Brothers and sisters, please open your Bibles once more with me to the book of John, John chapter 14. As we continue to study these final words, this last will and testament, this farewell speech of Jesus Christ, and here we see once more Christ giving encouragement to disciples, giving hope peace to those who are terrified and at that moment without hope and without peace. We'll be looking this evening specifically at what Christ says regarding the Holy Spirit in these last verses of John chapter 14 and John 14 verse 15 through 31. We'll read the whole passage but we'll really be focusing in on 15 through 18 and then on 25 through the end or 25 through 27. So really focusing in on what Christ says regarding the Holy Spirit. We'll read though from verse 15 through 31 of John chapter 14 Hear the word of the Lord If you love me You will keep my commandments And I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever even the Spirit of truth in the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him and You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and he will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you. If you had loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you that before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe. I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here. Thus far, the reading of God's holy and inerrant word. Father, we come before you this evening asking that you would open our hearts once more to your word, once more to see, to catch a glimpse of the glory of our Savior, of the wonder of salvation that you've prepared for us. We pray especially tonight, Lord, that you would open our hearts to understand and know to love the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to eagerly seek out His work. In Jesus' name, Amen. Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives is often a slightly taboo subject in our churches. Sure, we feel comfortable about speaking about how the Holy Spirit inspired the Word of God. We feel very comfortable talking about how the Holy Spirit worked in times past, especially in moments like the Pentecost or the years following. But somehow when it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit in our own lives, it can be somewhat a confusing subject or a subject that we don't quite know what to say on the matter. The Holy Spirit comes up in conversation and it can feel somewhat awkward at times. Why is that? I think for some reason, or one of the reasons rather, perhaps the main reason why this is the case today is because so many people in churches around the United States completely misunderstand what the Holy Spirit does. in Pentecostal and churches and in charismatic churches, it's common for the Holy Spirit, or rather, excuse me, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit to become somewhat twisted. And so as soon as we hear about the Holy Spirit, so often from people who are new Christians or who come from charismatic Pentecostal backgrounds, you start to step back because they They say things that the Holy Spirit clearly does not do. They turn the Holy Spirit from God Himself, an infinite being with personality, with characteristics, and they make Him into an impersonal force. They reduce the role of the Holy Spirit, His work in our lives, into somewhat a parody of itself. They imagine, when they read from Scripture, of the speaking in tongues that occurs in the New Testament. They say, well, when I babble, I'm speaking in tongues. Or they imagine impressive shows with powerful feelings can somewhat drum up the Holy Spirit in a person's life. They imagine that if someone simply has this impersonal force, they can do all sorts of miracles which often turn us away from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let me just give you one example from my family's personal life. My dad, when he first became a Christian, he was not at all Reformed, Presbyterian in theology. Far from it, he was a bit charismatic, and he went to a very famous preacher. And he stood in line and waited for this preacher, and this preacher supposedly could tell prophecies. And he stood in line and talked with people as he was waiting and explained, yes, I want to be a pastor, and I'm so excited to see this great faith preacher who's going to give me prophecies. And he sat in the audience and the preacher picked him out and he said, you, you will be a great preacher of God's word. My dad was astounded. How can this be? This man must truly be prophetic. About six months later, that powerful preacher, that prophetic man was outed as a farce. He was a false preacher. In fact, what he did was as people stood in line to get into the audience, he had plants in line who would ask around and say, what do you want to do? And then the preacher would have those fed into his mic or fed into his earbud. And so he claims to have the Holy Spirit giving him these powerful gifts. And it turned out to be a lie. Things like this tend to turn us away from the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We rightly are concerned when we hear things like this. Having studied God's Word in more detail, we rightly shy away from these false displays of the Holy Spirit in the modern world. The Presbyterian church rightly recognizes these things to be wrong. We rightly see that the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches distort the work of the Holy Spirit. But far, far too often, congregation, the response of the church is to fall on the other side of the spectrum. To think that while they're wrong, And therefore, while we think of the Holy Spirit as something subdued, something which does almost nothing in the believer's life except perhaps convict us of sin, help us in sanctification, far from having a proper view of the Holy Spirit in our lives, it's our tendency almost to make the Holy Spirit a minor character in the story of redemption. Don't misunderstand me, what we often call the greater gifts have ceased. The Word of God shows us that they were there for a very particular purpose, to establish the Gospel. But it is to our shame if we then take the role of the Holy Spirit and we make it something smaller. The Holy Spirit works just as powerfully In our lives today, as at Pentecost, and as in the New Testament, though in a different way, the Holy Spirit is not a minor