The Helper

John 14:15-31

Good morning, church family!

I want to thank you for your participation last week in sharing verses and passages that mean something to you personally.

Its been funny to see the times and ways that some of those verses popped up this week!

We are walking through the passage of scripture that for me has meant a lot to me over the years. A passage that I have felt drawn to again and again. It has been a point of study for me many times and I have led others to study it as well!

So, these chapters are personal to me and hopefully by the time we finish our study, they hold personal meaning for you as well.

John 14-17. It is a passage of scripture called the Farewell Discourse. It is Jesus goodbye teaching to His disciples that happens after the Lord’s Supper and before His arrest.

Last week, we talked about 14:1-14.

We see that Jesus is trying to give His disciples hope and encouragement after announcing to them that He is leaving and they can not follow Him.

He tells them that He is going to prepare a place for them. I dwelling place in the Father’s house.

We talked about how I believe that that dwelling place is not only an eternal heavenly dwelling in heaven, but a dwelling, an abode, a place to enter into the presence of the Father here and now. Today! This side of eternity!

I believe that this dwelling place is the overall theme of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse.

In verses 1-14, Jesus explains how He is the way to the Father, that His words and life are the truth, and the eternal life that is knowing God and Jesus Christ!

Jesus is leading up to chapter 15 and to talk about us abiding with Him. The well known passage about how He is the vine and we are the branches.

But first He is explaining how that dwelling place is a place that the full trinity, 3 in 1, is active and essential.

Jesus explained His role as the way to the Father last week, if you haven’t watched it, I encourage you to go back and check it out.

This week, we will see how the Holy Spirit is the Helper to the dwelling place with the Father.

So, let’s read our passage this morning.

John 14:15–31 ESV

“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. “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 we 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 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 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.

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Helper, twice in chapter 14, and once in chapters 15 and 16.

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Helper, capital H. This is a divine name for the Holy Spirit not simply a quality that He possesses.

God is Love, it is not a description of God but a definition of God. Its apart of His identity.

The Holy Spirit is the Helper. It is not a description of the Holy Spirit but apart of His identity, who He is. He helps us.

Helps us with what?

Well, many many things, but in this passage and these chapters, Jesus is describing the Holy Spirit as the Helper to the dwelling place with the Father. To the abiding.

If Jesus is the way to the dwelling place, the Helper is the how in the dwelling place. The Holy Spirit is the experiential part of the dwelling place.

Last week, we talked about how Jesus is one with the Father and we are one with Jesus so we must be one with the Father as well.

The Holy Spirit reaffirms the same truth for us!

Don’t forget that God is Spirit and whoever would worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and truth.

So, when the Father sends His Holy Spirit to us, He is, as a Father giving His children, giving us HIS own Spirit!

Scripture also says that the Holy Spirit is Jesus’ spirit

Think about the meaning of that!

Read Prayer School with Jesus page 49-50.

Isn’t that incredible?!

What an amazing gift the Holy Spirit of the Father and Son is for us!

If only we would grasp this truth and believe, it would change our lives! It would change how we see ourselves and it would change how we dwell with Him!

And the Helper is there to help us with that! In fact, according to 15:5, apart from Him we can do nothing!

So, how is the Holy Spirit the Helper and how does He help us experience the dwelling place of abiding with the Father?

First, how does He help us experience the Father?

Ephesians 2:18 ESV

For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.

Look at the trinity in this passage! This is the definition of the dwelling place! This is abiding with God!

Through Jesus, the way, in our oneness and unity with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, we NOW, have access to the Father!

That word access means, access which provides a right to speak with...

Do you see how the Helper helps with us experiencing the presence of God?

Its not just access to the Father

This is taken to another level in 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 2:10–12 ESV

these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.

See, the Spirit, not only brings access, but reveals or makes known to us things about Father and the thoughts of the Father! It says the depths of God!

Verse 12 says the Spirit is from God helps us understand the things freely given to us by God.

That word understands is the experiential knowledge understanding. Not simply head knowledge but an understanding that comes from personally experiencing the things FREELY given to us by God!

I can’t stress this enough! Its not enough for you to receive information but for you to experience God personally!

