So we're gonna start talking about the Holy Spirit in John chapter 14, 16 and following. So turn there and just leave a finger there because we're gonna be, this is not just a launching place. This will be where we spend most of our time. Sometimes it's better to focus in one place. John 14, 16 through 27, I'm just gonna read it And then we'll go from there. I will ask the Father, this is Jesus speaking, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. That is, the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. After a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me, because I live, you will live also. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will disclose myself to him. Judas, not Scariot, said to him, Lord, what then has happened that you're going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered and said to him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. He who does not love me does not keep my words, and the word which you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding 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 said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful." Let's pray. Father, thank you for the incredible grace that you have given us, and redeeming us, buying us back for yourself, giving us new life, an ongoing, an overflowing, an ever-flowing life. And Lord, giving us your word and your spirit to guide us in understanding it. And that's my prayer for this morning, that you would speak to our hearts about who you are and how we can relate to you. Amen. There's a lot packed in here. But we'll just start with the first sentence. Verse 16. Will ask the father and he will give you another helper Not even quite a sentence another helper Well, let's look at the word helper in your translation. It might say comforter. It might say Counselor, it might say advocate all of those would be fair translations Comforter In the old meaning of that term, like to provide aid and comfort to, we think of comfort as being emotional support. But if you have ever seen a comfort station, it's providing you more than just emotional support. It's an aspect of providing aid, if you will. The word, as you've probably heard before, the Greek word that's used here is paraclete, which just means to call alongside. So if you were running a race and you looked bad, then one of the aid workers on the side of the race might run alongside you and hand you some water, and if you really needed it, they might help you off the course and into the ambulance. Or that would be a paraclete, a person who was called alongside. Or it may be that they give you some water, they give you a little granola bar, they give you some encouragement, they pat you on the back, and you've got enough to keep going and you finish the race. That is actually a better picture of what it's like to have a paraclete, someone called alongside of us. And so Jesus says that he's going to give, well rather, that he will ask the Father, and the Father will give another helper, another paraclete. Now the word another there is important. He could have just said a helper. And I would have thought, oh, I get a helper. Great. But he said another helper. And our word another is more vague than the word that's used here. In the Greek it means another of the same type. So like if I ate an apple out of the basket and I said that was good, hand me another apple. That's the way this word is. It means another of the same. Give me another one. If there was a whole basket of fruit, and I ate an apple, and I said, give me another piece of fruit, and you gave me an orange, that would be not what's meant here. That would be another of a different sort. So when Jesus said that the Father will give you another helper, he's saying another helper like me. So when you think about what does the Holy Spirit do, what does it mean to be given the Holy Spirit, it means the same thing that it meant for the disciples to be given Jesus. So what did he do? Well, he walked alongside them. He taught them. He encouraged them. He corrected them. He even provided for them by making loaves of bread multiply. He rescued them from the storm. He was a helper alongside them. And what Jesus is saying is, I'm going to ask the Father and He's going to give you another helper like me. And their question obviously would have been, Why do we need another helper? And you know what the answer was, and they were about to. It's because Jesus was leaving. And he was preparing them for that. So that brings us to why is the Holy Spirit given to us? Think about the fact that Jesus was daily, constantly with his disciples for three years when they really had no responsibilities. And it was all he could do to hold them together and to keep them on the track. And now he was going to send them out into the world to proclaim the gospel and found the church? If they needed his daily presence, guidance, and provision right there with them when they really had no responsibilities, they needed him way more in what he was about to send them out to do. They needed, not God far off, They needed God right here. With them. Helping them. Encouraging them. And that's why they were so concerned when he said he was leaving. Because they knew they weren't going to make it without him. And he said, don't worry, I'm going to send you another helper like me. And look at the reason he gives them. Back in verse 16. He will give you another helper that he may be with you forever. This is the answer to the question, why did they need another helper? They needed, we need, a helper right