them. John 16, page 902, we will look at verses 12 through 15. So between the years of 2004 and 2006, my father was pastor of a church in Niagara Falls, New York. And I have to admit that Western New York was not one of my favorite places to live. But I did enjoy the Falls. Perhaps one of the most amazing features in the world is these falls. And if any of you are familiar with the Niagara Falls area, then you know that the New York side is not nearly as attractive or exciting as the Canadian side. Canadian side has many different attractions, such as the Maid of the Mist, where you can take a boat ride actually down to the bottom of the falls. The one thing that both sides seem to have in common is the amount of power and energy that these falls produce. We lived in Lewiston, New York, and in Lewiston there is a power plant that basically the energy from the falls in this power plant power the city of New York. And so you have to think of how much energy New York City uses in a given day, and they would need a tremendous power source to do this. And so it's not unlike the disciples in a way. What Christ was calling them to and what their role was going to be after he departed, they were going to need an amazing power source. And so What we are going to look at this evening is the Holy Spirit. The theme for this sermon is the ministry of the Holy Spirit, and so we will study the Holy Spirit. What was His role going to be with the church after Christ leaves them, leaves the disciples? How would he guide and minister them? But also, how does the Holy Spirit still minister to us today? These are a few things that we were going to look at in this text. So pray with me now as we turn to the Word of God. Heavenly Father, let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, for you are Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. Hear now the word of the Lord from John chapter 16 beginning in verse 12. This is God's holy word. 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 the truth, for he will not speak of 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. So, tonight we again are going to talk about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we should remind ourselves exactly who is this Holy Spirit and what is His role in the church. Of course, we see a lot of examples of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. At creation, we see the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. in the story of Samson in the book of Judges. We see Samson is given this amazing ability, almost superhuman strength, although we should not attribute his strength to himself. The Holy Spirit came upon Samson and gave him this amazing power to lift the gates of the city, as it were, So these are some of the ways we see the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. And of course, when you cross into the New Testament, we see the activity of the Spirit quite clearly. Of course, in the birth of Jesus Christ, we see that the Holy Spirit was the one who caused Mary, who had no relations with a man, to become pregnant and bear this special child. And while the Lord Jesus is being baptized, the Holy Spirit descends on the Lord as a dove, empowering for the ministry that he would have throughout his time, his earthly ministry. And we also understand that from 2 Peter 1, that the Holy Spirit is the one who brought forth the Holy Scriptures. Nobody ever wrote the Scriptures based on their own opinions or their own ideas, but they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And so we understand that the Holy Spirit is not just a force, but He is the divine person, as in Acts chapter 5, Ananias and Sapphira understand very clearly that the Holy Spirit is God. He is a divine person. And so when we come to this portion of John chapter 16, Jesus is giving his disciples some last minute instructions. He's about to be departing from them. He's explained this fact a few times, but they're still not really understanding, and they're very sorrowful that he's going to be leaving. So Jesus explains to them that he's not going to be abandoning them. They are actually going to receive something greater than if he were to remain with them in the body. They're going to receive another comforter. They're going to receive the power of the Holy Spirit. And so in this text, we're gonna see some of the ways that the Holy Spirit would minister to the church, to the apostles, and also to us many centuries later. So one thing that the Spirit would definitely be doing, and we see this in verse 12, is that he would guide them into all truth. The Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth. Listen again to verse 12. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. And so the disciples have been very much involved with Christ's ministry. He has sent them out to preach. He sent them out to heal. And so the disciples by this point are very well acquainted with the ministry of Jesus. They kind of know what his mission is about. But yet, Jesus understands that some of the things that he's telling them now are really going to be hard for them to embrace. And he knows that they're still kind of weak in their faith, they're still trying to learn things, and so He assesses their abilities to understand what he's going to be teaching to them. He says, I have many things to tell you, but you can't bear them now. It's not as if this is information that they needed to have, and they were negligent in some way, and they couldn't receive it now. The Lord Jesus understands that what He could be explaining to them, and they're just not ready for it. Matthew Urhani talks about some of the things that may have been a problem for them. They may have If Jesus were to reveal to them that large segments of the Jewish community are not going to accept this gospel, if he was to explain to them that, you know, more and more Gentiles as the first century goes along, they will be coming to faith, but you're going to see less and less of the Jews believing this. That might have been hard for them to handle at this point. Right now, they're trying to process that Jesus is leaving. They're trying to process that he's going to suffer. It's not that Jesus is withholding information from them that they should have. He just understands that at this point, they're not ready. And so what he needs to explain to them in more detail is going to have to