June 20 2021
John 15:18-27, 16:1-15
Well, here we are in the third week of our summer series entitled Confident. This title comes from something Jesus said to his disciples on the night before his death as found in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of John.There we hear Jesus tell us, “In this world you will have afflictions but be confident, I have overcome the world.” Today as we consider the churches witness this saying of Jesus should make us stop and consider just how confident we are because it just goes without saying that if you are not confident about something its going to be rather difficult for anyone you influence to be confident about it either. So, yes, we should to be confident especially about what we believe, our belief in Jesus the one who has overcome the world. This is why we are using the sixteen articles of faith of the Church of the Nazarene as the basis for our confidence. These articles of faith are what we can trust to be absolutely true in a world where we aren’t always certain as to what is true and what is a falsehood.
In the past two weeks we have learned that the first article of faith is that we believe in a Triune God, God in three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The reason why we believe that our God is a God who is a three in one God is that this is the God who Jesus revealed to us. Jesus is the Son who has eternally loved the Father and who has been eternally loved by the Father and he is the Son who has eternally loved the Holy Spirit and the Son who has been eternally loved by the Holy Spirit. This mutual in dwelling of love has been before the foundation of the world; it is the eternal unchangeable nature of our God. And in each person of the Godhead dwells God in his entirety. If we see Jesus, then the Father and the Spirit are present as well.So, this God revealed by Jesus is a very different God than revealed through the other world religions.
Last week, we covered the second article of faith which was about Jesus, the Son of God who was and is perfectly God and perfectly man. Where those who walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry finally understood just who Jesus really was was at his resurrection because there it became clear that he was indeed the Son of God who was raised in power through the Spirit of Holiness. It was the resurrection which made those early followers of Jesus to understand that in order for Jesus to be the Son of God in the flesh then his birth had to have come about by the Holy Spirit, the Virgin Birth. And it was because that Jesus had taken on our moral and corrupt flesh that each of us was and is united with Jesus so that when he died upon the cross we who are united with him and we died to our sins, and when Jesus was raised from the dead so now we too are raised to new life through the Holy Spirit. As Jesus ascended to the Father’s side so we too can say that our life is now hidden with Christ in God as Paul wrote in the third chapter of Colossians. This means that it is Christ who through his resurrection justifies our claim of being righteous before God because he was raised from the dead and it is Christ who because he is now ascended allows us to understand ourselves as being sanctified, made holy, no longer sinners but saints, all because of what Christ has done for us.
So, now we come to our third article of faith and it should come as no surprise that it concerns the Holy Spirit. Here is what is found in the third article of faith: The Holy Spirit- We believe in the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Triune Godhead, that he is ever present and efficiently active in and with the Church of Christ, convincing the world of sin, regenerating those who repent and believe, sanctifying believers and guiding into all the truth as it is in Jesus. As we read this belief statement about the Holy Spirit it is easy to understand just why I have chosen to go deeper into who the Holy Spirit is by using the gospel account of John because much of what is found in this article of faith is from John’s account. As we read our scripture for this morning we read of how the Holy Spirit convinces the world of sin and how the Spirit guides people into all the truth, the truth of Jesus.
