Witnessing to a hostile world part 2

Main Idea:

How do I see Jesus:

ME

Last week we began walking through Jesus teaching us how we are supposed to witness to a hostile world around us. Next week we will take a break from John and start to focusing in on the Christmas season and look at a different Christmas Carol each week and focus on what that story is teaching us. But today, we continue through what Jesus started with us last week.

Remember last week we talked about a couple things we must remember when witnessing in this world, and the first thing was we would be persecuted…. explain The second thing was we must focus on the Lord’s glory and not our own needs… and today we get into the next part of our scripture in order to witness to a hostile world we must join the work of the Holy Spirit and talk about sin, righteousness, and judgment.

WE

EXPOSITION

John 16:7 ESV

7 Nevertheless, 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.

And we have talked about this quite a few times, our natural desire is to think of how amazing it would have been to be able to walk alongside Jesus while he was doing his ministry. We often think man, I wouldn’t have messed it up, it would be so easy for me to believe. Don’t get me wrong, walking with Jesus would have been truly amazing, and I know this because it is the thing his work on the cross is going to do for us it is going to allow us to walk and commune with him in the future much like Adam and Eve walked with God in the garden. At the same time we saw the disciples didn’t truly understand much of what Jesus was saying and teaching until after he was gone, and here in this verse we find Jesus telling us we have it even better because he sent the Holy Spirit, the helper to live with us.

And I know this is almost sacrilegious to some of us, because as we talked about a few weeks ago the Holy Spirit is some of the most forgotten aspects of the Godhead. He is the one we leave out the most in all of our theology, like there is no doubt we believe in the person of the Holy Spirit but we forget the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

The question then becomes why is this such a good thing, why is it better for the Holy Spirit to be with us than Jesus and its because the Holy Spirit lives inside of us as believers to comfort us, to encourage, and empower us to bear witness of Jesus.

And we talked a little about this when we talked about the Holy Spirit a few weeks ago. The Holy Spirit does the work but does it through us and that is such an amazing fact.. (List couple of facts about HS for refresher here)

But here Jesus is speaking of the ministry of the Holy spirit through lives of believers and we first saw this in John 7:37-38

John 7:37–38 ESV

37 On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”

And Jesus here is speaking of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who believe in Him, and you may forget and wonder how I can say that so confidently and its because John tells us so in the very next verse.

John 7:39 ESV

39 Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

And We hadn’t received the HS yet because Jesus full glory had not come to fruition, but Jesus is making sure they know what is about to come and he had prepared the way for this way back in John 14:16-17

John 14:16–17 ESV

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 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.

And this change in the ministry of the HS is recognized and imparted on the day of Pentecost when the HS descended on the church. And Jesus made it very clear a huge part of the task of the HS was to bear witness of the life and work of Jesus as we see in Acts 1:8

Acts 1:8 ESV

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

And I believe over the next few verses Jesus is breaking the witness of the Holy Spirit into three separate parts. The first is this:

A. The Holy Spirit Will Convict the World

And when I say this, I know there are some that will give a little bit of pushback because it is obvious the HS is not convicting the entire world. Which is true, there are so many who have pushed back and really do not know Jesus so the HS is not convicting every person. The greek here means the world without distinction.. the unbelievers there is no pick and chose of who it will convict it doesn’t mean he will convict everyone without exception.

The greek word we translate here as convict means to expose or convince and it is a legal term that was used when a person would argue their case so clearly and the argument was in such a clear light the person hearing the argument knows exactly what is being portrayed. Dr Ryrie said this about the term, ““To convict means to set forth the truth of the Gospel in such a clear light that men are able to accept or reject it intelligently; i.e., to convince men of the truthfulness of the Gospel.””

And it seems the word here is almost used in a similar way the word we translate as expose in Jn 3:20 does Jn 3:20

John 3:20 ESV

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

This was the same word Jesus used when he asked his opponents which one “Convicts me of sin?” (jn 8:46)

And while this word isn’t used in the text it is much the same meaning we see when on the Day of Pentecost Peter preached and the word tells us the hearers were “pierced to the heart” (acts 2:37) And what we see on that day was the message of Peter exposed the sin of rejecting Jesus and moved them to realize they were wrong. And the truth of the matter is often times we have people who are convicted of their sins, the HS does a good job of pointing out the sin in their lives but they do not turn from their sin and draw close to Jesus so the lack the next step and what you have to realize is conviction isnt always salvation.