beside us, God. Forever. Not just for three years of training, or six years of training, or any amount of training. Not just while we're here, by the way, living this life on this earth, but always. Remember when Jesus talked about the Spirit being a well of life within you that continues to flow? He was talking to the Samaritan woman. It's that idea of, if you drink, you're going to get thirsty. So, rather than giving you a glass of water, Jesus gives you a spring. And He says, it's an everlasting spring. We're always going to be thirsty for God. We need Him continually resupplying us with Himself. We never get enough. And so, we needed someone who would be with us forever. God with us forever. And Jesus, the God-man, is a man. And He is God. And we know where he's at right now. He is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Now hang with me here. That means that Jesus the man is not here with us. And we need God with us. And so what we needed, and what we need today, is a God, the God, with us, in a way that the God-man is not with us. When He said, I am leaving, and I will come again, it's exactly what He meant. He was leaving, and we would be without Him, in the sense of Him being here with us, physically present. And so He's telling the disciples, Well, let's just read a little further and we'll hear what he's telling the disciples. Verse 17, that is, the spirit of truth, that's the helper, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. Now that's a big statement. Not just that, like Jesus, He would be with the disciples, but that He will be in you. And He continues, I will not leave you as orphans all alone. I will come to you. After a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Because I live, you will live also. There's that idea of, we need His life to stay alive. In that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." Now, what is he talking about here? He said, I'm leaving, but I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send you the helper, but I won't be here. And then he says, I will come to you. Well, which is it? Is he going to be away or is he going to come back and be with us right now? I mean, we know he's coming back at the end of this age for judgment and to bring all of us home. There is a... And here we get into understanding God in three persons. And so this is the first thing to understand about the Holy Spirit, that we sometimes get wrong. The Holy Spirit is not the power of God. He is not any characteristic of God that sometimes I think when I say I need the power of the Holy Spirit, what I really mean is like a power, not a person. But the Holy Spirit's not like that. Jesus just said, I'm going to leave. The Holy Spirit will be in you. And then He said, I will be in you. So Jesus is identifying Himself with the Holy Spirit. But Jesus is God-man. He is not the Holy Spirit. And yet, He is, because God is one. God, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And throughout this passage, while the whole point of the passage is that He's leaving and the Holy Spirit is coming, Yet constantly he's saying, by the Holy Spirit's presence with you, I'm present with you. If the Holy Spirit is in you, I'm in you. Because you can't separate God. He is not pieces. He's persons, but he is one God. And so let's just continue reading and keep that idea in your mind. And you can see how he talks about the Spirit, and then he says, and I am here, and the Father is here. And the Spirit discloses, and I disclose. It's all together. So we'll keep reading in, let's see, I think we're in verse 20. I'll back up to that. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. He who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will disclose myself to him." Jesus is going to disclose himself to us, but how is he going to do that? Judas, not Iscariot, said, Lord, what then has happened that you're going to disclose yourself to us and not to the world? Now, that's a good question. Jesus had been teaching, and we know that he was primarily teaching his disciples, and yet, the whole world was hearing it. Large crowds were hearing it. And so, when he said, I'm going to disclose myself to you, but not to anyone else, Judas is like, hey, it hasn't been working that way so far. What's different? What then has happened? And what has happened is that the Holy Spirit will disclose the Father to us within us instead of outside speaking in a way that the whole world can hear. And that's what he goes on to explain in verse 23. Jesus answered and said to him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him. Like a lot of Jesus' answers, it doesn't sound like he answered the question, but he did answer the question. The question is, why won't the world know you and see you anymore? But we will. And Jesus' answer is, because the Father and I will make our abode with you, but only you who puts your faith in Me, and who lives your life with Me, will have My presence with you, and will learn of Me. He continues on in verse 24, He who does not love Me does not keep My words, and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father's who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding 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 said to you. To know God, He must reveal Himself to you." And Jesus was about to leave and would no longer be publicly proclaiming who He was. He would be proclaiming it through His Holy Spirit, the Helper, within His disciples. He would disclose Himself to His people, to the believers. So, this verse 25, or sorry, 26 is important. It is important to understand that the Holy Spirit is God, and His name and God's name is used interchangeably, just like Jesus' name and God's name, and the Father and God. All are God. And you see that when Jesus says, He will abide in you. And then right after that, He says, I will abide in you. But He means that the Holy Spirit will abide in you. And then He says, the Father is in me, and I'm in you. It's all one together. But the Holy Spirit is not just sort of the disembodied Jesus. The Holy Spirit is his own person, and you can see that in verse 26. