AS a church “We are called to be a vibrant, authentic,
sustainable community, growing as followers of Christ, and inspiring others to
join us on that journey” and it is as we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us,
make us more like Christ, and witness to Christ alongside us that we will see
that become more and more who we are.
To help us understand who the Holy Spirit is and what he
does in our midst we are working our way
through Jesus teaching about the Holy Spirit in John’s gospel. Specifically in
Jesus farewell discourse…at that last supper… on the night he was betrayed.
Where Jesus was preparing his disciples for what was to come; his death,
resurrection and their on-going journey as followers of and witnesses to Jesus.
Jesus teaching about the Spirit, in this discourse, revolves round the Greek
word Paracletos, one who comes alongside to offer legal
advice, which in the NIV is translated advocate.
Two weeks ago, as we looked at Jesus promise that he wouldask the father to send another paraclete to be with and within us, we looked at
who is the Holy Spirit, this Paraclete is and we saw that the Paraclete is the
third person of the trinity.
Last week we started looking at the work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that the Paraclete would teach us all things and bring to mind allthat Jesus had said. This week we are going to continue looking at the work of
the Holy Spirit, as Jesus tells us that the Paraclete
was sent to testify about him. To use the theatrical metaphor, the Spirit takes
centre stage to make sure the spotlight remains on Jesus.
The portion of the
discourse that we had read out to us today is unique in Jesus teaching about
the Paraclete, because it talks not of the spirits work in the lives of
believers but in the world. In keeping with the legal context of the Paraclete it says in the world the
Spirit is called to testify about Christ and because of what Christ has done to
convict the world about sin, righteousness and judgment. Sadly much Teaching
about the Holy Spirit has been inward looking what the Spirit does in me and us
but we must realise that the spirit cals us to look outward and to share what
we have found in Christ with the world around us.
In between last
week’s reading in John 14 and this weeks… Jesus had told the disciples that hewas the true vine and that they would find life as they remained in him, and
had gone on to prepare them for what was to come by talking about the fact that
because the world hated him the world would also hate the disciples, that they
would suffer persecution… and it is in that context that he again speaks of the
coming of the paraclete.
In Verse 26 in a very
Trinitarian formula Jesus says when the Paraclete comes it will testify about
me. It is a verse that has been at the
heart of a historical controversy around the Nicene Creed, centred on how does
the trinity actually work…is it a hierarchy… how dos each member fit in? Does the Spirit proceed from the Father and
the Son or just the Father? While I
don’t want to trivialise that Leon Morris is quick to point out that “this
passage relates to the Work of the Holy Spirit. Not the eternal mutual
relationships of the person of the Holy Spirit” and that it shows that ‘the
spirit is connected in the most intimate way with the Father and the Son’ and
the sending of the Spirit concerns them all.’
So how does the Holy Spirit testify to Jesus?
The key thing here is that the Holy Spirit does not do this
on his own. Remember the Paraclete is one who comes alongside, so Jesus says
here in verse 27 that the apostles also are called to testify to Christ because
they were there right at the beginning. The Spirit alongside the apostle’s
witness to the same Christ, they witness to the same salvation. Later the commission goes out to all who
believe to witness to the hope they have found in Jesus.
The second thing is that while the Apostles and we witness
to Christ it is the Spirit who alone can bring home into the hearts of human
beings the significance of who Christ is and what he has done for us. Jesus
goes on in this passage to say it the Spirit that convicts the world about sin;
it is the spirit that shows people the truth about righteousness and judgment.
It is the Spirit that reveals our need for God and how Christ is able to fulfil
that need.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t help reading and hearing
the words sin, righteousness and judgement without seeing at least partially
through the lens of fire and brimstone preaching which can distort things… but we need to see the Holy Spirit as the
Spirit of truth and as teacher of truth. That the spirit is not Dr Guilt Trip
trying to make us feel bad nor is he Dr Phil and making us feel Ok about
ourselves rather as Paul Metzger puts it, ‘the
Spirit as counsellor (legal not therapeutic) convicts us of our unbelief and
autonomy- not to demean us or push us away, but to draw us close to Jesus in
whom we find meaning and purpose and life.”
The Spirit brings us to a right understanding of Sin,
righteousness and judgment. The two most common wrong approaches to sin and
brokenness are first to deny it… in 1 John 1 it says that if we do this we call
God a liar and the truth is not in us. The second is to be trapped by it… that
we feel condemned. The Spirit does not
condemn us… In Romans 9 Paul joyful tells us that there is now no condemnation
for those who are in Christ Jesus…nor does the Spirit simply help us get in
touch with our inner self and accept our failings… it turns us to Jesus who can
bring new life. Again I like the way Paul Metzger puts it... In Jesus I find my
eternal destiny and in whom I find redemption from both self-condemnation and
self-commendation’.
So how does the Spirit testify to Jesus?
