Acts 17:22-31 1 Peter 3:13-22 John 14:15-21 Psalm 66:7-18
This sermon was delivered to the congregation in Holy Trinity, in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 21st May 2017: by Gordon McCulloch
(A Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries).
Please join me in my prayer. Let the words on my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable to you O Lord. Amen.
Introduction:
What a reading that was eh! There was a lot in there, so be warned, this should get interesting. … This morning we have the apostle John no less, introducing the Holy Spirit … and as you know, any topic on the Holy Spirit is extremely difficult and full of reverence. … It is also controversial, and I personally believe that no-one on this earth can grasp the totality of the living Godhead as you will soon hear. …
And this is why many preachers, when given these verses, cop out of these verses and focus solely on the simpler verse 15, which in a strange way, follows on from my last sermon on “Doubting Tomas”. …
So we will start with that verse 15 where Jesus said, ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments”. … I call this a cop out verse because this verse has produced many fire and brimstone sermons over the years, sermons that put the emphasis back on the congregation, … an emphasis designed to them feel like miserable sinners. …
How is this done may you ask, well by rearranging the logic so as to prove our love for Jesus, purely by how well we keep his commandments … and we all know how difficult that is. … And as I said last time, this is clearly Old Testament thinking, meaning that when we fail, when we sin, … then we are judged, … and then condemned, … and so, deserve to be sent to hell. …
You have no idea how many sermons that I have been delivered on this verse alone, and it is so wrong on so many levels. We are reading this verse from the New Testament … not the Old, because the old it has been destroyed by the death and resurrection of Jesus. ... We are now only interested in a New Testament, a testament full of life and grace … a testament free from the condemnation of the law of sin and death that the Law produces.
I am serious here, if we fall for that Old Testament Law, that type of logic, we will suffer undeservedly, …and we will put ourselves in chains, purely by our own thoughts. … No, this verse was written by John, the apostle whom Jesus loved, the apostle closest to Jesus … an apostle who promoted of grace and life, … so this verse therefore has an entirely different meaning. …
Jesus is implying that the disciples do love him … and because they love him, they will do their very best to keep his commandments. … And that is exactly how a loving relationships works, … when we love someone we’re glad to do what pleases them, … or what helps them, … and we know that the disciples truly wanted to help Jesus … but like us, they lacked the power and the knowhow.
Our readings this morning, takes place at the last supper, directly after Judas has been brought into the open, and this is where Jesus tells the disciples that his hour has come, and that he must die.
And as you would expect, the disciples are not too happy about this, but this is where Jesus imparts his final instructions on how to live without him, and one of those final instructions is verse 15, … ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments”, … Now, I am sorry to say, this verse would not be enough for me, and it was certainly not enough for the disciples either.
In fact I think it is a horrible thing to say to someone, … because it gives them nothing tangible to work with, … and it is sort of like a test, … where they know before they start that they are all going to fail; …and mixing that with my last sermon where it was implied that they were not believing hard enough, then they were absolutely sure they were condemned to failure, … yet, we know that is not what happened.
Up until this point, the disciples had done everything with Jesus, or at his command; Jesus guided them … he taught them, and he corrected them on a regular basis. … Soon he will be gone, and they will be on their own with these instructions to carry out the work Jesus has started. … So these disciples must have been feeling rather low, because they knew that if Jesus couldn’t do it without being crucified … what chance would they?
… But Jesus knew this, and this is where Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit … verse 16, Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever”.
Another Advocate
Jesus promised them that God would give them, (and us too of course) … someone else in his place. … Someone with the same mission as Jesus; … someone whom we can all commune with; … someone more powerful than Jesus on his own, and that is the Holy Spirit himself.
Jesus is saying that they need not worry, because in his place, they (and we) will have the presence of the Holy Spirit who according to verse 12, “will also do the works (of Jesus), and in fact … will do greater works … because Jesus is going to the Father”. This is saying that this Holy Spirit would empower them, in a way that the physical presence of Jesus could not … and we will come to that in a moment.
But first notice that Jesus says ‘another’ councillor or another advocate, will be his replacement … and notice too how close this new advocate is will be with us. … Verse 17 says “That he may abide in you … the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive … because it neither sees him nor know him. … You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.” …
So what does the coming of this Holy Spirit mean for us and those disciples: … well firstly that he will be in us, … because the Spirit’s presence is different from the presence of Jesus in a very important way: that he dwells within us, forever, … and that means that we will come to know him in an intimate way.
Secondly, that we will live forever, because Jesus will live forever, and who does Jesus live with: the father of course? … The dwelling of the Holy Spirit within us, will imparts in us the faith of the risen Christ, and that is why Jesus said away back in chapter 12 verse 26 that, “everyone who lives, and believes in me, will never die.” …
It takes faith in the presence of the Holy Spirit to really believe in Jesus, (especially in this modern world), and when we have that faith, we believe that we will never die. … Yes we will all die physically, but with Christ living in us, through the Holy Spirit, we will live in his kingdom forever.
That is what we Christians believe … and thirdly and even more amazingly, … the Spirit’s presence within us is in fact the very presence of God himself, … and that presence brings us back nicely back to verse 21 which reads, … “They who have my commandments, and keep them, are those who love me; … and those who love me will be loved by my Father, … and I will love them, … and reveal myself to them”. …
You see, this is all tying up nicely, that is, if we look at it through the eyes of love, (as our God is love), and taking us well outside the realms of the Old Testament. … That is why I get so angry at those fire and brimstone sermons of condemnation and death, because they miss out on the love of God, and miss the point completely?