character in the history of redemption. He is the third member of the Godhead. He is God, just as much God as the Father and the Son. He is the one who draws us to Christ, the one who applies salvation, the one who sanctifies the greatest source or one of the greatest sources of comfort that the believer has in this life. And that's what Jesus wishes to bring before the disciples on that fateful evening. So for a brief moment tonight, congregation, let's study the role of the Holy Spirit. Let's study what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in our lives, how He works. The first thing He says is that the Holy Spirit is the presence of God. The Holy Spirit is the presence of God. Congregation Jesus has just revealed to his disciples the fact that he's about to leave them as we've seen the past couple weeks He'll no longer be with them at least Physically and in chapter 13 as we saw he declared little children yet a little while I'm with you You will seek me and just as I said to the Jews. So now also I say to you where I am going You cannot come And in the passage from this morning, Jesus began to comfort these disciples and say, my leaving is actually for your blessing. His departure, our benefit. And now this evening, he continues to encourage us and continues to encourage the disciples in the passage. But where in the morning Jesus spoke about His absence, now He speaks about the Holy Spirit's presence. We might say He speaks of a solution to His absence. He tells them that He's about to send them the Holy Spirit. Look at the way He speaks in verse 15 and 16 especially. He says in verse 16, I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper to be with you forever. He repeats many of these same phrases in verse 26 where He refers to the Holy Spirit as the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name. congregation. In these verses, contrary to what some people think about the Holy Spirit, Jesus does not describe him as a kind of force, some kind of unfeeling power that's given to us. The Bible does not describe the Holy Spirit in Star Wars terms as a force for good in our lives. No, quite the opposite. Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as the very presence of God in our lives. The very presence of God in our lives. He does this in a few different ways. First of all, he tells them of the source of this Holy Spirit. The source of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sent out, according to verse 16, by both the Father and the Son. Verse 16 says, Will ask of the father and he will send the Holy Spirit in my name Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus says that he himself will send the Holy Spirit John 6 16 verse 7 in this same evening Christ reverses it and He repeats the idea, but he says I will send the Holy Spirit to you Now why is this important? Why is it important that the Father and the Son both send the Holy Spirit? There are many implications to this fact, but perhaps most important for us tonight, it shows us that the coming of the Holy Spirit is not a minor event. This is not something that we should shake off or deal with lightly. Jesus Christ, our Savior, believes it to be something incredibly important to our spiritual lives, such that He says He will send the Holy Spirit. He says He will pray of the Father, and the Father will send the Holy Spirit. This is an important thing for us. In the second place, and more important for our understanding, note the way Jesus describes this Holy Spirit in our lives. Jesus refers to Him as a replacement for, or perhaps better said, a representative of Jesus Himself. He calls the Holy Spirit another helper. The word translated here, helper, sometimes is also translated as paraclete or as comforter. It's a legal term. We could also translate it as a lawyer in some sense. It's used to refer to someone who pleads on your behalf in a court case, similar to how we would describe a lawyer today. He's an advocate on our behalf, someone who argues for us, who pleads for us, who brings our needs before the Father's throne. Now, brothers and sisters, do you see the parallel here between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit? In the same way that Jesus prays for the believer, so, too, the Holy Spirit prays for the believer. But where Christ goes to heaven to intercede on our behalf at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit is sent below to intercede on our behalf from within us. While Christ prepares a place for us in His Father's home, the Holy Spirit prepares a place for Christ within our hearts. Just as this morning we saw that Christ's absence was for our blessing, so too the presence of the Holy Spirit is for our blessing. Brothers and sisters, listen to what Jesus says only a couple chapters later in John chapter 16. He says, 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 depart, I will send Him to you. This should be an astounding truth to us. If Jesus had not said these words, I think most of us would find them rather difficult to believe. How can it be better that Christ leaves us, goes away? Well, Christ here says it so. He says it's to your advantage. It's better for me to go away, be with the Father, so that you may have the Holy Spirit. Having the Holy Spirit in our lives is in some regard better than having Christ physically present with us. Because the Holy Spirit is within us, working in our hearts. In third place, note congregation, the length of time that this Holy Spirit is sent for. This Holy Spirit who is sent to be the presence of God in our lives, He's not sent for a month. He wasn't just sent for Pentecost. He wasn't just sent for the time that the New Testament was written. He wasn't just sent for a few decades after Jesus' life. No, the Holy Spirit is an eternal helper. Verse 16 says this, It says, He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Christ was only to be with us, at least in His first coming rather, for a limited time. As John says, Jesus knew the purpose for His coming. He knew now that His time had come. But here he says, the Holy Spirit will be with you forever. He says, yes, I must leave. But I'm sending one to be with you who will not leave you. And therefore, I am with you forever. Believers, Christ's desire in introducing the Holy Spirit is to console us. Jesus wants you to