As we saw last week in a special role the Spirit came
alongside the Apostles and those close to them and inspired them to write the
Gospels and Epistles and other material we have in the scriptures. These give us
what we know about Jesus life and ministry and allow us to have insight into
what it means to be the new people of God.
The spirit also witnesses to Christ through enabling us to interpret and
apply Jesus words.
Jesus said that they will know you are my disciples if you
have… love one another as I have loved you. The reading that we had from
Galatians 5 today gives a list of the Christ like characteristics or fruit that
grows within us individually and as a community as we walk with the Spirit. The
Spirit enables us to reflect Christ like love through the fruit of the Holy
Spirit.
The Spirit empowers us to be bold. In a few weeks it will be
Pentecost and we are going to be looking at what happened on that first
Pentecost after Christ, where Luke records the coming of the Holy Spirit in
power on the disciples. One of the things it did was giving them boldness to
proclaim what they knew about Jesus. Up to this point they’d either run away or
confined their activity to an upper room now they stood in front of a crowd of
well over three thousand.
The Spirit also calls us alongside what he is doing in the
world to speak up and bring justice and Christ’s love into places of darkness
and sorrow. An example of this is a
young nun travelling by train through
India and hearing the voice of Christ, by the spirit, asking her if she will
dedicate herself to caring for the poorest of the poor, the resulting mission
and ministry we know is that of mother Theresa and the sisters of mercy. There
are many other examples of this.
The spirit also gives gifts like the list in Romans 12 and 1
Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 that empower us to witness to Christ. My good
friend Jim Wallace talks of going to a party one night and meeting a man who
said he had no need for Christ, his life was all wonderful, and Jim felt the
Spirit prompt him to ask the man why he slept with a gun under his pillow… it
was a word of knowledge… the man turned pale and wondered how Jim knew and
started talking about what was really going on in his life and later became a
follower of Christ.
In John’s gospel miracles are called signs and wonders, they
witness to who Jesus is, and it is the Holy Spirit that descended on Jesus at
his baptism that enabled him to do these things, it’s the same spirit that dwells
with and within us. And while Jesus
saying you will do the same things I have done, meant sacrificial love it also
meant signs and wonders.
I often bump into the most amazing people in the car park
here and this week I bumped into an Indian lady who was bringing her grandson
to play group, which wasn’t on because of the school holidays. She began
telling me about being a Christian and sharing her faith with her Hindu
friends and she said that that witness
took the form of asking them questions and teaching them the basics about
Jesus, you can imagine the Spirit being part of that because the Spirit is the
one who reveals all things. She also told me that for many Hindu people their
faith in Jesus came as they called out to him in times of need and he miraculously answers,
then they became followers.
In our own life we have experienced God's miraculous healing. My wife Kris and I met at Bible College out at Henderson. Kris was suffering from acute asthma and living in the damp environment out west it kept getting worse. She was thinking she would have to go back home to Tauranga. We were just friends at that stage and went along one Sunday night to a meeting at the local Presbyterian Church where a little Old Presbyterian Lady from the states was speaking... Delores Winders. At the end of her message she called people up to be prayed for, She then said that she believed God wanted to heal someone there tonight of asthma. Kris didn't respond. a little while later she said it again and said the person was seated on the side of the church we were sitting on. Kris thought it was great that God wanted to heal someone of asthma, but didn't connect it to her. A third time Delores said God wanted to heal someone of asthma and they were sitting down the back over there, and pointed to where we were sitting. Kris decided that maybe God was wanting to help her so she went forward... Delores prayed Kris hasn't had asthma since that time.
Lastly, the way the Spirit witnesses to Jesus with us is by
his abiding presence. We often see that as a promise and a call to stay in a comfortable religious buffer zone but Jesus promise of his continual presence at the end of
Matthew’s gospel is linked to the call to go and make disciples of all nations.
Whether we are aware of that or not, the spirit takes what we say and do and
can use it to turn the spotlight on Jesus. Let me just finish with an extreme
example form my own life.
WE used to run an outreach coffee bar up in Titirangi on a
Friday night.. One night these two guys walked into the café bar and said they
believed that Christianity was false… they used a rather diferent word of
course… and they could prove it… They said that they would just start abusing
us and eventually we’d be just like anyone else get mad and kick them out. Now I’m not always the most
patient person, but I said Ok guys give it your best shot, over the next hour or
so they called us names and ranted about all that was bad about Christianity.
As they kept going, I sensed more and more the presence and the peace of God
with us. I began smiling. It was rather a profound experience… It started to
affect the two guys as well because after
an hour they stopped and sadly they swore and said man there is
something real about this Christianity stuff let’s get out of here. I don’t
know what happened to them after that but we can only trust that the spirit was
moving in their lives.
That’s possibly a bit of an extreme case, but when I share
my faith with non-Christian’s I know that the spirit is involved and I am
alongside the Spirit as it does it work of witnessing to Christ. The Paraclete
is called to witness to Christ and does that as it comes alongside us and we
come alongside the Spirit.
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