Thomas Goodwin says, “The Spirit makes the heart of God real to us: not just heard, but seen; not just seen, but felt; not just felt, but enjoyed! The Spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about God’s heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience.”

Dane Ortlund says, “The Spirit takes the recipe and turns it into taste.”

The Spirit helps us taste, hear, see, feel, enjoy and experience the dwelling place of the presence of our Father.

The second thing that the Helper helps us with is the production of Godly emotions within us.

I have always struggled with the thought of Jesus commanding emotions.

In this passage, Jesus tells us to love Him, to have peace, to rejoice, and to be not afraid.

Husbands, how many times have your wives been anxious and worried about something and you simply look at her and say Hey, don’t worry about it! and poof! The worry is gone!

How about hey! Stop being anxious.

and bam! She shuts off the anxiety like a light switch because you told her to.

Does that work for any of you men?

Wives, does that work on your husbands?

No? Shocker!

So, how can Jesus tell us to love Him and out of that emotion of love obey His commands?

Before I answer that, let me clarify something that is mentioned multiple times over the coming chapters and other NT books.

If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Make no mistake, church, obedience is not evidence of love.

Did you know that you can obey the laws of a country and not love them?

Did you know that you can do what your boss tells you without doing it because you love your boss?

Obedience to Jesus’ commands without love is legalism.

Jesus is seeking for us to obey His commands as an overflow or a byproduct of our love for Him!

That is relational, love centered obedience.

That is a loving son listening to the instructions of the loving Father and willingly obeying what He asks because he knows that His Father loves him and is trustworthy and faithful and His instructions will not harm him and are for his benefit.

So, before we just starting checking boxes of obedience, we need to have this emotion of love in our hearts for Jesus and the Father.

So, how does Jesus command emotions in us?

Well, the Spirit is our Helper in the production of emotions in our lives.

Galatians 5:22–23 ESV

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Almost all of these are emotions!

We often see this as the Spirit producing these in our lives as things for me to experience and enjoy or give to others, but He also helps produce these emotion in us towards God, Himself!

I need to love the Lord by God with all of my heart, soul and mind. The Spirit help produce love in me!

In John 15:11, when talking about this abiding place.

John 15:11 ESV

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

Jesus desires us to be full of joy! The Spirit’s fruit helps us experience that joy!

In our passage this morning, Jesus says, John 14:27

John 14:27 ESV

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.

The verse before that calls the Holy Spirit the Helper again!

Do you see how the fruit of the Spirit is how the Helper produces Godly emotion in our lives and how that its necessary for His Help before we obey His commands?

You might be asking, what commands is He talking about when He says, if you love me, you will keep my commands.

Can we get more specific about what commands?

Well, are you surprised that the Helper helps with that as well?

The last way from this passage that the Helper helps us is by being the Spirit of Truth.

Jesus calls the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth once in chapters 14, 15 and 16.

So, how does the Spirit of Truth help us keep His commands out of love?

John 14:26 ESV

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 Spirit helped the disciples remember all that He taught them for them to write the Bible and He helps us who study and read the Bible remember what it says and teaches us to apply them to our lives!

The Spirit opens the Word of God and helps us apply the commands, instructions and example of Jesus’ lives to our lives! While helping us do that out of love for HIM!

Come on, what an amazing promise this Helper is!

And how vital it is to walk in the Spirit and not the flesh!

The verse says says all that I have said to you.

That is not just do’s and don’t’s. That the example of loving others, forgiveness, mercy, grace, peace, submission to the Father, not being anxious, not worrying, and yes, obedience to the commands of the Father because He loved the Father!

He says that in verse 31, John 14:31

John 14:31 (ESV)

but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.

He is talking about what the Father is commanding Him to do in chapters 18, 19 and 20. To be arrested, to be beaten, to be falsely accused and found guilty, to be stripped naked and crucified on a cross to pay the penalty for the sins of the world!

to make a way and prepare a place that the Father can put His Spirit in His children to help bring His children into His presence for them to be about to experience all of the things that the Father freely gives to His children!

Close with the promise of verse 21

John 14:21 ESV

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.”