The Spirit's Work in the World

John 16:4-15

What he said

What he means

Why it’s true

The certainty of something better

I did not say these things from the beginning

(v.4) They have been told things of which none before them had heard

They themselves did not need to hear them before this point because He has been with them

He has been their teacher, guide and example

He has absorbed the brunt of the opposition given by others

Soon this will not be so because He is leaving them

(v.12) There are still things that they have not been told

It is to your advantage that I go

It is not as if someone greater than Jesus is going to come

But the situation of the believers will be improved

Not because of any deficiency in Jesus but because of the perfect fullness of God: 3-in-1

Considering the time in which we live

Many Christians have said that they wish they could have lived during the life of Jesus and seen His miracles and heard Him teach

This passage ought to make us pause and consider if that is how the Bible would instruct us to think

No, because Jesus says that it is advantageous for believers to live in the age after His ascension

The Spirit of God will come

He is a person

He is not merely a force

He is not a thing

He is the third person of the Trinity

John 15:26- Bible

The Helper

We need a helper

We are weak but He is strong

He is given to us to help us in our Christian walk of faith

He dwells inside of us and goes with us wherever we go

1 Corinthians 3:16- Do you not know that you[a] are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

The Spirit of truth

He speaks only what is the truth of God

He is Himself fully God and cannot lie

Truth is at the heart of His very nature

The world does not have Him

Only the saints receive Him

Romans 8:9- You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

John 14:14-17- “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, 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.

Why is it better that He comes?

(v.8) He will convict the world

Convict means:

An exposing of something unto the shame of guilt

Sin

They have rejected Jesus, and therefore remain guilty of their sin

The Holy Spirit will come to graciously and powerfully reveal to them their sinfulness, their need for a Savior, and turn to Jesus to be forgiven and saved from the world

Righteousness

The world’s righteousness is not righteousness

Isaiah 64:6- We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Jesus has convicted some of them of this by shining His light of true righteousness

This work will continue through the Holy Spirit

Now, through the proclamation of the Truth through the Disciples, the Holy Spirit will reveal the emptiness of the world’s righteousness

Judgment

Satan stands condemned because of the finished work of Christ

If Satan, then how much more those who are shown patient love unto repentance and yet reject Him

Their judgment is merely external and false, but they will be judged with true judgment

It is in the convicting work of the Holy Spirit that sinners will be given New Birth and respond to Jesus in faith

(v.13) He will guide you in all Truth

Including “all that is to come”

He is not speaking of what we might at first think

What is to come is not looking ahead to the contents of Revelation or the final days of the age

He is speaking of what is about to take place in Jerusalem

His arrest, His cross, His suffering, His resurrection, and His ascension

He will reveal to them the fulness of what all this means

He teaches us the truth of the gospel and the Word

John 14:26- 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.

We ought to have a very high view of the power of the Word because of the Spirit who wields it

He is able to teach you what is true

He is able to cause you to love what He teaches

(v.4) He will call to mind all that you need

There will be times when the disciples will be in need of reminders of particular truths,

And so He will do for you

The Holy Spirit will faithfully provide the recall that you need

(v.1) He will hold you fast

He always sustains the faith of those who are His

There are no dropout Christians who are genuine believers

Ephesians 1:13-14- In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee[d] of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

(v.14) He will glorify the Son

This is the primary role of the Holy Spirit

He is not an attention-grabber

He is a Christ-glorifier

Talk of the Holy Spirit apart from mentioning the centrality of Jesus is not correct talk of the Holy Spirit

Any spirit action that is not Christ-centered is not Holy Spirit action

Seek the Holy Spirit

Seek His work of the conviction of the world for the glory of Christ

Pray that you might be the instrument that He would be pleased to use for the conviction of unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment and that by this work He will save sinners

Seek His work of truth-giving and guiding, for the glory of Christ

Seek Him in His Word knowing that He is exceedingly able to teach you

Pray for His guidance in every part of your life because He is the faithful guide

Seek His work of truth-reminding for the glory of Christ

Pray that He will give you the words that you might need opportunities to share the gospel arise

Pray that He will bring to mind essential truths and promises when you face temptation

Seek His work of sustaining faith for the glory of Christ

Pray that He will renew you and strengthen your faith each day until He calls you home

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This morning we arrive at the final passage in this book which is centered on the Helper, who Jesus has promised numerous times now.

