sermon, NewLife, June 10, 2001

Our theme this month is the Holy Spirit, and I would like to focus today on what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. Perhaps speakers in the next two weeks will look more at what Paul or others wrote. I don't know, but I will look at what the Gospels tell us that Jesus said about the Holy Spirit. We can begin in Matthew.

Jesus, of course, was conceived by the Holy Spirit — the Spirit is the way that God worked in the world — in creation, in the prophets of old, and in making his Son a human being, with flesh and blood. The Holy Spirit can work in spectacular ways, or he can work through ordinary processes like the development of a baby in the womb, or the growth of a baby into a boy and then a man. Jesus began life by the Spirit, and throughout his life, he had the Spirit of God in him. At his baptism, the Spirit came upon him in a visible way, and the Spirit led him into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and the Spirit enabled him to resist those temptations and to conquer the devil.

But that is just background. I want to look today at what Jesus himself said about the Holy Spirit, and it is interesting that his first comment is about us. In Matthew 10, he is talking about something that the Holy Spirit would do in our lives.

In Matthew 10, Jesus is sending the disciples out on a mission to preach the gospel, and he warns them that they might face persecution, just as Jesus himself did. When Matthew wrote this 30 or 40 years later, he knew what kind of persecution they could get, and he also saw the truth of what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit.

In Matthew 10, verse 17: "Be on your guard against men; they will hand you over to the local councils and flog you in their synagogues.

18 On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles.

19 But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, [verse 20] for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

Now, Jesus was not talking about ventriloquism or some kind of brain bypass in which the disciples would talk without even knowing what they were saying. At least there's no evidence in the New Testament for that sort of thing happening. What we see is that the Holy Spirit helped the disciples understand what to say. The Spirit worked with their understanding, not bypassing it. The Spirit helped them understand what to say about Jesus, and the Spirit gave them boldness in doing it.

Notice that Jesus did not promise that his disciples would always escape unharmed. And in fact we know that sometimes they did not. As Jesus said, sometimes they would be flogged, and as we know from history, sometimes they were killed. But Jesus said, Don't worry about it — your mission is to preach the truth, and the Holy Spirit will help you do it. Pray for guidance, and speak what you understand is right for the situation. The Holy Spirit will help you see what is right.

So here we have a teaching of Jesus about the Holy Spirit, and it concerns something that the Spirit would do, and that is guidance in speaking. The Spirit is the way in which God does this work in and through his people.

Matthew's next comment about the Spirit is in chapter 12. Here, the Pharisees were plotting to kill Jesus, and Jesus, being aware of that, verse 15, went away for a while, because it was not yet time for him to be arrested and killed. Verse 15: "Aware of this, Jesus withdrew from that place. Many followed him, and he healed all their sick, 16 warning them not to tell who he was. 17 This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: 18 "Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

So Matthew is saying here that Jesus fulfills this prophecy about the Messiah, that the Holy Spirit is upon him, like the Holy Spirit was on various prophets of the Old Testament. He was inspired to speak, to proclaim justice. Here again, it is a miracle of speaking, of guiding words that are said, so that the words are what God wants to be said.

But later in this same chapter we see that the Spirit does more than inspire words — the Spirit is also the power Jesus used to cast out demons. The words he spoke carried the authority of God. The effectiveness of the words came from the Holy Spirit.

The Pharisees had accused Jesus of casting demons out by being in cahoots with the prince of demons, Beelzebub. But Jesus said, in verse 25, "Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand. 26 If Satan drives out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then can his kingdom stand?

27 And if I drive out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your people drive them out? So then, they will be your judges.

28 But if I drive out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you."

So Jesus was driving out demons by the Spirit of God. He wasn't claiming to operate simply on his own authority, nor did he give the Father the direct credit. He said the power came from the Spirit of God; this was the way that God was working through Jesus to do his work in the world. The Holy Spirit has power against evil spirits. And just like evil spirits are personal beings, so is the Holy Spirit. He is distinct from the Father, and yet is one with the Father. If we say that the work is done by the Holy Spirit, we are at the same time saying that it is the work of God.

We learn more in verse 31: "And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32 Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come."

