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I was talking to someone this week about prayer
and in the course of the conversation we got around to
the subject of praying for ourselves. The trouble was,
this person had great difficulty with the thought of
praying for themselves, because there were so many more
worthy people in the world to pray for. When I pressed
them a bit I discovered that in fact they didn't think
they deserved God to listen to them at all. It was OK for
someone like me to pray to God, but not them. Well, of
course, I quickly explained that my worthiness or
otherwise had nothing to do with it. I don't pray on the
basis that I've done something to make God pleased with
me. On the contrary, I pray despite my failings, because
I know what Jesus has done for me. I pray because Jesus
Christ has brought me into a new relationship with the
Father. |
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When
Jesus began to talk to his disciples about his going
away, they began to worry. Over the years they'd been
with Jesus, they'd become dependant on his presence to
help them know what to do, and how to live. I guess they
realised how much they still needed to learn. So the
thought of Jesus leaving them was pretty disturbing. So
Jesus set out to reassure them. John 14 begins with these
words that we looked at a couple of weeks ago: "Do
not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe
also in me," then he follows up with the promise
that he's going to prepare a place for them in his
Father's house. But having talked about that, he then
goes on to deal with their concerns about the loss of his
daily presence with them. |
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He says
"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate, to be with you forever." Their hearts
don't need to be troubled at the thought that Jesus is
about to leave them, because his presence with them is to
be replaced by something far greater. Back in v12 he
said: "the one who believes in me will also do the
works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than
these, because I am going to the Father." The coming
of the Spirit will empower them in a way that Jesus'
physical presence with them never could. We'll see how
that is in a moment. |
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But first
I want you to notice the condition for this receiving of
the Spirit. How worthy do you need to be, to receive
God's Holy Spirit? What do you have to do? Do you have to
pray for three hours every morning, before you wake up?
Do you need to study your Bible until you know it
backwards? Do you need to be prayed over by someone like
the Bishop did last week with our confirmees? Do you need
to lead a sinless life for the next week? Do you even
have to be a good person? No, have a look at what he
says: "If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and
he will give you another Advocate, to be with you
forever." Now don't get confused here. It's very
easy to misunderstand this. The only if here, is "If
you love me." Not if you keep my commandments.
That's a natural result of loving Jesus, not a
prerequisite. No, it's "if you love me." |
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You see,
the picture is of a child with its parents. Now I've seen
how parents relate to their children. Richard and Andrea
don't wait to see if William behaves well before they
give him his dinner. They feed him because they love him.
Their love is unconditional. And that love is returned by
William. It's interesting how the love of parents for a
child comes about. It's one of the few loves where the
object of the love has nothing to offer, apart from the
love they give back. And there's no particular merit in a
child loving its parents is there? It's just something
that comes naturally. |
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Well,
that's the picture that Jesus is using here. He says
"If you love me, I will ask the Father and he will
give you another Advocate, to be with you forever."
The gift of the Holy Spirit is a gift of a generous and
loving Father, given without conditions, independent of
merit. |
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But it
isn't just a gift. In fact the Holy Spirit is the source
of a whole new relationship with God. Look at what he
says in v 18: "I will not leave you orphaned; I am
coming to you." Jesus' coming in the form of the
Holy Spirit will change their relationship to God
completely. They'll no longer be orphans, left to fend
for themselves, because now they'll be children of God.
But as he goes on it gets even better, even if it does
seem more complicated. He says: "20On
that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in
me, and I in you." Now if you've been following
these John sermons for a while, you'll probably realise
that he's said this sort of thing before about himself
and God the Father, about how he is in the Father and the
Father is in him. In fact back in vs 10&11 he's said
just that. But here, he's extended the relationship set
to include us. And the reason that the relationships have
changed is because the Holy Spirit has come to dwell in
us. |
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In v23 he
says: "Those who love me will keep my word, and my
Father will love them, and we will come to them and make
our home with them." |
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Can you
see how there's this interweaving of relationships. Jesus
is in the Father the Father is in Jesus, we are in Jesus,
Jesus is in us. We love Jesus, so the Father loves us,
and Jesus loves us. It's like one of those Celtic knot
drawings, where everything is interwoven so that what you
see is the whole, rather than the individual parts. And
it's like that because with the coming of the Holy Spirit
to dwell within us, we're caught up in the mystery of the
Godhead. This is one of those things that no-one can ever
really explain. How God can be Father, Son and Holy
Spirit, 3 persons in one God. Yet that's the mystery into
which we're drawn as God's Holy Spirit comes to dwell
within us. |
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Notice,
by the way, why it is that Jesus says he'll reveal
himself to the disciples in this way, v21. It's because
they love him. There it is again! And the result of them
loving him, is that they listen to him. They keep his
word. There is a moral element to this, you see, but not
as a prerequisite, rather as a result of the love we have
for Jesus. A loving child does what their parents ask,
not to ingratiate themselves with their parents but out
of love for them; because they honour and respect them. |
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And as a
result of the love we have for Jesus, the Father is able
to come and dwell within us. On the other hand, those who
don't love Jesus, won't keep his words, and the
implication is that the Father won't come and dwell with
them. |
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Well,
what does it mean for us that the Holy Spirit comes to
dwell within us. |
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First of
all the Spirit imparts power for God's service. Back in
v12 he says "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 people, he taught people, he proclaimed the
gospel of God's Kingdom. So presumably, God's Spirit will
empower us too, to do those things. More particularly,
the Spirit will empower us for the work to which Jesus
has called each one of us. For example, telling others
about Jesus Christ. When we share the gospel with our
friends it's the Holy Spirit who'll work in their hearts
to convince them of the truth of what we're telling them.
