The Gospel of John - God Provides in Salvation - Part 1 - The Holy Spirit

GREET EVERYONE-

Good Morning Loved Ones - Happy New Year!

I pray that we are all looking forward to all that God will do in 2026 - becasue He will continue to do great things.

If I have not had a chance to meet you; My name is Scott and I am a follower of Jesus and have the privilege of serving Him as the Lead Pastor among the people of Stonewater Fellowship.

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Open it to the Gospel of John and Chapter 16 as we begin our new series called “God provides in Salvation” which is ONE part of our walking through the Gospel of John together verse by verse.

PRAYER OVER SERIES

AS we step into this series Walking together through the Gospel of John, I pray that no matter where we are on our journey of Faith - What my prayer is - is that we would all come to know that What God provides in our salvation is Himself -

That every single aspect of our salvation is about God providing himself -

Himself in the Holy Spirit

Himself in New Life and Joy

Himself as a High priest

and that when People are saved by grace through faith we become THE people that are being set aside and given to God and the one thing, the CENTRAL THING that God provides is... HIMSELF.

I think it is a reality that many think there are other main aspects of Salvation.

and this is a problem.

Many think the main point of being saved is Avoiding hell - Like salvation is some form of Fire insurance.

Many people think that the main point of being saved is we get the gift of eternal life.

Many think that salvation means we are changed to live a life that is moral and ethical - like Christianity is some sort of moral improvement process. Where Jesus came in to make bad people good -

Loved ones - Jesus didn't come to make bad people good He came to make dead men alive.

And when we are made alive in Christ, by grace through faith and the regeneration of the Spirit - The Number one thing we get is GOD himself - We are returned into right relationship with GOD - Recipients of his grace, love and mercy for ever and ever.

Please Please Please do not find yourself wanting heaven - and not wanting the ONLY loving, just, creator and all powerful God to be there when you get there.

That would not workout for you so good.

SO my prayer for this series is that we would know that in our salvation God provides Himself.

PRAYER OVER MESSAGE

My prayer over this mornings message is that we would begin to know that when God saves - God Gifts to people - People that He saves by himself, from Himself, for Himself, and to Himself - God provides himself through the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

and in that understanding,

I pray, we would have clarity as to what the Holy Spirit’s role is in the life of one who has been saved, in the life of anyone who is being saved and in the life of people who need to be saved - People God has sent us to reach with this good news of great joy.

and as we understand the Holy Spirits primary role - I pray we would also come to know how to begin to recognize when the spiritual experiences we might have or see; we would be able to discern if it is truly from the Holy Spirit or some other Spirit.

Now - I want to be extremely clear - from this whole council of Scripture - When We are saved we get all of God - Father, Son and Spirit.

and the Mechanism - for lack of a better term, or the person of God that we get from the Father and so that we can know the Son is the person of the Holy Spirit.

ENGAGEMENT –

Here we are in 2026 -

The New year always seems to come with this imbedded promise of a hopeful future -

for me and my family 2025 was a pretty good year - certainly not challenge free, certainly not difficulty free, not struggle free and 2025 was not a year that was free from loss -

AS I have thought about many things over the reflection of 2025 - One of the interesting things is - Christmas time for many - and I was not excluded this year from this - Christmas time, as wonderful as it is, it can be a time of a larger sense of Loss -

where we really experience the absence of someone who used to be in our lives.

and Their absence may be caused by a great many things -

Military deployment - Many of us are familure with that -

Simply logistics of living away from each other. This year my oldest daughter could not join us for Christmas and we missed her.

Divorce can bring a loss into our lives where we experience the end of the year at Christmas time now without someone we have cared about for years.

and then There is Death - The Death of a loved one, family member of friend - Can bring about the sense of absence - and I don't think there is a season in our lives where we fell the absence of someone more than the Christmas season.

Back this last march - I lost my best friend - He was the highest quality friend I have ever had - We were friends for over a decade -

And its not that we spent a lot of time together - but the one thing we would do is at Christmas time we would spend time together

if not in person than certainly in a phone call.

this year - I missed our phone call a lot this year

and when someone is absent in our lives for what ever reason - I think it is very easy for us to get caught up in asking the question: Is life better when them not here?

I think that is one of the main reasons we experience the sense of Loss becasue - It seems that life is not better without them.

and there are many time we just with they just would not have left and we desire for them to just come back!

and these feeling can leave us hopeless, and in grief and even for some get us to the point of being paralyzed.

TENSION

and it is very very difficult sometimes - life without someone we love.

I think that we can so easily take the same approach when comes to our faith in Jesus -

When it comes to our journey!