wait for the arrival of the Holy Spirit. And so when we move into verse 13, it says this, when the Spirit comes, he will guide you into all the truth. So we need to consider the apostles' calling when we think of the 12. And then as Paul joins them later, these men were not simply followers of Christ. Although they were, they definitely were his followers. But these were going to be the men who were appointed to be his viceroy, his representatives of the kingdom. They would have the authority to speak on his behalf. They would have the authority to do miracles on his behalf. And so, again, they were official representatives of the kingdom. the Holy Spirit is going to be one that empowers them to do this work. And it's important that the Holy Spirit would empower them because even at the Ascension, there's still confusion about what this kingdom is gonna look like. In Acts 1-6, the apostles are asking Jesus, so is now the time when you're gonna restore Israel to their rightful place. And he doesn't really answer their question. He sort of does, but not really in the way that they were expecting. He says this in Acts 1-7, And then he goes on to say in verse 8, And so again, some of the difficulties that they may run into. It would be hard for them to understand that the Jews are going to reject the gospel. It would be also hard for them to understand that the Gentiles would be the ones to come into the church. And so it seems that for most of the first century, this is still a hard concept to grasp. So Paul in Romans 9, 10, and 11 has to explain this fact. So it was a difficult concept. And so again, Jesus doesn't wanna unload this on them all at once. He gives them time and he waits for the spirit to reveal more of his plan to them. And it's not as if there was anything lacking in Christ's ministry. That's actually on the contrary. It's oftentimes in redemptive history where God will not reveal everything all at one time. There's the idea of progressive revelation, and if we study covenant theology, we see how the covenants progress through time, and there's more information shared later than in previous covenants, and so at this point, Jesus has more to share with them, but again, he does want to wait until they're equipped by the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit would equip them to do signs and wonders. 2 Corinthians 12 indicates that that was the sign of an apostle, those signs and wonders. It showed that they were working in Christ's name. not only the works that they did, not only the signs that they were able to perform, but we also have to remember the writings of the Apostles. Jesus says, I'm going to guide you into all truth. And so, could that be a little indication that perhaps when the apostles come and they are gifted with the ability to speak God's revelation to the people, that their revelation would be the final revelation? If that's the case, then we can be certain that we have everything we need for faith and life in this book. That this is the final word on faith and practice. And so when the apostles are writing these words, they're not just mere suggestions. We should assume that Christ himself would speak these very words. he were the one saying them, in a sense he does say them through the Holy Spirit through the Apostles. And so one of the things that happens a lot in our day is people want to seek a new revelation. They don't think the Bible is with the times. They'll say things about the biblical writers such as Paul, that Paul was writing under a different historical context than what we're accustomed to here in the 21st century. The problem they run into, though, is that, again, the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these words, so they are authoritative to us, and no, we do not need a new revelation, a new way of practicing Christianity. That is not what we need. We need to rely upon what is the final revelation to us, and that is in the Holy Scriptures. So then the second thing that the Holy Spirit would be doing, that He would be speaking by Christ's authority. The Holy Spirit would be speaking by Christ's authority. Listen again to verse 13. 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 so the Holy Spirit is God, the third person of the Trinity. We understand that God is triune, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Each one is God in his own person, equal in power and glory. But we also need to understand that the distinction of these persons indicates that there's a difference in roles and functions. The son submits to the father. The spirit then submits to both the father and the son. And so another interesting thing that we read from this text, actually a little bit before our text here in verse 7, we see that the Spirit would be proceeding from the Son. But then, if we jump back to 1416, the Spirit is proceeding from the Father. So this would give a lot of justification for the Nicene Creed, where it says that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. And so, the Holy Spirit would be speaking by Christ's authority, but Christ speaks by the Father's authority. And so we understand this from John 14, 24, this is Jesus speaking, the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's you sent me. And so as the Spirit is speaking through Christ, Christ is speaking for the Father. Again, the writings of the apostles through the Holy Spirit. If the Spirit is witnessing these words from the Son, and the Son is witnessing these words from the Father, then in Holy Scripture, we have a sure word from God the Father. We know what the Father is saying to us. And so, this is very important when we handle controversies in the church today. How do we deal with controversies in society and in the church and even in our lives? Well, we must go back to Holy Scripture. When the apostles wrote about things, you know, again, as I said a few moments ago, there are a lot of people who think we need a new revelation. We need new understanding. Because the apostles, again, writing from a historical context, They didn't see the value of same-sex relationships and how wonderful they can be. They didn't understand that having an authority structure in your home, well, that's hateful of women. And we understand that some people in history have taken passages such as wives submit to your husbands as an excuse for abusing their women, for ordering them around, and