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father, who is not the Holy Spirit, will send in my name, in Jesus' name. So you can see all three persons together there. The Father is sending on behalf of Jesus, The Holy Spirit. He's sending the Holy Spirit on behalf of Jesus. All three are involved in the gift of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is very definitely separate from, a separate person from the Father and the Son. Now look on your cross-reference sheet. We are going to use that, in case you were wondering. Right at the top, well, second down, Matthew 28, 18 through 20. It's a familiar passage. And Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them, listen carefully, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Three persons. Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and listen to the promise. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. and then he ascended to heaven and left. What did he mean when he promised, I am with you always, even to the end of the age? He meant he was sending the Helper, the Holy Spirit, who is so closely identified with Christ, in fact, in that Romans passage we read, he's called the Spirit of Christ, that Christ himself can say, I will be with you, even though Christ himself, the God-man, is seated at the right hand of the Father, right now. But the Holy Spirit, Well, let's talk about where the Holy Spirit's at right now. So, move a couple pages over in your Bible to John 16. Go to verse 5. Same conversation, same night. Jesus talking again, but now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Now, if you were in their place, you would feel the same way. You've been night and day with Jesus for three years, and he says he's leaving. And he's going to the Father, and he's told them they can't follow him right now. So they're sad. But Jesus has something important to tell them. Verse 7, but I tell you the truth, 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 go, I will send him to you. Now without trying to speculate why this is the case, it just is the case that until the Son was glorified, seated at the right hand of the Father, the Holy Spirit was not sent. So hear what Jesus is saying. He's saying, you're better off with the Holy Spirit than you are with me. Flat out. It's to your advantage that I leave. You disciples, I know you're attached to me. We've had a great time. We've been together day and night. But the Helper's gonna be even better. That's what he's saying. He's saying, you'd be better off for me to leave so that I can send the helper. So sometimes you may think, eh, it was so nice that they got to walk and talk with Jesus. Although, if you thought about it very much, you probably wouldn't think that. But we, with them, have the privilege of having the Holy Spirit, which, according to Jesus, is even better than walking with Him. And why is that? Well, we already know He will be with us always and with all of us. Truly God and truly man was only in one place at one time while he was here on earth. He was only with a few disciples. But now there are millions of disciples. And each one whom the Spirit of God has given new life has the helper. And that could never have been. unless God had sent the gift of the helper. This made a big impression on the apostles. And the very first sermon of the church, Peter's sermon, the clincher of the sermon, was not be saved from wrath, though certainly that was included. Well, let's just read what it was. It's on your cross-reference sheet right at the top. Acts 2, 38. Peter said to them, they had asked, what do we need to do? And so Peter answered their question, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I don't know how many gospel presentations you've heard, but I've heard a lot that don't really mention that. Forgiveness of sins, salvation, nearness to Christ. But it was top of mind for Peter. And why? Well, it's because the Holy Spirit had just come upon him. And all the people had gathered because they saw the Holy Spirit's work. And he was saying, put your faith in Christ. Repent turn around be forgiven and you will receive this promise the promise of the Holy Spirit it's that good that that was the last thing he mentioned and 3,000 were baptized that very day and they did in fact receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and turn the world upside down from that time forward and So the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son, but He is also a person, separate from the Father and the Son. Not the same person, the same God. Don't try to go too deep into that, but that's how it is. And because He is a person, the mind-blowing thing is that Jesus says, He will dwell in you. Now, we talk about since Jesus came into my heart. And you've heard that phrase a lot, ask Jesus into your heart. There isn't actually any invitation like that in scripture. And actually there are, as Greg pointed out this morning, very few places where scripture talks about Jesus being in your