We hear the Gospel -

We hear the Call of God to surrender to Him -

We receive the gift of Faith the Gift of Trust in Jesus - so much so that

We surrender our lives to Him being Lord -

We get regenerated by God - We are saved -

We then go and begin to make disciples -

In that activity we Spend time with Him in prayer -

Study what He says - Learn to be obedient to Him in an ever growing way -

We experience real and tangible life and appetite change - Where the sin we once loved we now hate and the goodness we used to hate we now and attracted to and find ourselves loving.

And we read His words and hear He is coming Back -

And we read the rest of the story and we hear not only of His coming back... but how victorious over, difficulty and tears sin and death His second coming will be -

and we then can get so very focused that we long for Him to come - Like our lives are somehow diminished without Him back.

Like all we want is for nothing else but for Him to return and take all the pain and hurt and difficulty away and for Him to vanquish His enemies and for us to enjoy victory with Him forever and ever.

and yet when that is our posture in our faith - when That is all our faith brings us to -

When that become the only focus of what we hope for -

What happens to us is we loose out on the one person of God that Jesus said we would need to live the life that He has designed for us as savior and as our LORD!

and what that means for us...

we end up living a life of faith that has a resemblance of faith, a form of Godliness - but lacks any real power.

and What Jesus will tell His disciples in this passage of text and what He will tell us this morning is that it is better -

It is to our advantage that He is not with us now -

AS he tells us that GOD will provide for us in our salvation Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.

BACKGROUND

As a reminder - The Gospel of John is written by the Apostle John - the very best friend of Jesus.

It was written for one single purpose -

IT was written so that those who would hear it or read it would believe - that we would trust - that Jesus (the Jesus that is described in this book) is the Christ - The Anointed one of God!

The Holy One of Israel - The Son of God -

and that by believing, by trusting in Him as Lord - we would have the greatest gift God could ever provide - Himself and in getting God we get life in HIS name.

To Bring us to the timeline of Jesus - we are in the last days of Jesus earthly Life -

This passage of text - This narrative happens literally hours before Jesus is crucified -

Kind of a where we are -

Jesus has dismissed the large crowds that were following Him - Watching Him do miraculous things -

He has finished confronting the Jewish leaders - The Pharisees who think Jesus is leading people astray - and don’t believe what Jesus is saying -

Jesus has claimed on more than one occasion to be GOD -

He has NOW secluded Himself alone with the 12 -

He has celebrated the passover meal with them for the last time -

During the meal - The devil took over one of them, Judas, to betray Jesus, so the scripture could be fulfilled -

Dinner is over -

He has given them a new commandment of Love for one another -

He has put down Peters arrogance and pride by predicting that Peter will in-fact deny that He even knows Jesus that very next morning after being with Him for nearly three and a half years.

and what Jesus has done is he has begun to prepare these 11 for what He will have them do for the rest of their lives -

ONE of the ways is He has begin preparing them for His leaving them -

In this timeline - He has made ONE of the 7 “I am” statements after the meal -

A statement that is the Single Exclusive claim of Christianity - A claim that separated Christianity into the one true belief system that leads anyone and can lead everyone to God -

Jesus said: I am the way, the truth and the life, NO ONE comes to the father except through me!

After this Jesus has promised them to send the Holy Spirit.

He has given them the condition of obedience in relationship to loving Him and being loved by the heavenly father.

He has instructed them to Remain in Him and without remaining in Him they can accomplish nothing

He has warned them that they will be hatred by the world - becasue the world hates Jesus.

He has said these things to them so that they will not fall away when their life gets difficult doing what Jesus will have them do for the rest of their lives.

and right before this passage He speaks of the Helper - The Holy Spirit coming - He speaks of Him coming for a second time.

 UNPACKING

When we get to Chapter 16 verses 5 - Jesus begins this part of the Narrative by speaking of His departure once again -

and Jesus speaks intuitively about what is now happening in the minds and hearts of his closest followers-

This is the 4th time that Jesus has spoke of His departure - His leaving the disciples -

They are distraught - if you read the text from chapter 13 through chapter 16 - it is mostly in red - Jesus does most of the speaking becasue the disciples are not really sure how to take all this in -

They are distraught about the thought of living life without Him and they don't really know what to do or what to say -

And Jesus knows this -

John 16:5–6 “But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.”

Jesus knows becasue they are silent - They are not asking any more questions like they were the first time he said “i am going away and you cannot follow”.

and then Jesus gives them Hope -

Here is the strange thing - It seems strange to them as I am sure as it would seem strange to us -

Jesus says in verse 7:

John 16:7 “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.”

