READ John 16:5-11, then Max Lucado from a Gentle Thunder, pp. 67-68.
Jesus has let his followers know that God’s plan was coming to a climax and that he would soon return to the Father. But he wasn’t abandoning them, sending the paraclete, the Holy Spirit to take his place. Not just because he doesn’t want them to be lonely or heartbroken. It’s necessary for the H.S. to come and accomplish his part of God’s plan to rescue us. Going to do that in the hearts and lives of those who follow him.
Let’s make sure we’ve got a handle on this:
· When talk about the Holy Spirit, not talking about some Star Wars kind of force that we can tap into. He is a person. 14:17.
· He is also God, the third person of the Trinity, exists in spiritual form.
· When we become followers of Jesus, the H.S. comes to live inside us, works in our hearts and minds to fulfill his purpose in us.
· Plays a part in our relationship with God, with each other, and with the world around us.
That’s what Jesus focuses in on here. Jesus already said that we can expect the world to hate us, it’s part and parcel of being identified with Jesus. Even so, we have a purpose to perform in the world, Jesus prays not for God to take us out of the world, but to protect us from the evil one. Rick Warren in P.D.Church, says that God could have taken us home immediately, but he deosn’t because his plan requires us to be here. Jesus wants us to know that we are not alone in that, that he is empowering us through his spirit to accomplish it.
A. V. 26, 27. God’s Spirit is actively at work testifying about Jesus, brining up the evidence, revealing the truth about who Jesus is and what he’s done for us.
· Notice that he never testifies about himself, always points us to Jesus. One of our mistakes about HS is to put the focus on him instead of on the person he focuses on, Jesus.
· So the HS is already testifying, and what are we to do? We’re to join him in that. We believe that God is at work in our hearts drawing us to him, making us aware of our need for a rescuer and then pointing to the way, the truth and the life as our rescuer. All of us are here because at one time or another we felt that work in our hearts.
o Affectionately describe it as God moving us from being unconscious incompetents to being conscious incompetents.
o How does he do that? The Holy Spirit works in our hearts to make us thirsty people. MATRIX clip, Morpheus to Neo, opening his eys to the matrix.
· Read vs. 7-11. How does the HS make us thirsty? Aware of our need, more to life, in need of rescue? What he does is convict us. Brings us to a point where the stuff we’ve tried to use to fill emptiness no longer work, to a point where we finally understand that we are in need of rescue. Opens our eyes to the matrix around us, that what we have believed in, trusted in, is nothing more than a lie, an illusion which can bring no satisfaction. Every time this word is used, the desire is for those convicted to repent—it expresses God’s heart to be in relationship with us. Does it in three ways:
o Convicts in regard to sin: sin is that which separates us from God, blinds us to the reality of the world and our lives, chosen to replace a trust in God with trust in ourselves or things. The HS brings guilt, not just to make us feel bad, but to make us want to be rescued.
o In regards to righteousness. Is. 64:6, it says that all our righteous acts have become like filthy rags. All that we trust in, all the good things we do that we think will somehow tip the scales in our favor, are revealed by the HS for what they are. Not only does he let us know that we need t a rescuer, he lets us know that we are not it. Cannot rescue ourselves.
o In regard to judgment. IDLEWILD PARK, the quadrasphere (a ride at this small amusement park where the room looks normal, but it is actually all out of whack to plumb. To stand up straight, you have to lean at a 45 degree angle.) The HS reveals that the lies of the enemy about life, the darkness that he has plunged you into, do not have the power to save you.
Quick application points:
· Some of you are here because you’ve felt this draw in your life. We are here to testify that Jesus is the rescuer, the source of life.
· For followers of Jesus, be encouraged that you are nor alone in this purpose you’ve been called to, you are simply joining God where he is already at work.
