John 16:4-15

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks for,

putting up with us.

Maybe would be the thing.

We are in the 16th, early 16th chapter of the book of John.

And, Jesus has just finished

a short section coming out of chapter 15,

with an amount had having

to do with animosity of the world being faithful, being,

at times punished or oppressed or persecuted for being faithful.

And Jesus now sort of dovetails that into another conversation

about the spirit, the work of the church, faithfulness.

Go several directions.

So let me read this.

We'll come back and talk it through.

I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you,

but now I'm going to him who sent me.

Yet none of you asked me where are you going?

But because I've said these things to you, sorrow has filled your hearts.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

It is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you.

And when he comes,

he will prove the world wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment

about sin, because they do not believe

in me, about righteousness, because I am going to the father,

and you will see me no longer about judgment,

because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them.

Now when the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for

he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears,

and will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify

me, because he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the father has is mine.

For this reason I said that he will take what is mine

and declare it to you.

So, it's a it's

a little early in the context of the gospel.

We're not to the end yet, but there is a sense in which these kind

of words fit under what are sometimes called farewell discourse.

In other words, Jesus is having last conversations

with the disciples about things that will happen in his absence.

And here he is literally talking about his absence.

The other side of the cross, the other side of the Ascension,

when Jesus is no longer physically with the disciples

and he is in some, at some level, trying to prepare them

for that, promising them that the advocate whom he's already called

the Holy Spirit will be with them, will testify to them, will

lead them, guide them, and will share truth.

And Michael, we've seen consistently in the Gospel of John, truth is a

a deeply important concept

to John and to Jesus in this gospel

and then a restatement, finally, that all the father has is mine.

And I'm sharing it with you.

And I think at some level,

this has several functions, but in my mind,

chief among them is this, again, this promise.

We've already seen a couple of times that the church is going to continue

the work of Christ, that they are going to be charged with doing the things

Jesus has done, proclaiming the things that Jesus has proclaimed.

We have it here sin, righteousness, judgment that the advocate

is going to proclaim those things so that the truth of Christ will be known,

and the truth of Christ will be carried out in the work of the disciples.

And some of this here is

anticipating the movement

that will happen in Jesus absence when the church carries that burden.

That that's exactly the point, is that I think that John gives us as a gift

to this emphasis of Jesus's teaching on what is to come

for the future of the church.

And not every gospel, especially a gospel like Mark,

does not tease out with this level of detail

a kind of future looking, hope bearing message

about what the proclamation of Jesus Christ is going to look like

on the other side of his sacrifice, on the other side of the hope

and promise of resurrection, John the gospel writer, is fully aware

of a church that is continuing to seek to follow

Jesus Christ and is bringing people in that number

who were not even alive at the time that Jesus lived,

who were not there to see it with their own eyes.

And I think, Clint, the gift that the gospel writer is giving

us is a much more fleshed out picture of the theology of the spirit.

And the spirit is this member of the Trinity

who will continue to, to speak, to testify,

to, to give voice to God's kingdom even in Jesus's absence.

And this is an absolutely critical detail.

We should not miss that when Jesus is alive,

when when the incarnate Son of God is walking and teaching and doing miracles

every moment, he's revealing the will of the father.

Well, we might assume that when he dies and is resurrected and then later ascends,

that when he's gone physically, that now

that testifying work is also gone.

But Jesus makes it explicitly clear here that though there is sorrow that will fill

the hearts of those who are left behind, real grief and sadness,

the truth is that it's even to our advantage.

Jesus says, because an advocate will not come to us if he doesn't go.

And Jesus promises that you'll send him,

and when he comes, he'll prove the world wrong.

That this advocate, this teacher, the the one who will be the guide,

will provide a framework

that will exist even beyond the teachings of Jesus and Clint.

This is important not just for the teaching

of Jesus and sort of the encouragement it might give us as believers that,

even today, we can hear the voice of Jesus through the advocacy of the Holy Spirit.

I think that this is important because it reminds the church that though

the scriptures have come to us, though, books like this have been written

and handed to us by the ancient church, we are still people who seek to listen,

expect God to speak by the power of the spirit.

We we are creative, imaginative, living group of people in our tradition

because we believe that Jesus is still at work,

that the advocate is still at hand.

That's the amazing gift of this kind of teaching, is that he reminds us

that we never get stuck at one moment in time.

We're always a living, growing, empowered people

because that's God's intention for us.

And I think

to some extent even further than that.

Michael, John here predicts

a thing, or John here forecasts a thing,

and simply that is this,

that most of the work of the church and the kingdom

is going to be done in the absence of Jesus,

that that these disciples and those who follow them, that

those who witness the truth now brought about by the spirit

and not by the physical body of Jesus, the physical person of Jesus,

are going to continue.

But the church, for a very brief window of its birth,

had Jesus present to us in the flesh,

and then for the rest of its life on earth,

we are doing a thing in the absence of Jesus physical presence.

And and therefore we need this guide.

We need this spirit who leads us in truth, who convicts the world of sin.

In other words, they were wrong about who Jesus is, about righteousness

because Jesus will be with the father and we want to have him physically present

and about judgment because we, as we saw

in the last couple days, the world in the faith.

Our intention with one another, there is a

a conflicted relationship between the two of them.

And so Jesus says, I've said these things to you,

but you cannot bear them now.

And it's amazing how John conceives already

in this part of the gospel of Jesus work

before and after the cross,

the resurrection and the ascension and the the anticipation here

of what the church will be called to be and do

in the absence of Christ,

when Christ is no longer physically with them.