He begins this by saying: “Nevertheless”

It is a word in the original language that means “on the other hand” or “in opposition”

Here is what Jesus is saying - IT does not matter - the fact that sorrow has filled you heart becasue I am going away is not relevant to the fact -

“The Truth” Jesus says:

IT is to your advantage that I go away!

Advantage - In the language of the new testament - It means “you are better off” - Jesus is literally saying - “It is better for you that I go”

And then what Jesus begins to do is he begins to explain the fullness of what is going to happen.

You see the disciples want Jesus to stay -

They do not understand the plans that God has for them just quite yet.

So Jesus begins to explain -

“If I do not go away” If I give you what your heart desires - If I do not go away “the Helper will not come to you”

The Helper - Now we know that is another Name that Jesus uses for the Holly Spirit - if you look back at chapter 15 and verse 26 that is what Jesus does -

Jesus then says “but if I go I will send Him to you” -

VSS8

What Jesus begins to do in verse 8 is unfold for His disciples the two main rolls the Holy Spirit will have in their lives and in the lives of the people around them.

Jesus begins with the world.

John 16:8 “And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment:”

The Holy Spirits Job is to “convict the world” of three things -

Now before we get to the three things - Lets first understand what Jesus is saying when He uses the world convict.

It is a word that in New testament it is used pretty simply -

It means to state or declare someone has done something wrong with the direct implication that there is adequate proof of the wrong doing.

So the Holy Spirits role is to declare that someone has done something wrong with the fact that there is adequate proof of them doing something wrong -

and there are three areas of declaration of wrong doing -

One area is Sin -

The word used here in this sentence, in the language of the New Testament is the word that means to ACT in a way that is contrary or opposed to the will or law of GOD.

So the Holy Spirit will declare that people have done wrong becasue they have acted in a way that is contrary or opposed to the will or law of God.

The Second this the Holy Spirit will do is Declare that people have done wrong in the area of - “Righteousness” - That word in the new testament language means to act in doing what God requires.

The third way the Holy Spirit works is in the area of Judgement.

That the Holy Spirit will declare to people that they have done wrong in the area of - Discission making, evaluation that is right and correct.

So the role of the Holy Spirit is to declare to the world which is us.

That we have done wrong, and there is adequate proof that we are doing wrong in the area of acting in a way that is contrary or opposed to the will or law of GOD - in the area of acting in doing what God requires and in the area of our right and correct decision making and evaluation of right and wrong.

VSS9

Jesus then clarifies - these three areas

John 16:9 “concerning sin, because they do not believe in me;”

The sin - The Sin of Unbelief - The Sin of un-trust - This was the sin of the Garden -

In the Garden: God said “don’t eat or you will die” and they didn't trust God enough to obey -

Jesus says the exact same thing - You believe me, you say you trust me you say you love me?

If you love me, If you believe me, if you trust me, You will keep my word you will keep my commands - and then you will also be loved by my father in heaven.

VSS10

Jesus then continues -

John 16:10 “concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer;”

The Declaration of wrong doing by the holy spirit concerning the action of doing what god requires is becasue Jesus is not here. The Holy Spirit convicts us of this only in the light of Jesus —

because He is the only one who acts in perfect concert with the all that God requires -

He is the only perfect person - He is the only one who is good.

John 16:11 “concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.”

The declaration of wrong doing in our own areas of decision making is becasue the Ruler of this world the Devil has been judged and we know know that God is just and right and the one true God who judges.

and all of this doesn't sound all that helpful -

However - we must consider two things

what were the disciples about to embark on here about 50 days or so from where we are in the timeline of Jesus?

Yea - Here in about 50 days or so - They will embark on taking this good news of great joy to the world.

and in that work - recorded for us in the Book of Acts - We see God using the work of HIs Spirit in conviction to realize their great need, to realize the love the God has for them and to bring them to repentance.

VSS12

John 16:12 ““I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

Jesus eases up on the disciples - on the 11 that are there

He has told the a lot - and what he has told them is heavy -

I think in every heavy conversation there is a point where you have said all that can be navigated by your listener

and Jesus certainly thought he had said all they could handle.

and then there are other times when you know there is more to say but you really are not the person to tell it.

This is where Jesus goes with the conversation in vs13

VVS13

The other thing Jesus does in VSS13 is He tell the disciples HOW the holy spirit will be their helper -

He has referred to the person of the Holy Spirit twice now as “the Helper” -

and so there must be a question that comes into the conversation - a question that needs to be answered - as to “How does the Spirit Help?”

This is the second way the Holy Spirit helps -

John 16:13 “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 he will declare to you the things that are to come.”