see that if you are in Him, He truly cares for you. He wants you to see how much He loves you. He wants the disciples to know He wasn't leaving them alone. He was leaving them someone to be in His stead and to be even a greater blessing than His presence. But take note, congregation, on the other hand, while the Holy Spirit is a great gift for the believer, the presence of God in their lives, this gift is not a gift for the unbeliever, for the person who's dead in their sins and trespasses. A believer does not have Christ as his helper. So how could the unbeliever have the Holy Spirit as, as Jesus says here, as another helper? The unbeliever does not receive the prayers of Christ, so how then can they receive the prayers of the Holy Spirit? The unbeliever does not receive Christ at all, so how can they receive the one whom Christ sends? Congregation, the Holy Spirit was for Jesus a way to encourage the disciples. He seeks to encourage you. with the fact that He dwells in you through His Holy Spirit. But if you're not in Christ, this promise is not for you. If you are not in Christ, you cannot have the comfort of the Holy Spirit for those of us who have Him. In the second-place congregation, Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is the Preacher of God. He is the Preacher of God. The disciples of Jesus Christ worried that if Christ left, they would be destitute. They've been with Him, yes. They've listened to Him. They recognize the importance of His teaching. But despite the fact that they've been with Jesus for some three years now, nonetheless, they recognize how poor, how weak, how unable to understand Christ's word they are. They were still at this point consistently misinterpreting, misunderstanding the words of their Savior. So as Jesus continues to comfort them, he focuses for a moment to say that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything they need to know. Consider back for a moment what we've seen the past several weeks congregation and what do we see but the disciples? constantly consistently in misunderstanding We see how Peter refused to be washed How the disciples here of Judas's betrayal and they still don't understand How Peter declares I'm ready to go with you to prison and to death Even when Christ tells him they can't go with him How Thomas stands before Jesus and says, we don't know where you're going. How can we know the way? Judas, not Iscariot, himself here also doesn't understand. So we see time and time again these disciples just not getting the point. But Christ wishes to encourage them to tell them that this Holy Spirit that he's sending them Will preach the word to them Will bring the word before them to guide them to comfort them Look how how Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit in verse 17 He calls him the Spirit of Truth. Once again in verse 25 and 26, Jesus says, These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. The Holy Spirit spoken of here is a teacher, and a preacher. His task to guide, to teach, to remind, to convict, and to instruct the believer. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit here, the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of Truth. That is to say, the one who teaches the truth. The one who guides believers in the truth. More than that, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit is sent to teach all things, to remind all things. His task is to explain Scripture to the believer, to confirm the truth that the believer already knows. Brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit is very, very good at this task. Compare the men of this final night were present with Jesus To the men as they were only a few weeks later Look at Peter Peter the one who rebukes Jesus for saying that he's going to his death Peter the one who who declares in his pride. I'm ready to go with you Peter the one who denied Jesus three times, heaping curses, blasphemy upon his own head. Look at Thomas, a man characterized, as we saw this morning, by unbelief. A man who declares, unless I see the wounds in his sides and his hands, I will never believe. Look at all the disciples who, at the very least, did not understand what Christ was saying to them. Now compare them, friends. Compare them to only a few weeks later when Christ does send the Holy Spirit. They were men who stood firm. who stood tall, preaching with conviction and with power. In the face of scoffers, in the face of persecutors, in the face of people from every country, in the face of the leaders of Jerusalem, in the face of kings, they say, Jesus Christ who died is resurrected. Repent, for His judgment comes, and in Him you will find peace. Compare these disciples who quake in their boots in the final evening and look at them just a few weeks later. And what a great change the Holy Spirit works in their lives. And what about the life of other people as well? Look at the life of Paul, a man who despises the church with every fiber of his being. And what does he do when he receives the Holy Spirit, the first thing he does? He goes out and He preaches the Word. The same can be said of every believer throughout history. Now, it's true that it's to different extents, right? Some Christians are much stronger in proclaiming the name of Jesus Christ than others. But nonetheless, the Holy Spirit works in every believer's life. to bring conviction, to bring the word of God before their hearts. Congregation, I feel the need to make two notes here. First, once more, as we saw in the first point, if you do not have Christ, you cannot have the Holy Spirit. If you do not have Christ, you cannot have the one who teaches and preaches Christ. Listen to what verse 17 says even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive Because it neither sees him nor knows him You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you The believer can lay claim to the Holy Spirit to the fact that the Holy Spirit teaches him, guides him, instructs him. The unbeliever cannot do this. In fact, the unbeliever cannot see the things that the Holy Spirit teaches. But in the second place, for all those who are in Christ, nonetheless, I need to give a word of warning. The Holy Spirit is a teacher, but He never teaches apart from the Word of God. There are many who imagine that the Holy Spirit will somehow give them new information. That