The Ministry of the Spirit
John 14:15-31,
15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 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.
18 “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21 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.” 22 Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” 23 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. 24 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.
25 “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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. 27 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. 28 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. 29 And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you may believe. 30 I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, 31 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.
Twenty-two years ago I stumbled into the habit of private worship every morning.
I would get up early, make some coffee, and spend time reading God’s word and praying. It’s been the most transformative habit of my life — I’ve never stopped doing it. But about six years ago, I added a new part to it. The first thing I do now, right before I read the Bible, is I seek the mercy of God and give him thanks.
I confess my need to God for his mercy and then I thank God for a specific way he has shown me mercy. And it can be all kinds of things … Sometimes it’s Father, thank you for coffee. This is a good cup of coffee! Sometimes it’s Father, thank you that I slept okay last night. … Thank you for that meeting yesterday … for that conversation … for that thing I learned in that book … and on and on.
If we spend time thinking about it, we have so much to thank God for.
But the one thing I have probably mentioned the most, over the last five years, and especially over the last three weeks, is actually a person — it’s Father, thank you for the Holy Spirit!
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of Life.
He proceeds from the Father and the Son,
And with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified.
And in our passage today, in John 14, Jesus introduces us to the Holy Spirit. For the sermon I just want to tell you three things that Jesus tells us about him.
1. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son.
We’re at verse 15, but recall the context here. It is still Thursday night — the longest Thursday ever — and Jesus is in the middle of his Farewell Discourse. Back at the end of Chapter 13, for the first time, Jesus told his disciples that he’s leaving. He is preparing them for a new location within redemptive history — his disciples are about to live in a world where he is physically absent.
And this is troubling to them — they are in a troubled-heart situation, and Jesus wants to encourage them. We saw that in Chapter 14. Jesus tells them not to let their hearts be troubled; because his going away is for their good; and he’s going to come back for them. Jesus is their way to God; he’s God’s way to them — and he still has greater works that he’s gonna do through them.
And that’s where we ended last week, in verses 12–14.
Jesus introduced two stunning realities about life for believers after his death, resurrection, and ascension.
Two Stunning Realities
The first of those stunning realities is that those who believe in him — us — will do greater works than he did in his earthly ministry. And we clarified last week that this work is not work that we do ourselves. It’s not work in our own strength or isolated from Jesus, but it’s work that Jesus is doing through us.
The second stunning reality is that Jesus says whatever we ask in his name, he will do it.
These are two big claims, and they raise some important questions. Questions like:
How exactly will we do greater works?
How do we know if we are praying in Jesus’s name?
Well, the answer to these questions is the Holy Spirit.
I couldn’t help but talk about the Spirit a little bit last week — Jesus is going to talk a lot about him over the next two chapters — but the first thing we need to know is that the Spirit is sent by Jesus and the Father.
The Father and the Son are both ‘in on’ the Spirit’s coming.
Listen to the ways Jesus tells us this …
In verse 16, Jesus says the Father will give the Spirit, but it is because the Son asks the Father. In verse 23, speaking of the Spirit’s presence in a believer, Jesus says that we, he and the Father, will make our home with him. In verse 26, Jesus says the Father will send the Spirit — but Jesus says it is “in my name.” Later, in 15:16, Jesus says that he will send the Spirit from the Father.
So, who sends the Spirit? Where’s he from? ‘The Father or the Son?’
The answer is Yes.
The Holy Spirit has always been active within the Trinity, and at work in creation, but after Jesus’s ascension, the Father and Son act together in sending the Spirit on a new mission.
Now, why is it important for us to know this? Why does it matter that the Father and Son are together in this?
The most obvious reason is that Jesus emphasizes it. Jesus wants us to know this, and I think it’s because we need to understand that the Spirit is not some ‘Plan B’ in redemptive history.
We should not think Jesus introducing the Holy Spirit in this section is some kind of backup option. It’s not like things went sideways with the mission of Jesus and now the Spirit is a reinforcement. Not at all.
Instead, the sending of the Spirit is according to God’s eternal playbook from before the foundation of the world. This is the next step in the Triune God’s resolve to bring salvation and magnify his glory. The Spirit is from the Father and the Son.
Here’s the second thing Jesus tells us about the Spirit.
2. The Holy Spirit is the presence of Jesus in our lives.
The keyword we need to see here is that word “Helper” in verse 16:
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever.”
The Greek work for “Helper” is the word Paraclete — and it’s a title for the Spirit that we only find in John — four times in this Gospel (14:16, 26; 15:26; 16:7). And it’s a glorious word, but it doesn’t have a direct translation into English. A couple of translations, the English Standard Version (the one I use) translates it as “Helper.” But the King James translates it “Comforter.” Another translation says “Counselor.” Several translations say “Advocate” (NRSV; NEB; NIV). And really, the meaning is a combination of all those words, but the one idea that’s clear in all those translations is the idea of presence. The Paraclete comes alongside.