The certainty of something better

Jesus says that He did not say these things from the beginning. These things are the things that we have seen over the past 2 chapters. In this time they have been told things of which none before them had heard. He says that it is because He has been with them that He had not told them these things earlier. They themselves did not need to hear them prior to this point because He has been with them. He has been their teacher, guide and example for the past 3 years. They had Him to lean on and learn from. He has also absorbed the brunt of the opposition given by others. They have not been the direct recipients of the opposition that the Jews have given, but His arrest this same night will be the last time that this will happen. Soon He will be leaving them and they will be left in need of all that He has taught them in chapter 14 through this chapter.

And yet verse 12 tells us that there are still things that they have not been told. It is not as though He has taught them everything that there is to know about Himself and about God. There are still many things that they will learn.

It is at this point in His talk that He says the unthinkable. He says that it is to the advantage of the disciples that He goes. I can only imagine what went through the heads of the disciples as they heard Jesus say this. Maybe they gasped or shook their heads in disagreement. Perhaps they just stood silent in utter confusion. Regardless, they must has asked themselves “how could it possibly be better for us to have you no longer?” It is certainly not as if someone or something greater than Jesus is going to come. So what is it that will make this a good thing?

The situation of the believers will be improved. They will be advantaged after His departure. This is not because of any deficiency in Jesus but because of the perfect fullness of God: 3-in-1. There is a distinct role that each person of the Godhead plays in the lives of His people, and it will be advantageous for the next stage of redemptive history to come because the Helper will come from heaven to His people.

Will you step back for a moment with me to consider the time in which we live? Many Christians have said that they wish they could have lived during the life of Jesus and seen His miracles and heard Him teach. In fact, some of you may often find yourselves thinking that this is far inferior to the time of Jesus. But this passage ought to make us pause and consider if that is how the Bible would instruct us to think. According to Jesus, it is actually advantageous for believers to live in the age after His ascension. There are many reasons for this, but at the forefront is what we spend the rest of our time this morning thinking about.

The Spirit of God will come

The Helper is going to come, and the Helper is the Holy Spirit. We know this because verse 13 tells us clearly who He is. I need to make a clarification because we move any deeper here. The Holy Spirit is a person. He is the third person of the Trinity. He is not merely a force. He is not a thing. He is not an “it.” 10 times in this passage alone He is referred to as “He.” It is clearly masculine in the Greek text. This is also why it is an utter rejection of who God is to suggest that He is anything but He. He is not a woman and He is not neuter. He is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit is the third person of the Trinity as we see in John 15:26- But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

The way that God talks about Himself often reveals something, not only about who He is, but also about who we are. The Holy Spirit is the Helper and this reveals that we need help. We are weak but He is strong. We need help as parents, help as business owners and employees, help as sins and dsaughters, help as Christians. The Spirit is given to us to help us in every part of our Christian walk of faith. He dwells inside of us and goes with us wherever we go. This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16- Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you?

He is not only the Helper, He is also called the Spirit of truth. He speaks only what is the truth of God. There is nothing untrue about Him or in what He teaches. This is at least part of Jesus’ point in verse 13 when He said that the Spirit will not speak on His own authority, but only what He hears? He is in complete unity with God because He Himself if God, and God cannot lie. It goes against His very nature to lie. He is true in every way and He speaks and leads only in what is pure and true.

But it is not as though every person has the true and perfect Spirit of God living in them to help them. The world does not have Him. Only the saints receive Him. Every single believer has the Spirit while no unbeliever ever has Him. We know this because of passages such as Romans 8:9- You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. And we have also seen this in this book: John 14:14-17- “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, 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. Are you included?

Why is it better that He comes?

So now is when we must ask the all-important question: why is it better if the Spirit comes than if Jesus would stay with them? This passage gives at least 5 reasons, and this list is not the totality of why it is better. It is only those seen immediately in the text.

First, in verse 8, we read that He will convict the world. We must be careful here because the word “convict” can be tricky. This is not used in the sense of a courtroom hearing. It is not saying “He will come and strike the gavel with a final sentence of condemnation.” Rather the Greek word means to expose or reveal something unto the shame of guilt. This is speaking of the type of conviction that you feel when you say to your spouse what should never have come out of your mouth and the Holy Spirit reveals your guilt and need for repentance.

But here Jesus says that He convicts the world, not believers. His focus is on what He will do among the unbelieving, and He specifies 3 says that He will convict them. First, is that He will convict them of sin. They have rejected Jesus and therefore remain guilty of their sin. The Holy Spirit will come to graciously and powerfully reveal to them their sinfulness, their need for a Savior, and turn to Jesus to be forgiven and saved from the world. This is the most obvious of the three.

