doesn't
work that way, that's not okay. Why don't we fall away? Because
we've been given by the Father to the Son, and the Son will
not cast us away. By the Spirit, Paul says in Ephesians,
we are sealed to the day of redemption. The presence of God is with us,
beloved, and even in the darkest places. And some of us have been
in dark places. Newsflash, they could be worse. And may be worse before we die.
But even in the darkest places, God will not forsake us. He will
not leave us. Even when we cry out like Job
and say, where are you? What are you doing? I'm telling you that the helper
is coming so that you will not fall away. Isn't that beautiful? You don't have to worry about
whether or not you're redeemed. You don't have to worry whether
or not your doubt is going to condemn you. You don't have to
worry about your pain, whether or not it's going to destroy
your faith. It's not going to destroy your faith. Your faith
will be strengthened. As Peter would say, oftentimes, the joy
that you have is inexpressible. Only thing you can do is weep.
But it's joy. And the world looks at it and
it goes, these people are crazy. Yes, we are. Thank you very much.
to God be the glory for our insanity. They'll kick you out of the synagogues.
They'll kill you in the name of God in service to God. They
will do these things. Why? Verse 3, because they have
not known the Father nor me. But I've said these things to
you so that when you see it, when you experience it, you remember
I'm sending the helper to replace me. in a way that is more amazing
than we've ever seen it yet. You like me sitting with you
at the table. You like me walking with you on the hillside. You
like to hear me preach in my human voice. But wait until you
see what the Spirit does in His preaching, His witness. Wait till you have an assurance
that the world can't comprehend. And then as you preach this silliness,
this offensiveness, this ridiculousness, this this insanity to this world
out here, when God calls the sheep who can hear the voice
of the shepherd, the spirit, God, the spirit will cause them
to hear and they will follow him. I didn't tell you this from the
beginning, verse 4b, because if I told you three and
a half years ago, hey guys, this is going to be a real rocky road,
it's going to be real rough, it's going to be really hard,
and after about four years, I'm going to vanish and you're going
to be on your own. Like we're not signing up for this. Praise
God for His grace and not showing us the future. Yet all of us can testify an eternal, powerful, divine
working of God in the midst of great fear and pain. And the
greatest testimony of that is we did not lose faith. And together,
God got the glory in it all. Because I was with you from the
beginning, But now, verse 5, I'm going to the Father. I'm
just going to paraphrase this so we can get through it. And
none of you are really concerned. Where are you going? I know you've
asked, but you're not really asking in a sincere way, tell
us exactly what's happening here. What's exactly happening? No one's saying that. No one's
asking that. And then he says, verse six,
because I've said these things to you, sorrow has now filled
your heart. Can you imagine? But Jesus is saying, don't let
sorrow fill your heart, because what you are, what I'm going
to give you is greater than my presence here. Greater things
than these you shall do. We've already seen that, right?
In other words, the proclamation, the gospel proclamation of giving
glory to the father through the redemption provided through me,
the son will be greater when God, the spirit is with you all
in his work. And if God, the father's words
and work or the God, the son's words and work than God, the
spirit's words and work, they're all the same. They're all the same. Because
God is the same. He's immutable. He's unchangeable.
God does not change. And all the prerogatives of God
apply equally to all the persons of God. But your heart is filled with
sorrow. Nevertheless, verse 7, I tell you the truth. Here it
comes. It is for your good. It is for
your advantage. that I go away. See they're thinking
I'm so I'm devastated Jesus is leaving what am I going to do
and Jesus is saying hooray hallelujah I'm getting out of the way because
my work is finished. Now everything that God is going
to do because of what I have accomplished is going to be like
a flood. It's going to be like a flood. It is to your advantage that
I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come
to you." This is another thing. Deal with this in the expression
in which it's given. This is not a theological treatise
that Jesus is explaining. He's not saying, well, the Spirit's
not here now, but when I leave, He's going to come in and keep
the house. That's not the point. The point is that the work of
God continues with greater purpose, with greater power. Because the
work of the Son is finished, now the work of the Son is continuing
in its completion through God the Spirit, who is everywhere,
all the time, in every nook and cranny of the cosmos. He doesn't have to go anywhere. He doesn't have to see and become
and travel. He just has to move. He has to
act. God, the Spirit, acts as he pleases,
John 3, to bring to life his people that they may see the
kingdom of God and enter therein. But if I go, see, I send him,
this is the pronoun here, personal pronoun, him to you. God, the
spirit is a person. Just like Jesus, the son is a
person. It's like God, the father is a person. I don't mean human,
although Jesus did take a human body that was glorified in the
resurrection. I mean, it's a personality. He has a will. He's working.