B. The Holy Spirit Will Convict the World Concerning Sin

John 16:9 ESV

9 concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;

And what Jesus is telling us is the Holy Spirit will bring out sin to light and when it happens we have to decide if we are going to run from Jesus, or come to Jesus. The choice in that moment becomes ours but we have to choose.

And the truth is walking with Jesus is like continuously learning something new we need to walk away from. I remember years ago when I was still a youth pastor and I was talking to my barber while my hair was being cut about how not to ruin my kids… he was a pastors kid and that is my favorite question for pastors kids…

Anyway, I remember telling him the closer I get to Jesus the more I realize I need to change and he couldn’t believe it but what I mean is…

But in this verse Jesus really reveals to us the root of all of our sins, he says, because they do not believe in me. And this is Jesus shows us one of the biggest sins we can commit, this is really THE sin, not believing in Him because it is what really will be our undoing because with that sin we cannot come close to Jesus.

And if we truly believed in Jesus clearly we wouldn’t continue sinning… now that doesn’t mean we won’t sin, because we will all stumble, but the problem is if we truly believe in Him and his power and who he was it would change everything for us.

It makes me think of when he returns that every knee will bow and we have spoken of this moment before, but when this happens we will all see him for who he truly is and we will drop to our knees in worship of him, because he is that good and I think if we saw him in this life the same way it would keep us from sinning by will.

The problem is all of our sin kind of ruminates out of this not truly seeing him for who he is. WE start to step out of line and go our own way, but the Holy Spirit will show the world and convict them of who he is so we can see that in our lives.

Also,

C. The Holy Spirit will Convict the world Concerning Righteousness

John 16:10 ESV

10 concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;

And this is really tough, because Jesus is telling us he is the standard for righteousness, and we know that he had never sinned and he always did exactly what God wanted him to do. And it was because he never sinned he was able to fulfill the wrath of God on the cross that allows us to come to God through him.

Look at how Paul put it in 2 Cor 5:21

2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV

21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

And when you put that together with Romans 4:5

Romans 4:5 ESV

5 And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness,

What we see is Jesus righteousness is given to us who believe in Him and he gave us the means to be made right with the father.

D. The Holy Spirit Will convict the world concerning Judgment

John 16:11 ESV

11 concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

And here is the thing the world needs to know and I think Jesus wants each of us to know, where sin and righteousness meet, judgment follows. And I love this and this may be hard for some of you who don’t like to believe in the enemy of our souls, because this speaks clearly of Satan being the ruler of this world, and in Jesus death Satan is judged. And here Jesus is speaking of it like it has already been done, but it would actually happen the next day but the moment that Judas walked away, he sealed Satans doom.

But what we realize in this moment is that Satan and his followers will also be judged, Look at what we saw earlier in John 3:18

John 3:18 ESV

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.

And with all of this in mind what it means is when we are witnessing to unbelievers we must talk about sin, and righteousness and judgment that go with faith in Jesus.

We live in a world where we tell people that Jesus has answers to the normal things in our life, and this isn’t to say he doesn’t but we like to preach from the pulpit Jesus will give us more money, he will make us healthy, he will fix our marriage, and all of those things are possible, but that isn’t the most important thing

Look at what Paul said to the Roman Governor Felix

Acts 24:24–25 ESV

24 After some days Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was Jewish, and he sent for Paul and heard him speak about faith in Christ Jesus. 25 And as he reasoned about righteousness and self-control and the coming judgment, Felix was alarmed and said, “Go away for the present. When I get an opportunity I will summon you.”

He didn’t go to Felix and say, God loves you and he will save you from hell, and he will make your life so much better, you and drusilla will not have anything to worry about because God will be with you. No, instead he went to felix and it says he talked about righteousness, self control (or sin) and judgment… and this is what we need to do when we share the gospel

THe problem is some people do too much of this and not the other

And some do the other and not so much

YOU

WE