Knowing The Holy Spirit April 3, 2005
John 16:5-15
Have you ever thought to yourself how amazing it would be to have been around when Jesus walked the earth – just to be near him, to see his face, to hear his voice?
Read John 16:6-15
Jesus says “It is for your good that I am going away.” Other translations: “it is actually best for you that I go away,” (NLT) “It’s better for you that I leave.” (MSG)
Do you believe that? – Jesus says that having the Spirit with us is better than having Himself in the flesh!
Our low view of the Spirit – we often talk and act as if the Trinity is actually a duo. We have the big “F” Father, the big “S” Son, and the little “s” spirit. He is kind of like an add on, an after thought.
We joke that the Evangelical church believes in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Scriptures. But the Charismatic church isn’t really a whole lot better; we often regulate the role of the Spirit to a few spectacular gifts and to ecstatic experiences. As we will see in this series, the Spirit is an integral person in the Trinity and He is much bigger than we think.
There is this story of a doctor listening to a little girl’s heart through a stethoscope, the doctor says “Who do I hear in there? Is Donald Duck in there? Is Barney in there?” The little girl says, “No! Jesus is in my heart, Barney is on my underwear!”
We talk to our children about Jesus being in our hearts, but the Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit indwells us. He is the Spirit of Jesus, and we often use the terms Jesus and the Spirit interchangeably in our relation to God, but because we often say Jesus when we mean the Spirit, we regulate the Spirit to the sidelines.
When we are inviting people to become Christian, we usually ask them to receive Jesus, but most often, the Bible calls us to Believe in Jesus and receive the Holy Spirit. I haven’t heard any altar calls where people are invited to receive the Holy Spirit.
You might think it is all just semantics, and it might be, but it points to an avoidance of the Holy Spirit.
Why we avoid the Spirit
- Fear – We can’t control the Spirit, and He made lead us into strange places
- Embarrassment – because the old translations use the word “Ghost” instead of Spirit, because talk of the Spirit is often time associated with the Holy Rollers or TV preachers.
- lack of (human) image: We can easily picture Jesus – he is a real Jewish man of flesh and blood, we have artists’ renditions of Him, and actors who play him. It is the same with the Father – we can picture a benevolent father, people have painted their idea of the Father, actors have played him, but the Spirit is harder to portray. How do you paint the wind? Jesus says “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:8
“The Fundamental idea of Spirit in Hebrew and Greek is breath, air, wind, storm – the intensity depending on the context. It may be a gentle breath (John 20:22), a gale-force wind (Ex 15:8), a cooling breeze (Gen 3:8). Most essentially Spirit is transcendent and divine, not mere flesh; it is the energy of life itself and is present in nature and in history. Most wonderfully, the Spirit is God’s face turned toward us and God’s presence abiding with us, the agency by which God reaches out and draws near, the power that creates and heals.” - Clark Pinnock
Images of Water, and Oil
Our other favorite image of the Spirit is the dove – when Jesus was baptized, the Spirit descended on Him like a Dove (I think that that is more of a description of how the Spirit came down, not a picture of what the Spirit looked like)
The Ancient Celts had a different image of the Spirit:
ThisIsChurch.com says, ”In the Celtic tradition the Holy Spirit is represented as a bird, but not the peaceful and serene dove landing on Jesus at his baptism. For their symbol of the Holy Spirit, the Celtic church people chose the Wild Goose, ( An Geadh-Glas) This has become, the logo and name for the worship branch of the Iona Community.
Why did the Wild Goose speak to those ancient Celtic Christians? To begin with, wild geese aren’t controllable. You can’t restrain a wild goose and bend it to your will. They’re raucous and loud. Unlike the sweet and calming cooing of a dove, a goose’s honk is strong, challenging, strident and unnerving – and just a bit scary.
In much the same way the Spirit of God can be, demanding and unsettling. Think about the story of Pentecost, and the impression the disciples made on the crowd. People thought they were drunk and disorderly!
Its one thing for a gentle dove to descend peacefully on Jesus – it’s something all together different when the Spirit descends like a wild, noisy goose!
You may think of other reasons why we avoid the Spirit. But we should not avoid Him. The Spirit is God just as Jesus is and the Father is.