heart. It does talk about it. In fact, you could even take this John 14 passage as one of them. Jesus said, I will be in you. But always, the context is, I will be in you through the gift of the Holy Spirit, because He's identified with the Spirit. So then comes down to the crux, the big thing I got as I just read all of these things. The person of the Holy Spirit is the person of God who is within me. God is not separate, so God the Father is with me, God the Son is with me, yes. But God the Son is a man, a God-man, with a body, resurrected and ascended into heaven. He is not physically inside of me. That would make no sense. And partly I think this idea of having Jesus inside of us is why I have a hard time thinking of Jesus having a body. Because how could he be inside of me? I think of him as just sort of a disembodied spirit a lot of times. But he's not. He is forever. embodied, incarnated. The Holy Spirit is not incarnated, and He is present within us. And that's not in a sort of theoretical or symbolic sense, and I will show you how I know that. Look on your sheets, it's bound toward the middle, 1 Corinthians 6, 18-20. Flee sexual immorality. Every other sin that a man commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral man sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body. We talk about our spirit, and so does scripture. Our spirit is, it's us. I think your soul or your spirit, it's us. I'm pretty attached. My spirit and my body are very closely attached. And when they become detached, I will no longer be with you. But they won't stay detached. I am one, a body and a spirit together. What he's saying in this passage is that in the same way that my spirit dwells within my body, the spirit of God dwells within my body. To the point that in another place in this passage he says, you join yourself to a prostitute, you join the prostitute to Christ. This is not a symbolic idea. The Holy Spirit actually dwells within you if you are of Christ and you have His Spirit at all. You take God with you wherever you go. Or what it should be is God takes you with you wherever He goes. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. How could we defile the place of His abode? When He says, you are a temple, it means exactly what it sounds like, the dwelling place of God. In other places, He calls the whole church the temple, and it is. But here, He's talking about the individual, you, the believer, born again in Christ, are the dwelling place of God Himself, God the Holy Spirit. A real person. A person that according to this passage in Ephesians 4, you can actually grieve. We'll just read that passage. Ephesians 4, 29-32. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." What's going on when we grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, one, He is within us. And when we sin, it grieves Him. He's right there with us. He's not afar. He's not just sad that we messed up. He's identified with, He's in us. But also, in this passage, it's talking about sinning against other brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. He's in them too. So when we slander or speak evil of another believer, we are slandering and speaking evil of God Himself. We grieve Him. Why did Jesus say, when He was telling the parable of when He comes again and He's rewarding, He said, if you gave a cup of cold water to one of the least of these, my brothers, you have given it to me. Not just because they belong to Him, but because He dwells within them. When you help a fellow brother or sister in Christ, you're literally, actually giving that help to God. If God dwells within them. and you are helping them, you are helping Him. And that's what Jesus said. If you help any of the least of these, which just means not just special believers, not just especially holy believers, but any who are brothers of Christ, brothers just means adopted into the family, given His Spirit, then to do something to them, good or evil, is to do it to Christ Himself. That's a scary thought. That ought to scare you. It scares me. But at the same time, it's an amazing thought. If you've ever been really grateful to God, you're like, what can I give to God? Just look around, find the nearest believer, figure out what they need. Give it to them. Because within them dwells God the Holy Spirit. I'm just going to stop there. This bears thinking about. and reading about. It's not a isolated idea. Trust me. Just read the New Testament. It's all over the place. I could have had seven pages. I already have too much. We won't go through all of it. But this is the main thing to know. So, what do you do about it? I read a story once, which I've mostly forgotten, but as I remember it, It was about this man in England who had inherited a fine old home that had been in the family for hundreds of years, but they'd kind of fallen on hard times, and he was really hard up for money, and he lived really, really frugally for a long time. It looked like he was going to have to sell the house and all the property in order to pay off his debts. And as he was thinking about this, a big rainstorm came, and on the upper floor of his house, there was a big water spot on the ceiling, and it just kept getting bigger and bigger, and kept raining. And so he went up into the attic to see if he could figure out where it was coming in, and patched the hole, and looked all over, and the attic was perfectly dry. But when he went down to the next floor, there was this water on the ceiling. He couldn't figure it out. Finally, the ceiling actually caved in. And so he put a ladder