Let’s talk about the Holy Spirit tonight. The background for tonight’s study is the Lord’s devastating announcement that he is going away. The disciples are not to be alarmed, though, because another comforter is coming. The comforter is promised. The Greek word for comforter means “one called alongside” for protection or counsel.
READ verses 15-16
The word “another” (v 16) means “another of the same kind”). Jesus was one comforter. The Holy Spirit was another comforter, another of the same kind.
I. We are told that The Holy Spirit Indwells Believers, (John 14:16, 17, 20)
The Holy Spirit is invisible to the world but indwells believers. Earthly fellowship with the Lord Jesus was about to be terminated. The Holy Spirit (“the Lord’s other self,” as he has been described) would come to abide with us forever.
John 14:17 - “that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.” The philosophy of the world is “seeing is believing.” This materialist philosophy makes it impossible for non-believing individuals either to know or to receive the Spirit of God. He is real, but he is invisible.
17b. “. . . He abides with you and will be in you.”
The Holy Spirit comes to take up permanent residence in a believer’s heart and life. So the body of the believer becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit.
1 Corinthians 3:16, “Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”
1 Corinthians 6:19, 20, “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.
Romans 8:9, “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” So, the HS indwells believers.
II. Along with that, The Holy Spirit In-fills Believers
The filling . . . does not mean the believer gets more of the Holy Spirit, but rather the Holy Spirit gets more of the believer.
How does the Holy Spirit fill a believer? If we compare Eph. 5 with Col. 3. “be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18) = “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16 ). So, to be filled with the Spirit is to be obedient to the Word!”
The Christian life is a supernatural life. It’s the life of Christ lived out in every believer by means of the indwelling Holy Spirit. READ John 14:18-19.
The word for “comfortless” has to do with begin an orphan. The news that Jesus was going away devastated the disciples. They felt orphaned. They felt helpless and hopeless, bewildered, frightened, lost. “I will not leave you orphans,” Jesus said. “I will come to you.” Here is “a promise of his coming which is simultaneous with his absence.” Yes, He was leaving them physically but he would be with them spiritually in a new way.
“but you will see me.” (v 19) Present tense indicates a continuing vision.
“I live.”(v 19) He used the dateless, timeless present tense, indicating undying life. Although he stood a stone’s throw of the cross, in divine confidence he assured his own that they were about to partake of the very life that he lived. We live because He lives. We shall live as long as He lives. We live the life that He lives.
III. The Holy Spirit Insures and Assures the Believer in v 20. READ. Some believe that “at that day” meant the Pentecost. This mystical relationship was made good on the day of Pentecost. The disciples were unable to comprehend the dimensions of all this, when the words were spoken in the upper room. The reality burst on them at Pentecost.
The Lord Jesus is in his Father; we are in him; he is in us. This interlock of persons and personalities guarantees the eternal security of the believer, as well as the transformation of our lives in Him by the transmission of His life through us.
READ John14:21. The Holy Spirit Insures the Believer. Several New Testament passages teach that the Holy Spirit is the “earnest” of our salvation. If we could lose our Salvation, the God, the Father, and the Son Jesus Christ would have to forfeit their down payment of the Holy Spirit. In addition to that according to verse 20 we are all wrapped up together in this. This insurance package provides us with the assurance of our salvation.
IV. The Holy Spirit Enables the Believer.
I believe the enabling of the Spirit is the way that He manifests Himself to us and gives us our assurance.
READ John 14:22-23
Notice: This teaches the doctrine of the Trinity. The three persons of the God-head are equal and if you have one you have them all. If you are indwelt by the Spirit you are indwelt by the Father and the Son as well.
Who will they abide with? With the person that loves Jesus. They don’t abide with the rich and the powerful but with those who love Jesus.
The word “abode” (v 23) is the same word translated “mansions” in verse 2. God gladly vacates them all, those glorious mansions in the sky, those ivory palaces beyond the reach of time and space, to take up our dwellings as His dwelling, to convert our cottages into His place of residence and turn our places into His palace.
READ John14:24.
Note the contrast: No love, no obedience.
***Love is the only power that can draw a person to keep the Lord’s commands.
***Further, disobedience to the Lord is rebellion against God. Jesus said, “The word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s.” Therefore, not to do what Jesus says is not to do what the Father says.
***That rules out all the world’s Christ-rejecting religions as false. If they don’t love Jesus, whose voice was the voice of God, they are a deception and a lie.
And it is here that we remember Paul’s words in Romans 12:1 which says, “I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that ye present your bodies...”
Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, and His Spirit will indwell you. And the indwelling of His Spirit will cause an enabling of the Spirit.
Enabling of the Spirit:
Ephesians 3:16, “That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;”
In other words, if you will only allow the HS to indwell you, the HS will be your enabler. The HS will help you to do things that you could never do on your own.
The HS will prepare the heart of the person you witness to.
The HS will help you in that witness.
The HS will enable you to share your testimony, in front of one of in front of 1,000.
Again, God doesn’t need our ability. All He needs is our availability. If we will only make ourselves available for God to use, He will enable us to do things we never thought possible. If fact, they might not be possible without the help of the HS.
READ 25-26. That’s refreshing to know. The HS is the Teacher. He teaches all things that Jesus taught. What a comfort to know that the Counselor or Comforter is given to us to help us through the trials of life.
But we must note that the Comforter comes only from the Father “in the name” of Jesus. You have to be a child of God in order to be given the Father’s Comforter.
The last thing to say and then we will close is that the purpose of the HS in the believer’s life is twofold.
1. To teach all things: both the words and the life of Christ, both the Truth and the Life, both the Word and how to live the Word, both the theory and the practice, both the principles and the conduct. Both the morality and the behavior.
2. To help remember all that has been taught in the Word of God, to help especially in the moments of trial when the truth is needed. In a moment of trial, the HS either infuses the believer with the strength to endure or flashes across his mind the way to escape.
Now that you have been formally introduced to the HS, do you know him?