Now, when we say that the Holy Spirit is going to guide us this should make us wonder just where it is that he is going to steer us toward. Here is where John’s gospel is so helpful because only in John’s gospel do we hear Jesus tell his disciples that he himself was the way, the way to the Father and he could be trusted to be the way to the Father because he was the Truth about the Father and he was the Truth about the Father because the life of the Father lived in him. So, where Jesus is the Way, it is the Spirit who leads the disciples along that Way who is Jesus, and by so doing the Spirit will lead the disciples into the Truth, the Truth about the Father
It is important to understand this role of the Holy Spirit as being the one who is going to lead us deeper into the truth of Jesus and the Father because when we know this then we can trust the Spirit because the Spirit is not going to lead us contrary to Jesus. Jesus is always our anchor of our faith; everything we believe goes in some way back to him. This is what we have to keep in mind when we speak about the Spirit’s role in convincing the world of sin. Now, as we read our scripture for today we heard that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin, and righteousness and judgment. Many people jump on this and immediately conclude that the Spirit somehow works in the realm of the world and respectively, I must wholeheartedly disagree. We have to take these last teachings as a whole and we can’t pick bits and pieces out that we want because if we do we will lose the crucial truth Jesus wanted to leave to us. You see, if we go back to the fourteenth chapter of John we can hear Jesus tell us that he was going to give us the Paraclete to be with us forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor does the world know him. You know him, Jesus states, for he dwells with you and will be in you. Do you begin to see why we have to take this teaching of Jesus into consideration before we can understand how the Spirit is going to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment? I hope it is becoming clear that the way that the Spirit is going to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment is that he is going to do so through those who believe in Jesus and no way else. When we talk about convicting the world what we have to keep in mind is that the word translated as “convict” is a word with multiple meanings. We see this when we hear how it is used in the third chapter of John, where we read , “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come into the light, lest his works should be exposed.” The word, “exposed” in this verse is the same word translated as “convict” in the sixteenth chapter. Exposure, if we think about it, is about shining a light into a dark room to see what is in there and to me this is what Jesus expects of us. Jesus teaches us in the fifth chapter of Matthew that we are the light of the world, and that our light is to shine before others so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Heavenly Father. We are the light shining in the dark that exposes the deeds of those who live in a dark world. Now, this idea of us being light is a great analogy but just what specifically does it mean to be light? We know it has something to do with good works and bringing glory to our Heavenly Father but what exactly does that mean? This is what I believe Jesus wants us to figure out from what he taught us in our scripture for today.
The Holy Spirit we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is going to expose the worlds understanding of sin because they do not believe in Jesus; the world’s understanding about righteousness because Jesus returned to the Father and we see him no more; and concerning the worlds understanding of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I have to admit is pretty hard to make sense of what we are told here but if we stand back and look at it what we see is that what Jesus is talking about is that we can say that the world is in the dark about sin, this missing the mark of how God desires us to live. The world is also in the dark when it comes to what it takes to have a right relationship with God. And we can also say that the world is in the dark about just who it is that rules over them. Into all this darkness then the Holy Spirit is working in us to shine some light into the world so that those in the darkness might come to walk in the light with us.
As I thought about what Jesus is getting at, I came to the conclusion that in order to figure out this darkness that the world is living in we have to have some idea just what it is that the world believes. Fortunately for us, there are three statements given by Jesus as to just what it is that the world believes that are found in the fifth, sixth and seventh chapters of Matthew. Each of these statements as it turns out is an excellent backstory, the darkness which our walking in the light is going to expose. The first of these statements is found in the fifth chapter of Matthew where we hear Jesus tell us, “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same?And if you greet only your brothers do not the Gentiles do the same? The Gentiles Jesus speaks of here are the people of the world and as the people of the world they only want to love those who they know will love them in return. Yet this is to miss the mark of how we are to live, isn’t it, because God has created to love others even those who are our enemies. As Jesus concludes the fifth chapter of Matthew he states that we are to love perfectly as our Heavenly Father loves perfectly. Now, what we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is the way that we demonstrate this perfect love is through our belief in Jesus. So, we have to ask just how our belief in Jesus can create in us the perfect love of God? The answer is that we believe that Jesus, as the Son of God, in taking on our flesh, he has united us forever with God. Now, because of what Jesus has done we are connected with the Father, and his Son Jesus through the Holy Spirit, and the love of God, as Paul tells us in the fifth chapter of Romans, is poured into our hearts through the gift of the Holy Spirit. So, as John tells us in the fourth chapter of his first letter, the love of God is brought to light among us because God sent his own Son into the world that we might live through him. So, when we love with the love of God, those in the world can see their sin, their missing the mark because now the true way to love one another can at last be seen.