So, if we speak against the Spirit, it is blasphemy, because the Holy Spirit is God. And this is a very serious blasphemy, for it cannot be forgiven. Now, this verse has prompted a lot of discussion about what the unforgivable sin is, or what it means to blaspheme against the Holy Spirit.

That really requires a more extensive discussion, and a study of several other scriptures as well, things I don't want to get bogged down in today.

But here we can see in the context that the Pharisees were not planning on saying anything bad about the Holy Spirit — they were actually speaking against Jesus, and Jesus is saying that you can speak against me if you want, but when you speak against the work I do, you are speaking against the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is the one who is doing the work.

The Holy Spirit is distinct from Jesus, but also so united with him that to speak against one runs the risk of speaking against the other.

Jesus didn't say whether the Pharisees had actually committed this sin; he was just warning them that they were getting close. That's because they were speaking against the way that God works in his people, and if they reject that, then they are rejecting the way in which God could work in their lives. They would not be forgiven because they could never repent, except for the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

If they refuse to hear the Holy Spirit, then they might never hear about the forgiveness that God makes available to them through Jesus Christ. They lose forgiveness not so much for their attack on Jesus, but because they have hardened their hearts to what God is saying and doing through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we could compare it to a phone call. Not only are they refusing to listen to the phone, they are cutting the cord so that they can never be called again.

It's like the Russian satellite that I heard about from a guy who works at Cal Tech, who rides the bus I do. He said that a few years ago the Russians sent up some research satellite, to Mars, I think it was. They launched it just fine, and did some testing, and it worked just fine. But it takes about seven years to get the satellite to Mars. So to save power, the Russians told it to turn off its radio. And it did. And no matter how many times they told it to turn the radio back on, it couldn't hear them. The radio was off. Now the satellite is just a piece of junk zooming out there. It cut off the means of communication, and that is what blasphemy against the Holy Spirit does. It prevents us from listening to Jesus, or responding to God. We don't repent, we don't trust God, and we can't be forgiven. We aren't letting God do his work.

The next mention of the Holy Spirit is more positive. It's found in Matthew 22, verse 43. Jesus isn't really talking about the Holy Spirit here, but he does mention something that the Spirit does. Jesus is answering the Pharisees about some question, and he quotes an answer from a psalm, and this is the way he quotes it: Matthew 22, verse 43:

So Jesus is saying that when David wrote the psalm, he did so under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. It was a miracle of speaking, of working in David's mind so that the David chose the right words. Scripture was written by the guidance of the Holy Spirit; this is the way God works in his people.

The last mention of the Holy Spirit in the book of Matthew is at the very end, in the Great Commission, in Matthew 28, verse 19. "go and make disciples of all nations, Jesus said, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

So we are baptized into the name not just of the Holy Spirit, but the name that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit all have in common. There's one name, and three persons, and the baptism is done by that joint authority. This puts the Holy Spirit on an equality with the Father and the Son in the Godhead, and it puts our entire Christian life under the umbrella of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

We need all three to have a complete Christian life, to do a complete Christian work, to have a complete Christian church. We need to be aware of the work of the Holy Spirit in our baptism, in our spiritual growth, and in the work we do. Jesus doesn't go into all that detail here; it is just that Christian life needs to begin in and with the Holy Spirit.

The book of Mark doesn't add anything to what Matthew has already told us, so we will go to the book of Luke. Luke has some of the same material as Matthew, but Luke also includes a bit more about the Holy Spirit.

In Luke, we again learn that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, whom Luke calls the power of the Most High (1:35). And we learn that the Holy Spirit came upon Elizabeth and inspired her to speak, just as the Spirit worked in David and other Old Testament authors. The Spirit filled Elizabeth and she spoke some poetic praise that is now part of Scripture. And the Spirit came upon Zechariah, too, and he spoke, and the Spirit inspired Simeon to bless the baby Jesus. And John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit. All these are hints of even greater things yet to come.

In Luke chapter 4, we come to the first sermon that Jesus gave in Nazareth. You might recall that The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. He unrolled it and found the place where it is written: Luke 4, verse 18, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him,

21 and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing."