He'll tell them something that the Bible doesn't say. This passage teaches us that a major part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to remind us of what Scripture commands. He says that in verse 26. The helper the holy spirit whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things to bring to your remembrance All that I have said to you The work of the holy spirit is directly in line with scripture He does not reveal things to us apart from the word of god At one time to the apostles and to the prophets. He did teach things. They did not know but even then In every moment, at every time when the Holy Spirit revealed His Word, it was directly in line with what was already revealed. For God does not change. If you are a Christian then, brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit ought to be a comfort to you. He will teach you. And He will teach you through God's Word. Later on in John's life, he almost certainly, thinking back on this passage, he wrote about the Spirit of Truth. It's a long passage in 1 John. I'll only read a portion of it. You need not turn there, but he says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. But you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. That is, to the apostles. Whoever is not from God does not listen. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Therefore, listen to me closely, brothers. Don't think that the role of the Holy Spirit is somehow to turn us into prophets in the biblical Old Testament sense. Rather, his role today is to preach, to convict, to comfort us with the Word of God that he's already revealed. So a congregation of the Holy Spirit is the presence of God. He is the preacher of God. But finally, the Holy Spirit is also the peace of God. The Holy Spirit is the peace of God. Jesus focuses in on this point in verse 18 and in verse 27. In both of these verses, Jesus wishes to comfort the disciples more directly. He wants them to be aware of the fact that once more, despite the fact they are now afraid, the Holy Spirit will bring peace. Look at verse 18. He says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Brothers and sisters, an orphan is someone who has no parents. And often, especially in Jesus' day, orphans were people who had no one to take care of them. They were people who were generally viewed as destitute, without hope. You can imagine that the disciples must have felt like orphans here, as though they were without someone to take care of them. But Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. Yes, I'm leaving, but I will not leave you alone. I will bring someone to take care of you. Christ has not left us destitute. He sends one who brings comfort and peace. He re-emphasizes this once more in verse 27, even more strongly, where he says the following, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." Brothers and sisters, some of you certainly are going through tough times right now. Some of you perhaps worry for the future. We have a lot of things to worry about in some way. For you, perhaps, your hearts are a sea of emotions. You may even feel as though Christ has left you as an orphan. But if this is the case, then look to the gift that Christ promises here. A gift for all who are in Him. A gift that was not merely promised to the disciples, but is promised to us. A gift of peace. A gift of one who will never leave us. a gift of the one who gives us the peace that passes all understanding. Now notice once more, this peace is not for those who are not in Christ. Jesus says, not as the world gives do I give it. The world has a sort of peace to be sure, but it's really not a real peace. It's a temporary peace, a half-hearted peace, a peace which can be cracked and broken at every moment. A peace which does not extend beyond skin deep. It's a peace that melts away. But the peace that the Holy Spirit brings is an eternal peace. I speak for a moment now directly to those of you who are not in Christ. I don't know your hearts, but God does. If you do not know Christ, friend, Well then, you do not have this peace. Perhaps you sit at ease here now. Perhaps you feel as though you're doing okay. But Christ declares here that if you do not have Christ, if you do not have Him, you do not have this peace. If you are not in Him, your peace is temporary. You can't receive it. Understand it. You can't buy it. You can't learn it. You can't exchange it. If you are not in Christ, this peace is not for you. But the promise of God to all who are in Him is this peace can be for you by the work of the Holy Spirit. If you repent, if you repent of your sin, if you trust in Christ, the promise of Christ for His disciples can be for you as well. The peace that passes all understanding. If you desire this Holy Spirit congregation, if you do not now have the Holy Spirit, then pray. Pray for His coming. Pray for regeneration. But on the other hand, Christian, take comfort. Take comfort in the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you are in Christ, God is with you. through the work of this Holy Spirit. He is the one who was sent by the Father and by the Son, who now works in the believers as another advocate, applying the blood of Christ who was crucified on our behalf. If you have Christ, then you have the Holy Spirit, who is to be with the believer eternally. If you have Christ, you have the presence of the Holy Spirit, the one who teaches the one who convicts, who reminds you of Christ's words, who guides you. So friend, if you are in Christ, if you have the blood of Christ, then remember this, that the Holy Spirit is the one who gives you peace. A peace not like the world. A peace in Christ Jesus. A peace which passes all. Lord, we pray for this, your Holy Spirit, that he would work in us as your representative, bringing our needs before your throne, that he would work within us as your preacher, bringing your word to us and reminding us of the truth, that he would work in us as the one who gives peace, Lord, we know that without you we cannot have this peace. We cannot have this preacher. We cannot have this advocate. So we pray, Lord, that by your sacrifice, what you have done for us on the cross, that you would grant us your Holy Spirit to work in us. We pray, Lord, that he would work more strongly in our hearts every day. We pray this in Jesus' name.