Anyway, we will keep going to verse 20 which says: “On that day you will know that I am in my Father … and that you are in me … and I am in you”. … What a description from John … … Jesus is in the Father…, the Father is in Jesus …, but we are in Jesus also…, and Jesus is in us through the power of the Holy Spirit interacting with our human spirit. … … Get your minds round that one …, the Ancient Church fathers described it as the “dancing around of the Trinity”.
God the Father, Jesus the son, and person of the Holy Spirit all intertwined in harmony; … three persons involved, yet appearing as the single Godhead…, and…, and…, somewhere in that mix, … there is you and me as well.
This is mind blowing stuff, and I personally believe the Godhead is one of those things that no-one alive can ever really explain. … Come on, we have all heard someone asking, “just how can God be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, all at the same time, … 3 persons yet one God”, … and then we let someone else answer it. In mean, we have even asked that question ourselves. … Yet that is the mystery of the Godhead … when the Holy Spirit comes to dwell within us.
What about us.
Now, this is all very good, but we must ask the question, what about us? …What does it means for us to have the Holy Spirit dwell within us? …Well, first of all, the Holy Spirit will impart power for our service to God’s kingdom. Verse 12 from last week tells us that, “the one who believes in me will ... do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father”. …
What were the works that Jesus did? Well … he healed the sick … he cast out demons … and he proclaimed the kingdom of God amongst many others things. … So presumably, God’s Spirit will empower us to do those things as well. … I assume safely, because there is no way we can do those things under our own strength … we need some kind of help, and is what the Holy Spirit provides.
We can think of it in these terms, … the Spirit will empower us to do the work to which Jesus has called us … and each one of us has very different gifts or talents, … and I love that, … we are all different, … we are all good at different things, … and I have always believed that we should play to these strengths; … and in many cases lately, … we have.
Another thing that the Holy Spirit does is to reminds us of what Jesus has taught us, and so enables us to obey his commands. In verse 26, (which we did not read), he says: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach us everything ... and remind us of all that I have said to you.”
The Holy Spirit speaks to us … or directs but not normally on a conscious level. He does so when he needs us to be aware, or to change, or to do something different; … and sometimes this is through times of trial. … It is not normally for tasks that we wants us to perform … but it is tasks that he wants us to do. …
This is the results of that new relationship with God, where God is intervening in our lives whether we want it or not, taking us places where he wants us to go … and is not always done on a conscious level … many times the circumstances are already prepared for us, and we have to make the best of these circumstances.
Now, do you remember how God spoke to the people in the Old Testament? … There was Abraham sitting by his tent one day and up walks three men who give him a message from God. It turns out they were angels. … Gideon one day was out threshing wheat in a wine press and up comes an angel to tell him that God wants him to go and rescue Israel.
In the Old Testament context, God had to use angels and intermediaries, prophets and priests to warn the people; to instruct them how to live; … communication from God back then was always external. … In Genesis Paul, God even spoke through a burning bush, and in Numbers 22, God spoke through a donkey; Balaam’s donkey.
But this has all changed in the New Testament, with the coming of the Holy Spirit, … and this was even foretold away back in the days of Jeremiah. … Do you remember God telling Jeremiah in Chapter 31 verse 34? “The days are surely coming … when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ... I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; … and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. … No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, "Know the LORD," for they shall all know me, … from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord”.
This prophecy was fulfilled by Jesus asking his Father to send the Holy Spirit to dwell in us … to remind us of what Jesus has taught … and to bring God’s words to the forefront of our minds.
We no longer have to wait for a prophet to come along and tell us what God wants us to know … the spirit within in us is constantly trying to tell us things if only we would discern his voice and listen … because our nemesis also is aware of this and like to confuse the message. … Regardless, God now speaks to us directly through his Holy Spirit who dwells within us, through our own human spirit.
And finally … finally for now, the Holy Spirit brings us peace, … but not the sort of peace that the world gives, … his peace, for us is to know that he is in charge, and that we belong to him. It’s a peace born out of a personal living relationship with Jesus himself, deepened by a growing surrender of our lives to his rule.
God sees us this morning as disciples who love Jesus … he sees us as his children, and he wants us to speak to him through the power of his Holy Spirit. … When God sees us, he sees someone in whom his own Spirit is dwelling … he sees us as someone made in the image of God, (and that is another sermon by the way), … he see us in a way that hasn’t been seen since before Adam and Eve sinned … all because Jesus opened the door, allowing us access for his presence.
When we pray, God is present in our prayers, … for we are communicating within the mystery of the Godhead, … just as Paul said in Romans 8 verse 27 which says, “And God, who searches (our) hearts, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
We are his saints, and the Holy Spirit is given to all who love Jesus as their Lord and King.
Amen.
Let us pray.
Father, we thank you for Jesus, we thank you that he died so that your presence may abide within us in a very real way.
Father we do not fully understand this, so we ask this morning to reveal to us your presence within; … we would like to feel your love and we would like to know that you are I control which you are.
Father let us draw strength and comfort through your presence; and Father we thank you that we can pray to you in the name of Jesus. Amen.