in and stuck his head up there to figure out where the water was coming in and discovered there was a secret room there. And in the secret room was a chest, and in the chest was a treasure. And all of a sudden he was a wealthy man and he had no more financial problems. Great story. But what struck me about it was that that money had been there a long time, his whole life, and he'd never known it. And he'd been living poor downstairs in a house filled with treasure. He just wasn't aware of it. And that helped me as I was thinking about how is it possible that God himself lives within me, but I don't necessarily feel like that. Is it possible to be ignorant of the gift you've been given and not enjoy its benefits? Yes, it is. Is it possible for us to shut up in a small little corner of our life God the Holy Spirit and not have Him in every part of our life? Yes, it is possible to do that. Throughout the New Testament you find commands to be filled with the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Like you can get more of Him? No. It means you can get less of you. There's only so much room in your spirit And if you want more of it to be filled with the Holy Spirit, then less of it is going to have to be filled with you, with me. So how do we respond? Well, the first thing would be to ask God to take the treasure out of the little room where maybe it's been confined and spread it throughout the house. And throughout scripture, we're urged to pray in this way. But look at Luke, kind of just below the middle, under ask the Father for the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Luke 11, 9 through 13. You're familiar with this passage, but often the last part of it is left off. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish. He will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he's asked for an egg, he will not give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" What's in view here? It is that we can be filled with the Spirit or not. or there wouldn't be so many commands to be filled with the Spirit. We can obtain the Spirit. The Spirit is given by the Father at behest of the Son through faith and repentance, through grace. But He may or may not be directing our entire life and giving us the joy that we ought to receive from Him and the hope and the many other things if you study what the Holy Spirit does in our lives. It's a long list. We can be ignorant of that or even reject His work and lose the benefits that we ought to have. And so, first and fundamentally, if you don't sense within you and see the evidence of God at work within you in the ways that Scripture talks about, then ask God to fix it. Ask God to help you be filled with His Holy Spirit. You've already received the gift. The second thing I would say is you need to make a determination. When you receive the Spirit, as Peter said, repent, believe. Turn around. The word Spirit just means breath or wind. And I was thinking, you know, the old square-rigged sailing ships that had a fixed mass and a big square sail, and the sail would take them in exactly one direction. whatever direction the wind was blowing. If you wanted to go any other direction, you had to take the sail down and get out the oars and paddle. They got a lot smarter eventually, but that's how sailing boats were originally. Well, the Holy Spirit is kind of like the wind in your sail. It's square rigged. You don't get to pick what direction you go. If you want the Holy Spirit to strengthen you, to empower you to do His work, it only works when you go His way. He is a person, not a power. You do not get to use the Spirit to accomplish your purposes. You set your sail, and He fills it, and takes you in His direction. Or, you take the sail down because you don't like His direction, and you get out the oars, and you do it your own way, and we know how that ends up too often. So determine to set your sail His way. This is the way Paul said it in Galatians. And I'm going to close with this. But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh. For these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. That if there is more like sense. Since we live by the Spirit, the life we have is through the Spirit. then let us walk by the Spirit. But there's a choice to be made. You have to determine to turn and go in His direction. These aspects and all the other benefits of the Spirit only are when we repent from our natural direction and turn around to His direction and decidedly walk in that way. Your hand is on the tiller. You can turn that boat away from the wind and the sail will just sit there and flap and you don't have to get the oars out and you'll be stuck. Or you can determine to walk in His way and be filled with the Holy Spirit, empowered by Him. Have the presence of God actively seen in your life and experienced in your life. All that assumes, of course, as Paul said in Romans, if the Spirit of God is in you. And that's an if that every person needs to evaluate. Is the Spirit of God in you? He is only in you if you have repented, trusted in Christ, Well, done exactly what Peter said. Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. If there is no life within you, if your entire Christian walk has been one of paddling at the oars and trying to get where you're going, you see no evidence of the Holy Spirit. You do not have the presence of God with you. Then go back and do exactly what Peter said. Repent. Trust in Christ. Ask the Father for the Holy Spirit. It is a promise. It's not something you might get. It is a promise of God, a gift. Let's pray.