Jesus says in verse 16: the Paraclete, the Spirit, will be “with you forever.”
He “dwells in you and will be in you” — verse 17.
In the same way Jesus was with his disciples, the Spirit will be with his disciples — as the Spirit of Jesus. And Jesus is going to show us this in a powerful way, but first I want to zoom out for a minute and take the whole New Testament into account.
New Testament Survey
The New Testament talks a lot about the Holy Spirit, and two key ways he’s referred to…
One way is that he’s called the promise of the Father (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:4; Galatians 3:14). This speaks to the fact that the Spirit is according to God’s plan. He’s the fulfillment of a promise we see in the Old Testament.
The other way to talk about the Spirit is to call him the Spirit of Jesus. In Acts 16:7, Luke says “the Spirit of Jesus” guided their missionary travel. In Romans 8:9, Paul says the “Spirit of Christ” shows that we belong to Christ — the Spirit of Christ is Christ in you. Galatians 4:6 — “God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts.” Philippians 1:19 — Paul says he is helped by “the Spirit of Jesus Christ.”
So, biblically, theologically, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is so closely identified with Jesus himself that it is right to call him the Spirit of Jesus.
Jesus himself tells us this first.
The Wonderful Another
Look back at that word “Helper” in verse 16 and notice the word right before it: another. The Father and Son are sending another Helper. So the Spirit is a new helper, but he’s of the same kind as a Helper who came before him. So who is that first Helper? It’s Jesus. Jesus was one Paraclete, and now the Spirit is another Paraclete.
This means the Spirit is not a replacement for Jesus, but he is the continuation of Jesus’s work in a new way. But the Son and Spirit are not just united in their mission, they are united in their essence as God. Both are fulfilling the mission of the triune God to be with his people — the Son is God with us; the Spirit is God in us.
This is why Jesus can say to his disciples, verse 18: “I will not leave you as orphans” — Jesus says I’m not really leaving you! He’s actually magnifying his presence among them. Get this:
The Paraclete is first Jesus himself with his people in person, confined to flesh and blood and dirt; and then the Paraclete is the Holy Spirit in his people — he is the promise of the Father, the Spirit of Jesus, who indwells everyone who trusts in Jesus … he speaks, consoles, guides, teaches — just like Jesus did.
Ministering Realness
One way to say it that connects with language we use is to say that the Holy Spirit ministers the realness of Jesus in our lives.
That’s the way we should understand Paul’s experience toward the end of his life. We know that’s where Paul was when he wrote his final letter to Timothy. Paul says in Chapter 4 (of 2 Timothy) that the “time of his departure” has come: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (4:7).
And then Paul recounts for Timothy the relational brokenness that laid behind him, and he’s honest about how lonely he felt when he awaited trial in Rome; he says “no one came to stand by me” (4:16).
But then in verse 17 he says: “But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me.”
And he’s talking about Jesus there. Jesus stood by Paul and strengthened him. And I’ve long imagined what that was like. Did Jesus step through the wall of Paul’s room and wrap his arm around his shoulder?
Sometimes I wish Jesus would do that for me — Just be physically in the room and help me like you did Paul! But is that what he did for Paul?
I don’t think so.
What happened for Paul is that the Holy Spirit — the Spirit of Jesus — was so present and so powerful for him that Paul can say it was like Jesus himself standing by him.
The Spirit of Jesus manifested the realness of Jesus for Paul — and I want you to know: we should settle for nothing less in the Christian life.
That’s the aim of our discipleship. The mission of Cities Church is to make joyful disciples of Jesus who remember his realness in all of life. And when we say that, we’re talking about the ministry of the Holy Spirit!
Because Jesus tells us the Holy Spirit is his presence in our lives.
Third thing Jesus tells us …
3. The Holy Spirit empowers our love for Jesus in his world.
For this third and final point, we need to come to grips with a repeated theme in this passage. Four different times Jesus tells us there is a connection between loving him and keeping his commandments.
It’s easy to track, first in verse 15, right away:
Verse 15: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Verse 21: “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me.”
Verse 23: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word.”
Verse 24: “Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”
And then verse 31 — what Jesus says about our love for him also applies to his love for the Father. Jesus says, verse 31:
“I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.”
This theme is the clearest thing Jesus says. It’s straightforward; no way around it. If you love Jesus, you do what he says. Well what does he say? What are his commandments?
What Are His Commandments?