It's not just a presence or a force. It's a person, God. And when he comes, he's going
to do some stuff. I might get through all this
or not. And when He comes, He will convict the world of three things. He will convict
the world concerning sin, He will convict the world concerning
righteousness, and He will convict the world concerning judgment.
You see those three things. Jesus explains them in verse
9, 10, and 11. Let's walk through them. God
the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin because
they do not believe in me. So with that clause there, because
they do not believe in me, that's related to the what? Conviction.
You know what it shows? They're guilty of unbelief. And the Spirit of God will make
it clear. Jesus has already said this considering the Pharisees
and the Sadducees. But all these things they will
do to you on account of my name, because they do not know Him who sent
me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have
been guilty of, and I'm going to paraphrase there to explain,
the sin of unbelief, rejecting me. But now they have no excuse. They know who I am, but they
refuse. to believe. And they cannot believe
because they're not my people. They don't belong to me. They
will not be granted faith. So He, the Holy Spirit, God,
the Holy Spirit will convict the world concerning sin because
they do not believe in me. So in the Holy Spirit, God preaches
the gospel through the gospel heralds. Gospel preachers, gospel
ministers, you, and people hear it, they're guilty before God. You recognize that. It doesn't
mean they weren't guilty before, but now they're guilty of rejection. The Hebrew passages we see, and
I've been talking about this with several people over the
last three or four weeks, but Hebrews 6 where it talks about those
who can no longer be brought to repentance, to the change
of mind. to see that which they could
not see. They can no longer be brought there, though they have
hung around with the church and experienced the power of God
the Spirit with the church. They've heard the Word of God.
They've seen the power of the Word. They've seen the power
of the age to come and the power of God the Spirit to regenerate
His people and bring them to faith. And now all of a sudden
they're attaching works back to their hope and to their assurance.
They're attaching Judaism back to the stature of their platform. They're saying, here's my guardrail,
here's my live wire, here's my harness. This is what will protect
me here. I know that if I'm doing these
things, at least I'm making sure all the ends are sealed and all
the safeties are on and all the harnesses are tied. But Paul
says it's impossible to bring them again to a change of mind,
to see. the gospel of free and sovereign
grace because they have spurned the Son of God and offered Him
up to shame, to contempt because He's been crucified for nothing.
It's worthless. Jesus, if He did not satisfy
eternally and perfectly and judicially and spiritually the sins of the
elect, then guess what? We're condemned. And if there's
anything else to be added to the death of Christ, guess what?
Christ died for nothing. But Christ didn't die for nothing.
Christ died for his people. Christ satisfied the wrath of
God. And God, the Holy Spirit, not
only convicts the world of unbelief, but in his mercy to you, beloved,
he showed you that conviction as he gave you faith. And now
you're free. No longer do you sit condemned
because you believe that Christ satisfied that condemnation. Second thing, concerning sin,
they don't believe in me. Verse 10, concerning righteousness,
because I go to the Father and you see me no longer. Now what
in the world? See, every one of these phrases are explained
by the second statement. Some people like to say, well,
see, the Spirit of God convicts the world of concerning righteousness
so that everybody knows how to live right. That has nothing
to do with it. That's not the point. What did
they charge Christ with? Blasphemy. He was a guilty, convicted felon,
liar, manipulator, charlatan in their eyes. They killed him. They grinned and cheered and
threw a parade. They wiped their hands off and
they thought, We did the Lord's work. And they're the ones looking
for the Messiah. And they crucified him. That's why they stoned Stephen
because he told them that. Acts chapter 7. And then on the third day he
rose from the dead. The Holy Spirit of God makes it clear
to them what righteousness is and that Jesus is the righteousness
of God and though they condemned him as a sinner he brought himself
back to life so he wasn't guilty. That's what it means. So the
Spirit of God will cause people to know that and to see that
in their unbelief. But more importantly, they will
be guilty. They'll be guilty of unbelief.