Second, He will convict us of righteousness. You might be wondering what this means. I wrestled with this for a while this week, and it was Don Carson’s commentary on this passage that helped me see what this is saying. The world’s righteousness is not righteousness at all. It thinks that it is, but it is not. He is using the word righteousness in the same way that Isaiah used it in Isaiah 64:6- We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Jesus has convicted some of them of this by shining His light of true righteousness, and now, after completing this work, He will go to the Father and it will continue through the Holy Spirit. Through the proclamation of the Truth through the Disciples, the Holy Spirit will reveal the emptiness of the world’s righteousness.

The final say He will convict the world is in regard to judgment. Jesus says that Satan stands condemned because of the finished work of Christ, and, if Satan, then how much more those who are shown patient love unto repentance and yet reject Him. Their judgment is merely external and false because of their sinful blindness in which they have walked after the lead of Satan. But they will be judged with the true judgment of God in Christ. It is in the convicting work of the Holy Spirit that sinners will be given New Birth and respond to Jesus in faith. This is the first reason that it is an advantage to live in these days since Christ ascended into heaven.

The second reason is found in verse 13: He will guide you in all Truth. This truth includes “all that is to come.” He is not speaking of what we might at first think. What is to come is not looking ahead to the contents of Revelation or the final days of the age. Rather, He is speaking of what is about to take place in Jerusalem: His arrest, His cross, His suffering, His resurrection, and His ascension. After these things take place He will reveal to them the fullness of what all this means.

Along with revealing the meaning of His finished work, He teaches us the truth of the gospel and the Word. There are wonderful depths and heights to the Word and all of it has been given to us through the work of the Holy Spirit. We ought to have a very high view of the power of the Word because of the Spirit who wields it. He is able to teach you what is true. He is able to cause you to love what He teaches.

Third, in verse 4 He says that He will call to mind in us all that we need. There will be times when the disciples will be in need of reminders of particular truths. Temptation comes and we need truth to fight with. You walk through the darkness of divorce and you need some truth to sustain you. You get news of cancer, or that your 2-year-old child has cancer, and you need truth to draw strength from. The Holy Spirit will faithfully provide the recall that you need.

Fourth, He will hold you fast. We have been confronted with an awful lot of commands for our obedience these past two months. So how will we not break under them? He will do it in us and through us and we will not fall away because it is too hard for us. He always sustains the faith of those who are His. There are no dropout Christians who are genuine believers. I don’t think that this could be any clearer than it is in Ephesians 1:13-14- In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. He is a seal and guarantee of our salvation because He is powerfully able to hold you fast in faith.

Finally, He will glorify the Son. This is the primary role of the Holy Spirit. He is not an attention-grabber and He does not draw the focus onto Himself. He is a Christ-glorifier. Any talk of the Holy Spirit apart from mentioning the centrality of Jesus is not correct talk of the Holy Spirit. Any spirit action that is not Christ-centered is not Holy Spirit action. This may seem unimportant to you, but I can promise that it is not. The reason you were made and saved was for the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and the One who dwells in you always acts for the ultimate purpose that He be glorified.

Seek the Holy Spirit

So, as we close, what ought we to do? Well, of course we ought to believe that this is true and wonderful. And after we establish that, we ought to regularly seek the Holy Spirit. I do not mean in the Charismatic way of seeking the Spirit where you focus on the desire for experience and tongues and miraculous gifts of the Spirit. I mean to seek Him in the Truth of who He is for you.

Seek His work of the conviction of the world for the glory of Christ. Pray that you might be the instrument that He would be pleased to use for the conviction of unbelievers of sin, righteousness, and judgment and that by this work He will save sinners

Seek His work of truth-giving and guiding, for the glory of Christ. Seek Him in His Word knowing that He is exceedingly able to teach you. Desire to know Christ more through the Word as the Spirit uses it in your life. Pray for His Word-based guidance in every part of your life because He is the faithful guide.

Seek His work of truth-reminding for the glory of Christ. Pray that He will give you the words that you might need opportunities to share the gospel arise. Pray that He will bring to mind essential truths and promises when you face temptation. Pray that He will strengthen you through God’s Word when the day gets dark and the road gets hard.

Seek His work of sustaining faith for the glory of Christ. Pray that He will renew you and strengthen your faith each day until He calls you home.

Seek His Christ-glorifying work for the glory of Christ. Pray that He might align your heart’s desires and affections with those which are good and true and that He will help you to do all things for the glory of He who deserves all glory, honor and praise forever.