Jesus is saying, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and the words I speak are inspired, just like the words of the prophets. The Holy Spirit was working in Jesus in what he said, in the gospel he preached, in proclaiming a day of justice for people who needed it. This was done by the power of the Holy Spirit — the same power that worked in other humans before, and the same power of God that works in Jesus' disciples today. Our words and works are to be done in the Holy Spirit, just as his were.

Let's move on to chapter 10. There we will see something we have not seen before. The Spirit works in mysterious ways, in ways that go beyond words and works. Luke 10 — this is after Jesus had sent his disciples out two by two to preach the gospel, and they returned all happy and said, verse 17, "Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name."

Yes, that is good news, Jesus said, but the even better news is that you have salvation. Verse 20; "do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." Salvation is better than miracles. Now, can you imagine how thrilling it would be for us to experience miracles at the snap of a finger? Would our eyes get wide, would chills go up our spine? Salvation is better than that, Jesus says. Rejoice in that.

And then, Luke 10, verse 21, "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure."

It's interesting here that Jesus was full of joy through the Holy Spirit. He wasn't just regular happy. At this particular time, he had a special influence of the Holy Spirit that produced great joy, and in this case, a prayer of praise to God. God is not limited to working through the five senses. He does not have to whisper into our ears, or flash visions in front of our eyes. He can communicate directly to our spirit, communicating things that words cannot, and it seems that this is what happened to Jesus at this time.

He experienced supernatural joy through the Holy Spirit — and this kind of thing can happen to us as well. We can be in the midst of troubles, and yet have an inexplicable joy, a tremendous peace of mind that goes contrary to all the facts around us. We can't work our way into this kind of joy, and there's no guarantee that we will always have it, but sometimes, the Holy Spirit communicates to us in emotion, not just in words.

Why? I don't know. It does let us know that God hasn't left us, that there is more to reality than what we can see. Sometimes that's all we need to know.

Let's move to chapter 11, for one more lesson from Luke. Luke 11, starting in verse 11, Jesus tells a short parable: "Which of you fathers, he says, if your son asks for a fish, which of you will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, which of you will give him a scorpion? No father would do that.

verse 13: If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!"

Now that's encouraging. God is not stingy with his Spirit. He is very willing to give us all of himself that we need. He wants the best for us; we can count on it. As long as we look to God and ask for his help, he'll give it. He may not give us what we want, but he always gives us what we need, and that especially includes the Holy Spirit. The Father gives the Spirit to all who ask. We can count on it.

Now let us move to the Gospel of John, which gives us a lot more information. Let's start in chapter 3, where Jesus is telling Nicodemus that he must be born again if he is to see the kingdom of God.

John 3, starting in verse 3: "I tell you the truth, Jesus says, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again."

04 "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus asked. "Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born!" In other words, you can't mean this literally, so what are you getting at?

Verse 5: Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.

So this repeats verse 3 in different words. No one can see or enter the kingdom of God, unless that person is born of water and the Spirit. Now, there's some disagreement about what this means, but it seems to me that the best explanation is that the person must enter the kingdom through baptism and by receiving the Holy Spirit. To be saved, we need a fresh start, the death of the old self, and the beginning of a new person.

Birth is a new start, and when we are born of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit creates a new start for us. We cannot understand the things of God unless the Holy Spirit is working in our lives. We need to begin again, and that is what the Holy Spirit does to us. Our mission statement says that new life if what our congregation is all about. We want to share new life in Jesus Christ. The good thing we have been given, we want to share, and it comes from the Holy Spirit.

Flesh gives birth to flesh, Jesus says in verse 6, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, `You must be born again.' If you want a spiritual life, you need a spiritual beginning.

And then Jesus says in verse 8, "The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

Here there is a play of words, because the Greek word for wind is exactly that same as the word for spirit. It's like Jesus would have said, You need to be born of the water and the wind, if you want to see the kingdom of God. You need to be born a second time, this time of the Wind of God. He needs to breathe into your life, just like he breathed the breath of life into Adam. And if we are to be in God's kingdom, we need a fresh wind, a fresh breathing, a supernatural life. We need something of God to be in us, to change us, to change our lives, to make us new.

