No Longer Orphans

But just look at this. In verse 9 Jesus told Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father”, and in verse 16 He promises to send a Helper exactly like Him, and in verse 17 calls the Helper ‘the Spirit of truth, and in verse 26 He confirms that the Helper is the Holy Spirit.

So the Father is like the Son is like the Spirit is like the Father…

…now listen, Christian, to the end of verse 16… “…that He may be with you forever”

What is He saying? That the Helper will be with us until we’re glorified and no longer need His help? NO! He said ‘forever’. Christ-follower, when Jesus the Son of God rose from the dead and returned to the Father, He asked and the Father sent the Holy Spirit to live in every believer FOREVER.

That means that though you have never seen Jesus and cannot see Him now, since the very moment you were born again and became a true believer in Christ, the Holy Spirit, who is exactly like Jesus and truly has been called the Spirit of Christ, came into you and for the rest of eternity He will never leave you. You are now in the presence of Jesus and He is present in and with you by His Spirit, and you will never, for one split second, be separated from Jesus again, for eternity – forever.

You know, there are people who teach and believe this absolutely absurd doctrine that since God cannot look upon sin, that whenever a believer sins the Holy Spirit leaves and doesn’t come back until and unless the believer confesses his sin and gets right with God again, then the Holy Spirit comes back.

That is ridiculous on too many levels to cover them all in this sermon. For one thing, if the Holy Spirit left we would never repent and confess, for it is the Holy Spirit who convicts of sin and leads us to repentance. I could say more on this but here is the main thing that contradicts that doctrine – and if you ever encounter someone trying to expound that nonsense you can bring them here – in John 14:16. “…that He may be with you forever”.

Ok, so going back to the evidences, what demonstrates this presence of Jesus in us; this Helper; this Holy Spirit?

SPIRIT OF TRUTH

Well Jesus calls Him the Spirit of truth. So one thing that demonstrates His presence in us is our understanding of the truth. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth.

Unsaved people can never know the truth about any spiritual reality. When the Bible says they are dead in trespasses and sins it means just that. There is no life in them and they are dead to God and cannot have one right thought about Him.

That’s what Jesus is explaining in verse 17 when He says that the world cannot receive Him “…because it does not behold Him or know Him”. The world rejects the truth because the truth of God exposes sin. The world – people of the world – do not like to have their sin exposed. That is why they love the darkness rather than the light; for their deeds are evil.