And I think, you know, that's not front and center.

You have to do a little digging,

maybe to put that picture together or those puzzle pieces.

But I think that's a powerful

it's a powerful message both to the church

that John is writing to and to every generation that comes after.

I think there's some really interesting wrinkles in this text.

If I'm going to be honest with you,

I it'd be really easy to make assumptions about something like verse 11.

But I think we should slow down here

because the ruler of this world has been condemned.

I mean, Clint, isn't it really interesting

that we've not in this section had a lot of this talk?

We've not had a lot of calling out the ruler of the world.

And I think in modern American Christianity, a lot of people

would jump immediately to the assumption that we're talking about Satan.

We're talking about the Prince of Darkness here.

But if you've read revelation, you know, which is directly connected to

to the Johannine tradition, if you know anything about John's

understanding of the apocalyptic, you know that John also understands

the powers of the ancient world as being rulers that stand

against the power of Jesus Christ.

I think this idea that the Holy Spirit, who is by definition

an unseen animating force that lives within the people of God,

that that spirit is set in contradiction to the power of the ruler of the world,

is a fascinating way to see that John is already laying out,

that if you find yourself persecuted, if you find yourself at the hands of those

with power who want to take from you, even your life and your witness,

then you have found that you are in the way of the advocate,

that the spirit has empowered you to bring you,

even if that is in opposition to the principalities and powers of the world.

The rulers of the world do not stand forever

it in between God and God's work in the spirit.

And that is both comforting it.

But it's also revealing in the sense that it provides for us

about behind the scenes picture of why persecutions come.

If you missed our study yesterday,

jump back there so that you can apprize yourself of that.

But then also I think it provides for Christians

a way of navigating a nourishment to navigate

when the times are hard, when the rulers and the powers of the world are set

against the work of the church and the revelation of Christ,

in those moments we aren't alone,

even if we may individually, as humans, feel separate from one another,

we are never truly alone because we have one who will speak in and through us.

It's not just about you getting it right.

It's like God is provide the means a mechanism for you.

If you have the faith to speak,

the spirit will be faithful to guide you and to be with you in that.

Well and absolutely. Look what the spirit does.

He will glorify me, because you will take what is mine and declare it to you.

In other words, it will now be the spirit.

Whereas the disciples had the wonderful opportunity

to hear from Jesus Himself, it will now be the work of the spirit

that shares the things of Christ with those who seek to follow Christ.

That the work that this advocate will do will be to be the mediator.

The go between

with Jesus and his people, and as such,

that advocate will be the leading voice,

the guiding voice, the guiding spirit.

If you would say it that way of the church, of the people

who seek to be faithful to Jesus Christ,

both in their relationship with one another

and their relationship with the world, you know, sometimes we tend to think

of Holy Spirit stuff as being the miracles

and the prayers and the prophecy and some of those more dramatic things.

But I, I like this picture that John has painted here,

where the advocate, the Holy Spirit, is primarily

to be about the business of helping the church

discern what is of Christ and helping the church pursue what is of Christ.

I think that's that is a great place to start.

If you if you have confusions and questions about the Holy Spirit,

I think those tasks are the place to begin.

Well, and don't miss this really important defining word in this passage.

This section is in verse six.

This idea

that sorrow has filled your hearts when we gather together.

Next time we're going to talk about that sorrow again from another perspective.

I think the spirit is an important voice and an important presence in our lives,

because Christians do experience a kind of sorrow

of being between the revelation of Christ and the return of Christ.

And this isn't theoretical.

This isn't just a thing that we talk about here because we're in a study.

If you've ever been with someone grieving the loss of a loved one,

they may have within them and often do the hope of resurrection

that they've heard and believe the promise that this life is not the end.

And yet there's a deep sorrow that comes from the gap

between our belief and the acknowledgment that it's not here yet.

Jesus has not returned.

Jesus has not come back.

And because of that, there is a loss that has happened.

And the Christian life is in that way,

a life that knows something about sorrow.

It's not lodged in sorrow, it's not stuck in sorrow.

But no Christian life of maturity can travel the path

without walking through great seasons of sorrow.

And I just think that the idea that the advocate is here,

that the spirit is our equip for the one who gives us

not just that which we say, but reveals God's righteousness, God's goodness,

all of the things

that we're going to need for the faith we've been given in this guide.

And if we're willing to trust that guide,

then even though we might feel the sorrow of not having the Savior

with us in this moment, we know that we're not alone.

That Savior has sent someone to be with us.

This is the hope of the Christian faith that we are.

We are not orphans without a supporter.

We are those who have been known by God, called by God, and also,

and importantly, are continually being equipped by God.

And we should not forget that.

Yeah,

I think there's a great deal of comfort in knowing that we're not alone, though.

We don't have to figure it out on our own, that there is a promise,

not only the promise of Christ, but the promise that Christ's Spirit,

the advocate, the Holy Spirit, however you want to use that language, that

there is something leading and guiding us that can be trusted

to share with us and

move us in the

directions of the one that we seek to be faithful to in that

that let's let's be honest, we don't want to trust ourselves to do that.

We we are not up to the task on our own.

And so the good, great, good news of

the advocate is we're not by ourselves.

Well, I certainly hope that if that is good news for you,

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We will be back live next Monday, where we will continue on this journey

through the Gospel of John.

And until then, friends,

of course, we hope that you are blessed and we will see you again real soon.

Thanks, everybody.