They'll be guilty concerning righteousness because Christ
is vindicated in His resurrection as righteous. And he goes to the father. Isn't
that what really aggravated the Pharisees? What are you going
to say then? You're coming after me and you're
accusing me of sin. That was it. We're not the ones who were born
in sin, they say to Jesus. He says, who accuses me of sin?
You're the sinner. You're the sinners. You're the
sons of Satan. You're the dogs. You're the serpents. You're the blind gods. You're
the whitewashed tombs. You know the imagery of whitewashed
tomb. You're dead in the ground and you clean the tombstone thinking
that you're clean. You wash the outside of the bowl
but the insides Disastrous. And they say, well, we know you
and we know what you are. And then Jesus says, so what
are you going to say when you see me going to the father from whence
I came? What are you going to say then?
Just like he told Andrew. Wow. You think you've seen something?
You've seen nothing. Wait until you see heaven opened
in the Son of Man, angels descending and ascending on the Son of Man. Wait until you see who I really
am. And God the Spirit comes and
works through you to show His people who I really am. And all
of those who are guilty, God the Spirit will convict. And it's not just them, but it's
their king leader, too. And the Holy Spirit, God, will
convict them concerning judgment because the ruler of this world
is judged already. That's the way I should read.
He's judged. He's condemned. He's awaiting
his sentencing. God will execute his eternal
decree in time when time stops. That's almost, that's oxymoronic. But you get the point. The enemy is judged and all those
with him are judged. They have not won. They will
put you to death. They will persecute you. They
will suffer you because they hated me. I convict them of righteousness
because I'm alive. I convict them of sin because
they do not believe. And I convict them of judgment
because their father is condemned. We are the children of God. We
are righteous in our head. Who is Adam? I mean, who is Jesus?
There's a slip of the tongue. And those who are reprobate are
condemned in their head, who is Adam. But Adam is in Christ
and they are in Lucifer. And He's done. He's done. Verse 12, I have so many things
left to say to you, but you can't bear them. I have other things
that I want to say, other intimate things that I want to share,
but you can't bear them. But God the Spirit is not only
going to work judgment against those who hurt you, see, and
those who destroyed me, Though they seem like they're winning,
they will not win. By the way, 1 Samuel 15, do you
know when they destroyed the Amalekites? Do you know what
it was for? Because they killed some of the
Jews in the exodus from Egypt. That's a long time. It's like
God said, okay, now's the time for us to destroy them. And you
know what the judgment was? Complete annihilation. Kill every
man, woman, child, cattle, camel, mule, dog, cat, rat, grasshopper. Burn everything they own because
it belongs to me. And what did Saul do? Spared
the king and gave the best cattle to the soldiers. and Samuel had to come hack them
all to pieces. What a job to be the prophet. It may be a while, but the enemies
of God are judged, but we are not judged. Not only were you
not judged, we are not going to lose the faith, we are not
going to lose the ministry, we are not going to lose the intimacy
of the assembly, because we will be taught by the Lord. Look at
verse 13. When the helper, or when the Spirit of Truth, this
is the second time that God the Holy Spirit has been called the
Spirit of Truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His
own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak. Sound familiar?