The second way the world is in darkness is in the matter of righteousness. This is heard in what Jesus tells us, from the sixth chapter of Matthew, “When you pray, do not heap empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for their many words.” You see, the people in the world have no certainty in their standing before God and because of this they believe, wrongly, that perhaps if they say the right word or say words in the right manner as if practicing some superstitious incantation then maybe God might extend his favor to them. The answer to this darkness concerning being in right standing with God, we are told in the sixteenth chapter of John is that Jesus ascends to the Father. Once again, this is somewhat difficult to understand how this has anything to do with righteousness, but the answer lies in the fact that Jesus took on our flesh, and now because of this, as Jesus is in communion with the Father, so are we. Once again, it is the Spirit who is our connection here on earth with the Father and the Son in heaven. This is why Paul, writing in the eighth chapter of Romans tells us that we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And the Father, who is the searcher of hearts, he knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints, God’s holy ones, according to the will of God. Do you understand what a tremendous difference, a beacon of light, that shines forth from those who know what Jesus has brought about, how this truth is a light for those who sit in the darkness of the world? Instead of uncertainty as to how to draw close to God, we who know Jesus are connected in a deep and personal way with the Father who searches our hearts, and the Spirit communicates with us and through us in ways that are beyond words.
The third way that Jesus tells us that the world is in darkness is heard in his teaching found in the seventh chapter of Matthew where he tells us, “Do not be anxious, saying ‘What shall we eat?’, or ‘What shall we drink?’, or ‘What shall we wear?’. For the Gentiles, the people of the world, seek after these things and your Heavenly Father knows you need them all.” Once again it is hard to see the connection between this and what Jesus told his disciples in the sixteenth chapter of John, stating that you will see me no more because the ruler of this world is judged. The key to making sense of it though, is found in the term “the ruler of this world”. We know that this refers to Satan because of what we learn in the fourth chapter of Matthew where Jesus is tested to see if he will bow down and worship Satan in order to receive all of the kingdoms of the world which are under Satan’s control. Satan controls the world, just as he always has, by telling people that they are nothing but mere animals who should listen to the voice of their desires and so be ruled by those desires. In doing so the world is enslaved by the darkness of fear, anxiety and worry just as Jesus said. The answer to setting people free from this enslavement is found in what Jesus tells us, that the ruler of this world, Satan, has been judged. As Jesus told his disciples, the ruler of this world, Satan was cast out when he was lifted up from the earth upon the cross. There, Jesus proved that by listening to the voice of the Father instead of our desires we can face death without anxiety, worry or fear. When Jesus arose from the grave, the faithfulness of our Heavenly Father was forever assured. The Holy Spirit brings that assurance into our hearts because it is the Spirit of our adoption, as we are told in the eighth chapter of Romans, it is the Spirit who makes us cry out Abba, Father. It is the Spirit himself who bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ. Because Christ has forever united himself with us, then his eternal relationship with the Father is now our eternal relationship with the Father and if our eternity is secure than there is no need to be anxious in the here and now. Do you see how this peace and security that our lives witness to can be a light to the people of this world who are consumed by the darkness of their fear and insecurity?
So what we witness to is the new reality that has been brought about through the life of Jesus, the Son of God, who took on our flesh, who died in our flesh so that we might know ourselves as dead to sin and Jesus arose so that we might arise to newness of life. And Jesus ascended so that we might enter into the most holy of places and therefore know ourselves as holy as well. This is the new reality that the Holy Spirit calls us into, to live in the truth of who Jesus is and the truth of what he has accomplished because this is the light that our dark world needs. Yet you can only exhibit a holy difference if you are willing to allow the Holy Spirit to dwell in the holy temple of your life. I pray that you invite the Holy Spirit to come and live in you, so that the love of God, a deep communion with God and the truth that you are indeed a child of God might be evident in your life today. Amen
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