The Spirit is elusive but profound and worthy of adoration. If Father points to ultimate reality and Son supplies the clue to the divine mystery, Spirit epitomizes the nearness of the power and presence of God. St John of the Cross aptly calls the Spirit a living flame of love and celebrates the nimble, responsive, playful, personal gift of God.
- Clark Pinnock
The Church’s mind and heart turn to the Holy Spirit as this twentieth century draws to a close and the third millennium since the coming of Jesus Christ into the world approaches and as we look toward the great jubilee with which the church celebrate will the event.
- John Paul II “On the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Church and the World”
Why Having the Spirit is Better
Universality
When Carl & I were talking about how we say “wouldn’t it be wonderful to have been alive when Jesus was here, Carl said “wouldn’t it be a bummer to be in a town he didn’t get to though?”
When Jesus was with us, he limited his presence in time and space to one person. If you missed that person, too bad for you!
But the Holy Spirit is not limited in time and space; He is available for anyone who will receive Him.
Jesus calls him the counselor, which is our translation of “Paraclete”
If you break down the word, it signifies the meaning "called to one’s side."
The word could have these meanings
(1) a legal advocate, or counsel for defense, - corresponding to our word "advocate," "counsel," or "attorney."
(2) an intercessor,
(3) a helper, generally.
KJV – Comforter
MSG – Friend
CEV – Holy Spirit
When the Spirit came at Pentecost, Peter explained what was going on by quoting from the prophet Joel.
This is what Joel says:
2:28 "And afterward,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your old men will dream dreams,
your young men will see visions.
29 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days.
In the Garden of Eden God related to people in complete intimacy – he walked with them in the garden, through out the Old Testament, he related to people through the leaders and prophets of the nation of Israel, In the Gospel God came to live among us as a human being, and everyone who met Jesus experienced God face to face, but since Pentecost, all those who believe in Jesus are given God to live within them, and the Church is given God to live among us by his Holy Spirit! WOW!
Jurgen Moltman says “Spirit is the loving, self-communicating, out-fanning and out-pouring presence of the eternal divine life of the triune God.” By the Spirit, God draws near to the creature and mediates a knowledge of divinity in a hundred thousand ways.”
It amazes me that we make such a big deal over Christmas (and we should) but we nearly forget Pentecost, the day God poured out his Spirit. We need to celebrate Pentecost – this is the One that Jesus said would be better than having him with us!
This year I want to throw a big party for the neighbourhood to celebrate Pentecost – I need some help.
As God has been increasing the way that we experience him throughout history, we wait for the day when our experience of Him harkens back to Paradise: as it says in
Revelation 21
The New Jerusalem
1Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with human beings, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
-
Empowerment
Jesus says in John 16: 8And when he comes, he will convince the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9The world’s sin is unbelief in me. 10Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. 11Judgment will come because the prince of this world has already been judged.
Verses 9-11 explain verse 8, and make it a little less harsh sounding – the ultimate sin is to not believe in Jesus, but the Spirit will convict people of this sin, drawing us into belief in Jesus, and into the righteousness that only Jesus can give us. EvenJudgement becomes news, because it is an outworking of the judgement of the devil that has already occurred at the cross.
The Spirit is good because he draws us into belief in Christ, into his righteousness.
Jeremiah promises the Spirit in this way:
Jeremiah 31: 33-34
"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
after that time," declares the LORD .
"I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
or a man his brother, saying, ’Know the LORD ,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,"
declares the LORD .
"For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more."
Ezekiel promises the Spirit in this way: 36:26-27 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Nicky Gumbel has this great illustration of what the Spirit does for us. When we go out hiking for a day, we bring our lunch on our back in a backpack. The lunch weighs us down, but as the morning moves on, we stop and eat our lunch. The food turns from being a weight on our back to fuel in our belly. By giving us the Holy Spirit, God’s law goes from being a weight on our back to being fuel in our very being – so that we not only know God and his ways, but we want to do them too!
Paul says it this way in Philippians 2:13 for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose
There is so much more that God the Spirit does, and we’ll deal with some of those things in the coming weeks
What I wanted to do today is not to knock Jesus down, but to bring the Spirit up into His rightful place in the Trinity.
Do you want God with you today? Do you want the experience of his presence and his power? Believe in Jesus for the removal of all you’ve done wrong, and receive the Holy Spirit as your advocate, your counselor, your comforter, your friend. God with you: God within you.