all the while they're saying, but it's in the Bible, I'm the head of my household. but I think they forgot what comes after that, where it says to the husband, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her. And so just because people have come and twisted these words, these words that are authoritative, and they sound funny in our 21st century ears, but because people have twisted those, doesn't negate the original story that Paul was writing with. Another thing that we see the Spirit doing is, what he would do for the apostles is he would be declaring the things to come. Again in verse 13 toward the end, and he the Spirit will declare to you the things that are to come. And so we see in the book of Acts that there were times where the Spirit would reveal some immediate concerns that the apostles should know about. For example, in Acts 11, Agabus, the prophet, announces that there would be a famine that would hit the Roman world. And then Paul, in Acts 21, another prophet indicates to him that when he goes to Jerusalem, he's going to be bound and handed over to the Romans. And so here's some immediate predictions that the apostles were receiving, but we also see more predictive prophecy throughout the New Testament. All we need to do is turn to the book of Revelation and see how the Spirit ministered to the apostle John Now whether you take a late date for Revelation, which is in the mid-90s, and perhaps you think that the stuff that's in Revelation is still in the future, even for our day. If that's the case, then of course Paul, or the Spirit, was speaking to John about things that were still to come. But even if you should take the early date. The early date for Revelation is in the mid and late 60s. And a lot of people who take that position feel that Revelation is showing things that would happen to the city of Jerusalem when it was destroyed in AD 70. So whichever camp you fall into, we have to understand that Revelation seems to be by and large a futuristic book, portraying things that are still yet to come. And even if the things in Revelation are concerning Jerusalem in AD 70, that's still future compared to John's time. And we understand that the Holy Spirit had shown Paul things to come, particularly with the final resurrection, both in 1 Corinthians 15 and then again in 1 Thessalonians 4. And so what we take away from this is that having a glimpse into our future, even a little bit of that, is quite healthy. Because when you think of the difficulties of the Christian life and the way the Christians are abused and tortured around the world, it's good to know that what we experience in this life is not the best that there is. Of course, the coming of Christ in the first century was great, When He came, He took away our sins. When He came, He established His kingdom right then and there. And He already has declared Satan a defeated foe. The cross was the death blow to the devil. And so while He is angry and He fights like crazy against the church, He's fighting as a wounded animal and He's fighting as one who is defeated. and knows that his time is short. So all those things happened with the first coming. There's a lot to celebrate with the first coming. when we think about the promises that are still yet to come. Many New Testament theologians talk about the difference, the concept of the already and the not yet. There's things we already possess as God's children. We're forgiven of our sins, we have eternal life already, and in one sense the kingdom has already come. but there's still more that we await. And so the Spirit revealed these things to the apostles for our benefit and so that we can have something to look forward to beyond this life. And so, the last thing that we'll talk about is, one thing the Holy Spirit would definitely do, is He would glorify Christ. The Holy Spirit would glorify Christ. Listen again to verse 14. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. I don't have to explain to you all that Jesus Christ is the central figure of the Bible, not just the New Testament, but every single page is about Christ. Everything was made by him and for him. And so, as Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, At the ascension, Jesus received his kingdom in a sense. And he shares with the Father all power and authority on heaven and on earth. So in heaven, the Father is glorifying the Son. But Matthew Henry talks about that here on earth, it's the Spirit who is glorifying Christ. And so in 1 Corinthians 12, 3, Paul says this, And so, what should we understand from this text from Paul is that no spirit-filled person can hate Jesus Christ. That is an impossibility. But it also goes the other way. No follower of Jesus Christ can hate the witness of the Holy Spirit. And so, again, how do we apply this? The apostle's words were from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was witnessing from Christ, and Christ was witnessing from the Father. And so, if we want to bring glory to Christ, if we want to honor Him, and if we want to acknowledge how the members of the Trinity have worked out revelation to us, then we need to receive the Holy Scriptures. We need to understand this is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to us. Again, these are not just the thoughts of the Spirit or of the Son, but these are the very thoughts of God the Father delivered to us through the Spirit, through His appointed men of revelation. And so, again, if we are truly following Christ, and if we truly have the Spirit abiding in us, we will be inclined to trust his words more so than over the words of men. Let's pray. Eternal God, we thank you that you are the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and that in your person, so Lord, that you have revealed this word to us, and you have testified that it is true, And we only have one objective, Lord, and that's to obey it and to put it into practice, because you have chosen to reveal yourself to us in these words and in these scriptures. So we pray now that as we think about these things, and think about how the Spirit empowered the apostles to do the work of evangelism and preaching and teaching, that that same Spirit is at work in us today. And when we speak on your behalf, when we preach, and when we study your work, we know that the same Spirit that guided the apostles is also at work in us. We pray all these things in Jesus' name, amen.