We can't see the wind, but we can hear it, and we can see some results. And in the same way, people who are born of the Spirit don't look any different than other people, but we can see results of the Spirit working in their lives. Jesus is talking about something that's invisible, but essential. The kingdom is invisible, too, at least right now, so if we are to have any perception of it, we need something different in our lives, and that something is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus spoke of the Spirit again in chapter 7. Chapter 7 is a Feast of Tabernacles sermon, and in verse 37 we hear what Jesus preached about on the last day of the festival: "On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him."

39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified."

The setting is the last day of the Feast, the day of the water-pouring ceremony. The priests carried jugs of water from the pool of Siloam to the temple, where they poured out the water and prayed for abundant rain for their crops. And while the priests did that, or at least on the same day, Jesus stood up and yelled, Heh! If you are thirsty, come to me.

And his disciples might have said. But Jesus, you don't have any water. What are you talking about?

Jesus is talking about people who believe in him, who come to him. They will have an abundance of what they are looking for. Their thirst is not a physical thirst, but a spiritual one. If they have an inner thirst that nothing else can satisfy, then they can come to Jesus and drink as much as they need. Indeed, they will get so much satisfaction from Jesus that they will have a surplus, and it will flow out from them.

And I want the church, this church, to be a church where living waters flow, where people who are thirsty can come and drink in Jesus, where they can tank up on the Holy Spirit. And they can satisfy their inner craving and they can begin to overflow and become a blessing to other people. We need people who are filled with the Holy Spirit. Our mission is not just to have new life in Christ, but to share it with others, to proclaim it and make it available to others.

The metaphors Jesus uses are those of motion. Earlier, it was wind — moving air. Here, it is moving water, flowing water. The Spirit is active, not stagnant. The Spirit works, and where the Spirit is working in people's lives, there is activity, not just people sitting in chairs and going away no different than before.

Now, what did John mean when he said that the Spirit had not yet been given? We know that the Spirit had already worked in many, maybe thousands of people, in the Old Testament. And in the New Testament, the Spirit had come upon Elizabeth and Zechariah and Simeon and John the Baptist. And presumably the Spirit was already working with Jesus' disciples, for they had been given the insight that Jesus was the Messiah, and they were willing to follow him, knowing that he alone had the words of eternal life.

Yet we also see a dramatic change in the disciples on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was given in a new and more powerful way. The disciples were transformed by the Holy Spirit, and perhaps more importantly, the Holy Spirit was given on a far greater scale — not just in each person, but also in terms of the number of people. God began to work with thousands of people all at the same time; the Holy Spirit was given more generously, promised to all who asked. The floodgates were opened, and the living waters flowed out. As one of our worship songs says, the river is here. The promise is given to all who call on the name of the Lord. We all have the same Spirit in us, as was in Jesus Christ.

As Jesus came closer to the day of his death, he spoke more openly about the Holy Spirit. After the last supper, after Jesus washed his disciples' feet, he spoke several more times about what the Holy Spirit would be doing in their lives. And in these sayings, Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Comforter, or in some translations, the Counselor or the Helper or the Advocate. The Greek word is parakletos, and it can mean all sorts of people who give friendly help, emotional support and practical help.

We can see what it means a little better if we turn to the passages in which Jesus uses this word. The first is in chapter 14, verse 16. Jesus is preparing his disciples for his departure. He would no longer be with them, but the Holy Spirit would. He says in John 14, verse 16, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."

Jesus said he would send "another Counselor" to be with his disciples. Why this word "another"? Who is the first Counselor? It is Jesus. Jesus is the first Counselor, and after he leaves the disciples, he will send another Counselor, the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit will do for the disciples much as Jesus as already done for them — teaching them, guiding them, giving them emotional support, helping them mature in the faith, things like that.

Greek has two different words for "another" — one means something different, and one means something similar. Jesus is using the one that means similar. The Holy Spirit is a Counselor like Jesus is.

(We might notice here that John uses masculine pronouns for the Holy Spirit, even after the neuter word Spirit is used. John is bending the rules of grammar to call the Holy Spirit a "he." This pronoun emphasizes the personal nature of the Holy Spirit. Of course, Scripture uses neuter pronouns for the Holy Spirit, too. My point is that the Holy Spirit is the way in which God lives in us. When the Holy Spirit does something, God is doing it, and it is done in a personal way, not a mechanical way. The Holy Spirit is not some sort of force we can tap into if we just have the right techniques. No, the Holy Spirit is God himself, and he determines the way we experience his presence in us.)

