John 14:8-17
Today my friends we celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at the time of the Jewish harvest festival called Shavuot, or the festival of weeks, or Pentecost, as it was fifty days after the Passover.
Jesus ends today’s gospel with,
“’I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father… If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, the helper, to be with you forever. 17 This is the Spirit of truth, … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you’” (Jn 14:14-17 selected).
That’s what this day, the Day of Pentecost, is about. It’s about the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ sending the Advocate, the Comforter, the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to the church, to help the church, who, as one, are the children of God.
So how does the great Helper, the Holy Spirit, help? In lots of ways! But I’m only looking at three today.
Firstly he goes along side us. Secondly, The Helper will glorify Jesus, and thirdly he will guide us into all the truth.
Go alongside us, glorify Jesus, guide us into all the truth.
This has been the great promise of Jesus – that he is going away to the Father and they cannot come. The disciples are filled with grief, but Jesus reassures them his going away is actually for their good, and that he will not leave them comfortless.
He promised to send the Helper to them and to us, who will help us by coming right alongside of us to reassure and comfort us, always.
Back in v.6 of today’s gospel chapter Jesus tells hid disciples that, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth.” And this is the first place where we find the term “Paraclete” (here translated ‘Helper’) to refer to the Holy Spirit.
[in Greek Paraclete: parra = alongside, caleit = to call)]. So we can now call God alongside of us. The thing is, what is really happening is that the Holy Spirit is always bringing us back alongside God – securely moored to God’s fullness in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
We think we are coming to the cross, but the Holy Spirit himself has drawn us there.
It’s a bit like me calling up a friend and asking for some help in the back yard. Not only does he say ‘sure, I’ll come’, but when he does, he somehow knows better than me the way to attack this thing.
Happens to have all the tools required, and by the time I understand this, the job is done, and I am fully blessed!
Now. Did you notice Jesus said that when he is going away he will end them “another Helper,” Another helper, another advocate. Well, if the Holy Spirit is going to be ‘another’ Helper, another Paraclete, then who was the first one?
It was Jesus himself.
Jesus is saying to the disciples that I have been your Paraclete, your Helper, walking alongside you for three years. I am now going so he will send another one just like me – because he proceeds from the Father and the Son.
So, for us, the Holy Spirt comes to us in the same way that Jesus came alongside the disciples. It is just like being around Jesus. Paul calls the Holy Spirit the Spirit of Jesus.
So it was for the disciples. And so it is and will be for us also. The Holy Spirit is with us. The Holy Spirit will go with us, throughout our lives, to keep us in the true faith, to guard and guide us, to sanctify us and help us grow as Christians.
So the Holy Spirit comes along side us, the second thing he does is aways glorify Jesus. If something, or person, or event does not glorify Jesus then it was not of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says earlier, “’He [the Holy Spirit] will glorify me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.’” That’s the job of the Holy Spirit’s, if you like, to shine the light on Jesus, to glorify Christ.
The Holy Spirit, who is God Almighty, wants people to look upon Jesus and be saved. So he therefore glorifies Jesus, point us to him, leads us to him, and causes us to trust in Christ our Savior. That’s what the Helper, the Paraclete, does.
This is how God so loves the world.
Christ Jesus has purchased our redemption, we are free from condemnation, and he has won for us life and light and eternal salvation, as evidenced by his own resurrection and ascension into heaven.
But all of these things that Christ has won for us would be of no benefit to us if we did not know of Christ and come to faith in him. And that’s where the Holy Spirit comes in.
The Holy Spirit works through all the ways of grace, the preaching and teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments, in order to bring us to faith in Christ and to keep us strong in that faith till the day we die.
Which leads us to our third point, the Holy Spirit will guide us into all the truth.
Jesus told the disciples “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the 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” (Jn 16:13).
The Spirit of truth will guide us into all the truth. We live in a time where it is easy to believe there is no actual, objective, truth. Truth changes from the position you happen to look at it from.
Truth, we’re told, is whatever happens to be true for you.
The real truth is that there is such a thing as objective truth. Absolute truth. Truth is whatever God says in and through the living Word – Jesus.
At the end of the last supper, Jesus says to the disciples “I sanctify you in truth. God’s word is truth” (Jn 17:17). We are made holy for God, sanctified, through the work of the Holy Spirit – available to all through faith and baptism.
That’s what we can be sure of. That is what is certain, and firm and we can build our lives on, namely, God’s Holy Word. This is confirmed in us by the Holy Spirit when we are sanctified in this truth.
So if you want to know how things really stand between God and mortals; if you want to know what is right and wrong in this world from God’s perspective, which is the only one that counts, or if you want to know something of the things to come - then the one place to find that out is in God’s Word.
And the Helper, the Holy Spirit, will guide us into that truth. He will open the Scriptures for us.
As we grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ, as we continue to come to church, hear and explore the word and pray together, it will be the Holy Spirit, the Helper, who will be guiding us into all truth.
He does this by equipping us with spiritual gifts for the building up of the church so we can do the work that Jesus did on earth.
Now the work we do, as Jesus says in today’s gospel, will be even greater than he did, because the full authority of God is now usable by the church through this Holy Spirit of Jesus (vv.11-12).
Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble.” This describes the Holy Spirit perfectly. God the Holy Spirit swoops into our lives with very present and real, practical help.
God the Helper, God the Comforter, God our Advocate, sent by our Saviour Jesus in the great outpouring of the love of God. Let me pray.