The answer here, in short, is the whole Bible. It would be a mistake to truncate what Jesus says as being only the red-letter parts of the Gospels. It’s much more than that.
Instead, the commandments of Jesus, his word, is the whole revelation of who Jesus is, which blooms into the apostolic testimony, also called the New Testament, which is the fulfillment of the Old Testament.
What Jesus says is the whole Bible. Which means: to really love Jesus means your life is shaped and guided by Scripture. The single word for this is obedience.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
To be happy in Jesus, than to trust and obey
We used to sing that song when I was kid growing up in church. It’s not rocket-science. We all understand that any kind of real love involves more than only sentiment. It can’t be just a feeling.
And proof that we know this was yesterday — Valentine’s Day.
Valentines is an old American holiday. It took off in the late 1800s because a woman named Esther Howland had this idea to mass-produce romantic greeting cards. It became a custom that men would send the ladies they were courting a card.
Now 150 years later, fellas, if you did it right: you got a card, and chocolates, and flowers, and a dinner reservation — or some combination of that.
But we all know that what you cannot do on Valentine’s Day is only say “I love you.” Some activity is expected. Love requires demonstration.
Love is not less than affection — affections matter — but there’s more. There’s activity — and the activity that verifies our love for Jesus is obedience to him in this world.
Getting Obedience Right
And listen: the order of that sentence is really important. We are called to obedience to Jesus in this world. It’s not obedience to the world for Jesus. Because get this: the world has its own commandments. There’s all kinds of commandments the world says people must keep if they’re really about love — like I think we’re supposed to acknowledge that we’re on ‘stolen land’ right now and we’re supposed to specify our pronouns, and make certain kinds of statements, and check certain boxes.
The world has its own commandments — Recently, someone who hates Jesus told me they wanted to talk to me about our optics for Jesus. … And I said, “No thank you.”
Jesus does not need us to try to make him look good by doing what the world tells us to do. Jesus calls us to do what he says in a world that will hate us … a world that will revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely (see Matthew 5:11). We’re not called to manage that. We’re called to obey Jesus, come what may in this world.
And obedience like that is hard, with the pressures around us. How do we do it? How do we obey Jesus here?
The answer is: The empowering presence of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit Empowers Us
The love we have for Jesus — and our obedience that demonstrates that love — does not come from our own strength, but it comes through the gift of the Spirit in our lives.
I think that’s part of what Paul is saying in Romans 5:5. You’ve heard these verses before:
… we rejoice in our sufferings,
knowing that suffering produces endurance,
and endurance produces character,
and character produces hope,
and hope does not put us to shame,
because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
And the question is what does Paul mean when he says “God’s love” — is this the love of God for us OR our love for God.
Well, I think it’s first God’s love for us, but it also includes our love for God, which must always come next.
Our love for God is essential to our character — that’s why we ultimately will not be put to shame — Because our love for God is actually a gift from God himself. Our love for God is from his Spirit who seals us and keeps us.
Theologically, we understand the Holy Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and Son.
This is mysterious, and we wrestle with what Scripture says here; we’ll see what Jesus says in Chapter 17.
But the Holy Spirit, who is the personal love that flows between the Father and Son, is poured into our hearts as the love that unites us to Jesus.
Our love for Jesus, demonstrated by our obedience, is empowered by the Spirit.
Peace Even Here
The good news we should hear is that our love for Jesus, which he commands, is love his Spirit creates. When Jesus tells us to obey him, he is not pointing us to an impossible ladder — but he’s ensuring the divine supply we need for all things that pertain to life and godliness.
Jesus doesn’t tell us ‘make me bricks without straw’ — but he says: We are making our home in you … I’m with you forever … even in this world … even in troubled-heart situations.
This is the only way we can have peace.
Jesus says, verse 27:
“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.”
That is the ministry of the Holy Spirit to us …
Sent by the Father and the Son.
Serving the realness of Jesus in our lives.
Empowering our love for Jesus in this world.
I am so thankful for the Holy Spirit. Aren’t you?
Thank you, Jesus, for the Holy Spirit. I want more of him!
That’s what brings us to the Table.
The Table
John shows us, in this Gospel, and in his letters, that love is demonstrated.
Our love for Jesus is demonstrated in obedience, but that always follows God’s love for us first. John says that we love because God first loved us, and we see that love definitively at the cross.
Paul says that in Romans 5 … “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (NASB).
That’s the best news in the world. If you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, you become a Christian by believing that. Jesus Christ died to save you, a sinner. Believe him.
For those of us who do believe, at this Table we rejoice in Jesus and his gospel.
If you trust in Jesus, we invite you to eat and drink with us, and give him thanks.