Notice that the Holy Spirit lives within us; this is a personal activity. And notice in verse 18 that when the Holy Spirit comes to us, it is the same as Jesus coming to us. The Holy Spirit is the way in which Jesus lives in us, or God lives in us; or both of them living in us. It's the same thing said in different ways, because they are all one God. There's a different divine agency involved, but the same result. We will see more of this later. But before that, let's notice verse 26:

"The Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."

The Father sends the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, as a replacement for Jesus doing the same things that Jesus would do. The Holy Spirit will remind us of the words of Jesus. The Spirit focuses his work on Jesus. It is the Spirit of truth, and Jesus is the truth. It's the same message, the same power, the same result in our lives.

Chapter 15, verse 26: "When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me."

Earlier, Jesus said that the Father would send the Spirit. Here, he says that he will do it. This kind of word exchange can be done because the Father and the Son are essentially one, and even though the two persons can be distinguished, they also share. The Father is in the Son, and the Son is in the Father, and whatever they do, they do together.

Jesus' point here is that the Holy Spirit will testify about Jesus. He will remind us of what Jesus taught; he will be sent in Jesus' name to be a Counselor like Jesus. The focus of the Spirit's work is to point us to Jesus.

The Spirit does not exalt himself — the Spirit exalts Jesus, because Jesus is the person through whom we are saved. We are saved through faith in Christ, not faith in the Holy Spirit. We are saved by the work of Christ, not by the work of the Holy Spirit. So the Spirit leads us to Christ, and once we have found Christ, the Spirit continues to point us to Christ as our role model, as our High Priest, and as the means of forgiveness that we continually need.

Maybe this analogy will help. The queen of England can't be in all the colonies all at once, so she appoints a governor to be her representative. But the governor doesn't act on his own authority — he or she acts in the name of the crown. The crown says this, the crown wants that. The governor is not supposed to glorify himself, but point people to the crown, and to act as a extension of the queen.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit does not exalt himself, but acts as an extension of Christ, pointing people to Christ, teaching us the words of Christ. The Holy Spirit is a witness for Jesus, living in us, reminding us of our relationship to God through Jesus.

Chapter 16, verse 7: But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

I don't know why, but for some reason, the Holy Spirit could not be sent on Pentecost unless Jesus was in heaven. So when he went away, he sent the Holy Spirit to his disciples.

Verse 8: When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: So this is the Holy Spirit's work in the world, convicting people of sin, of their need for righteous, and of the certainty of judgment. All three of these will point people to Christ, This is the work of the Holy Spirit in evangelism. We are not the ones who have to convict people of sin or judgment — that's the Holy Spirit's job.

Verse 9 — He will convict the world in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; Failing to trust Christ is the fundamental sin. Notice here again that the Holy Spirit's work is focused on Christ. He is convicting the world of a defect in their relationship to Christ.

Verse 10: The Spirit will convict the world in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;

11 and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12 "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

The Holy Spirit does not speak on his own, does not speak on his own authority or focus people's attention on himself — the role of the Holy Spirit is to do the work of God. He doesn't teach us truths of math or science, but of salvation, that salvation is found only in Christ. He guided the disciples into all the truth of Scripture, the things that they have written in the Bible for us.

And the Spirit guided them to understand the meaning of what was yet to come for Jesus. They did not understand the crucifixion and resurrection before it happened, but after Pentecost they were inspired by the Holy Spirit to understand what had happened, and the significance of it all. The Holy Spirit continued in them the ministry that Jesus had begun.

Verse 14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

And there it is again: the Holy Spirit will bring glory to Jesus, by helping us understand what Jesus said and did. The Holy Spirit will make it known, not to focus attention on himself, but to focus our attention on Christ, where it needs to be. That's the work of the Holy Spirit, the work that God is doing in our lives right now.

We need to know about the Holy Spirit, and the New Testament says quite a bit about the Holy Spirit working in us, helping us come to faith in Christ, helping us grow in Christ, preserving us for the day of Christ. thank God for the Holy Spirit.