I do not speak on my own authority, Jesus says, but I speak the words
of the one who sent me. I speak what the Father has told
me to say. So when the enemies of the cross, when the enemies
of Christ, when the enemies of God who in the name of God would
rebuke Jesus, He would say, you're not hearing me. I'm speaking
the words of my Father that are written by your prophets and
now you refuse them. You're refusing Him. So this is just emphasizing for
these disciples and for us beloved that God the Spirit with us continues
to teach and speak the truth of Christ. That the work and the words of
Christ continue and we are empowered in that. It's not about us. But the Lord had just shown me
20-something years ago the true power of Scripture by the Spirit. Man, I wouldn't have wasted some
years figuring it all out, getting creative. How am I going to get
this message across? How am I going to get these people
to understand? How am I going to teach this group? How am I going to
teach that group? Let's just let the Lord teach. It's not
like we have to let Him, but you know what I mean. The Spirit
of God, just as I do not speak on my own authority, God the
Spirit doesn't speak on His own authority, so it is just as if
I am with you, the same work is going to be done with greater
fruitfulness. Whatever He hears, He will speak,
and He will declare to you the things that are to come. Verse 14, He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine, and declare it to you. I think I'm just going to preach
that verse 14-15 again next week, but let me for the sake of not
leaving it on the table. What is it that is Jesus? All that the Father has is mine.
That's what he says. All that the Father has is mine. What does the Father have? Everything. Every person, every
rock, every atom, every molecule, the infinite space of the cosmos,
every grain of sand, every elect person, every reprobate person,
every idea, every philosophy, every pound of intelligence. It all belongs to Him. But more
importantly, all of His children for whom Christ died, that He
has given to His Son, that in time God the Spirit will cause
to know and to see they indeed belong to Him. They shall know
Him, they shall see Him face to face in the fullness of His
glory, and they shall be full with His fullness. And the Spirit will glorify the
Son because He will have reign over all that belongs to the
Son. And He will declare the Son to the
people. You hear me talking constantly,
and I haven't even said anything today about it. It's rare for
me not to have this commercial, so I'll put it at the end. Be
in the Word of God. Be in the Word of God. How prepared
are you to hear from God the Spirit? Is your Bible at bay? Is it as
ready as a flashlight? A pocketbook? A pocketknife?
A handgun? Doing the Macarena now. Is it
as ready as your passports or your emergency money? your eyeglasses. Friends, there are a lot of things
on my desk that will cover this up every day. A lot of things. I mean literally
a lot of things that will cover this up. If I dare put this on
my desk and I'm not paying attention, put it on top. Things will get
put on top. Might be a shipping label, it
might be a newspaper, it might be a stack of mail, it might
be a gun box, it might be a baby doll, a dinosaur, there's all
sorts of things. My wife could explain that to
her desk, it looks like Jurassic Park on top of it. But then there are other things
that could just pile on top of the word. But is it ready? Because no amount of discipline
is going to get us to the point where we're like, you know what,
here's my time. You may not have that. Is it ready? Are you ready to
hear the spirit of truth? Be intentional in that. Keep
the word of God with you. Keep it ready. Put one there.
You wake up in the middle of the night, you got to go to the
restroom. Think on the word. That's how we will see the glory
of God the Son. And that is how the Spirit of
God will declare it to us. And in those moments when we
cannot have it, when it is underneath the stack of must-dos or emergencies,
When we have it in here and we have it in here, God the Holy
Spirit will bring it to the front of our hearts and we will remember
it and we will know it. And sometimes we don't even know
that we've learned it until we read it later. And we go, oh,
I'm not dumb. I see. The Spirit of God will hold you
and seal you and keep you. And you will not fall away. You
will not be orphaned. And He will take and declare
to you that you are His. You are His. The Word of God
gives us that hope. In Romans, we see that in chapter
8. We are heirs with Christ. We are sons of God. We are not
slaves, but we have been adopted. Jesus already said that to his
disciples here. We cry out, Daddy. Abba. Daddy. Pop. The Spirit Himself bears witness
with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then
heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we
suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with
Him. That's Romans 8, 16, 17. Is that not what Jesus is teaching
His disciples? How do you know that? It's just
in here. More importantly, it's in here. God will bring it to your mind.
He will bring it there. And then when you're done with
it, you may not remember it again for weeks. But it will be there. And you will be reassured. You
will know that the promises of God in Jesus Christ are yours
because you have been given to Him. And God the Holy Spirit
is the most vital, the most magnificent promise of our life on earth. And He's with you right now.
The presence of Jesus is with you right now. The presence of
the Father is with you right now, because the presence of
the Spirit is with you right now. We don't need Jesus in the
flesh. He's finished that work. Now
we have Him in power. Let's pray.