Jesus now adds a Descriptive Name to the Holy Spirit - “The Spirit of truth”

And when the Spirit of Truth comes - AKA the Helper - Aka the Person of the Holy Spirit - AKA GOD -

what God will do in the person of the Holy Spirit is HE will Guide the disciples - He will guide followers of Jesus

He will guide them - Where?

Into all truth!

One of the ways that we know the world needs Jesus - that the world needs to be redeemed, reconciled back into relationship with God - Regenerated unto new life by the power of the Holy Spirit -

Is Because of the huge amount of deception that is in the world.

And loved ones it has always been there from the beginning -

Don't be surprised - Remember the Sin if the Garden - The Sin of the serpent -

Did God really say - In other words the serpent asks “is that really true?”

Now what is interesting about what Jesus has just said is that the WAY the spirit will guide into all truth is He will speak -

He will speak - Just like Jesus says He will Speak - Not on his own - Not independent of God - Now on his own authority - But by what he hears from God -

This is the same way the holy Spirit will Speak

and one of the things that the Holy Spirit will reveal to these guys are things that are to come- Futuristic things - things that have yet to come -

VSS14

Jesus then lays down the central unifying thyme of what or who the Holy Spirit will speak -

“He, the Holy Spirit, will “Glorify me”

In other words He will reveal me” He will point to me” He will take what is mine and tell you - He will speak of me - He will speak of my principles of my ethic - Of my righteousness - Of my position with God and in God and As God -

Listen Loved ones - If there is anything that comes to your mind -

If there is any activity that is a spiritual activity -

If there is ANY experience that you have no matter how powerful it is -

If its not pointing you to Jesus - If it is not revealing Jesus to you or to the people around you -

Then is is NOT a work of the Holy Spirit!

For the rest of VVS14-15

Jesus is simply giving is the Devine boundaries by which the Holy Spirit operates -

and what is interesting about this is -

What Jesus is declaring is that The Fathers possessions are His and His are the Fathers possessions and the Spirit will declare only those things - Because those things are truth -

and you might be here this morning and be thinking to yourself “man I wish those guys would have written some of that stuff that the Holy Spirit revealed to them - I wish that they would have written those things that were Truth that the Holy Spirit gave them -

Loved ones they DID - They wrote it down - They wrote it all down - and Loved ones we have it and it is the Bible that we hold in our very hands -

THE GOSPEL CONNECTION - AS OUR MUSIC TEAM COMES TO LEAD US TO THE TABLE OF JESUS.

We might be left with the question: Where did Jesus go?

In the over arching thyme of these last chapters of the Gospel of John -

Jesus has told His followers:

I am going to a place that you cannot come -

After I go - Then later you can come with me and be with me and in the mean time I will send you the Person of the Holy Spirit - The Spirit of Truth - The Helper -

So WHY?

Why and Where?

Why did Jesus leave?

Why do we need the Helper, The Holy Spirit? -

Where did Jesus Go?

In a few Short hours form this part of the Gospel Story, as the time line continues -

Jesus will be betrayed by one of His own - He will be arrested - Tried in the most unjust way -

He will be beaten and He will be convicted of wrong doing even though He had done nothing wrong and there was not any two witnesses that could agree -

And as a completely innocent person He will go to a roman cross and be put to death -

and the reason that He will be put to death as a completely innocent person- Is becasue that is why He was sent -

He, as God in the flesh, came into this world, to live among His creation, to revel Himself to us, and then to Die -

and As He dies loved ones - He was satisfying the wrath of God, the justice of God, absorbing in His very body, God’s justice for all of the ways in every day life that you and I and every human being lives our life that is in conflict with the will and law of God -

and becasue every one of us has broken our relationship with God - And All of us in desperate need of being saved from His wrath -

So as Jesus was dying He satisfied the wrath of God - It is the place that Jesus went that no one else could go - He went to satisfy the Wrath of GOD for you and for me all becasue God love you and me!

Jesus, after HIs death was then Raised from the dead by the power of God that created all things - and He now ascended into heaven proving out that Jesus and Jesus alone is God and had the authority to forgive us and do all that was needed to make is right with God and so that we can know God himself.

SO what must we do to be saved?

How must we respond to the Good news of Great joy that Jesus is the savior -

The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the World - How must we respond to receive the helper - TO be guided into all truth and to Know God by Knowing Jesus?

Repent - the Bible Says -

A willful response to surrender your life to Jesus as Lord which means He is in charge - He is in control and in our repenting we Live for Him becasue He is the One who loves us and He is the ONE who Died and was raised

COMMUNION