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That's
what he says in v17: the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of
truth. In v26 he says: "But the Advocate, the Holy
Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach
you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to
you." Later on, in ch16 he talks about how the Holy
Spirit will convince the world of sin and righteousness
and judgement. We'll look at that in a couple of weeks. |
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Another
thing that the Holy Spirit does is that he reminds us of
what Jesus has taught us and so enables us to obey. The
Holy Spirit speaks to us, when we need to know what to do
and reminds us of God's words to us. Again, this is the
result of that new relationship we just talked about.
This is a whole new way of relating to God. |
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Do you
remember how God spoke to people in the Old Testament?
There was Abraham, sitting by his tent and up walked
three men. He invites them in and they start giving him a
message from God. It turns out that they're angels.
Samuel is sleeping in the Temple and he's woken by what
he thinks is Eli, calling his name. But it isn't Eli.
It's God, speaking to him with a message for Eli and the
people of Israel. Gideon's out threshing wheat in a
winepress and up comes an angel to tell him that God
wants him to go and rescue Israel. IN the Old testament
context, God has to use angels and intermediaries,
prophets and priests to warn the people, to instruct them
how to live. But all that has changed now, with the
coming of the Holy Spirit. What did we read in that
prophecy from Jeremiah 31? "The days are surely
coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant
with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ... this
is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel
after those days, says the LORD: 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. 34No
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; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember
their sin no more." |
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How is
that prophecy fulfilled? By Jesus asking the Father to
send the Holy Spirit to dwell in us, to remind us of what
Jesus has taught, to bring God's words back to our minds.
We no longer need to wait for a priest to remind us of
the law. We no longer have to wait for a prophet to come
along and tell us what God wants us to know. God can
speak to us directly through his Holy Spirit who dwells
within us. |
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And
finally, the coming of the Holy Spirit will bring us
peace. Not the sort of peace that the world gives. Not a
peace that's transitory or held in place by fear. In
Jesus time the world was at peace. The so-called pax
romana was widely praised, but it was a peace won and
maintained at the point of a sword. In our own day, peace
is maintained in a shaky sort of way, largely by the
force of arms of the USA and NATO. If Saddam Hussein gets
out of line they just send a few missiles in to shake him
up. But it isn't a very satisfactory peace is it? As the
latest terrorist bombing will show, it's only a limited
peace at best. And it certainly doesn't provide us with
peace of mind. |
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One of
the great desires of our day I think is for an inner
peace. An inner tranquility of spirit, not removed from
the responsibilities and relationships of the world, but
built up and experienced in the midst of it. That's the
sort of peace that Jesus promises us here. It's a peace
born out of a living personal relationship with Jesus
himself, deepened through a growing surrender of our
lives to the rule of his Holy Spirit, dwelling within. |
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And it's
a peace based on our faith in Jesus promises. That's why
Jesus points out to them, once again, in v29: "now I
have told you this before it occurs, so that when it does
occur, you may believe." The faith we have in Jesus'
promises, the peace we have because we believe those
promises, is based on solid evidence. Evidence like this,
where Jesus warns them beforehand what will happen, so
that later they'll be convinced of who he is. |
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So how
should this friend of mine who was so unsure of the right
to pray for themselves approach this issue of personal
prayer? Well, they should be aware first of all, of how
God sees them. That is he sees a disciple who loves
Jesus. He sees one who has been adopted as one of his
children. From that flows a whole host of corollaries. If
you're God's child, he wants you to speak to him. I have
a grandchild who's 9 months old and just starting to make
intelligible sounds. We can't wait for him to start
talking to us. To say mum, mum, mum, or dad, dad,
dad.Well, actually I'm waiting for him to say Granddad.
And it's like that with God. He wants you to talk to him.
What's more, he wants you to show your dependence on him.
He delights in giving you all good things. But it's more
than that even. When God sees us, he sees someone in whom
God's Spirit is dwelling. He sees someone who is truly
made in the image of God, in a way that even Adam and Eve
weren't. He sees his own being reflected in our Spirit.
And secondly they need to be aware that as a Christian,
prayer is more than just sending a message up to heaven.
Because God's Holy Spirit dwells within us, when we pray,
God is present in our praying. For us, prayer is
communicating within the mystery of the Godhead that we
talked about earlier. Paul puts it like this: "The
Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how
to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with
sighs too deep for words. 27And God, who
searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit,
because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to
the will of God." (Rom 8:26-27 NRSV) We don't need
to be afraid of asking unworthily, because the Spirit
himself filters those prayers for us, according to the
will of God. |
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So the
Holy Spirit is given to all who love Jesus Christ, to
empower us for his work, to teach us all things, and to
give us a real and lasting peace in the knowledge that
Jesus has overcome the world. How do you receive that
gift of the Holy Spirit? By being one who loves Jesus
Christ. How do you know if you're someone like that? By
the way you desire to obey his commands. |
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Lets pray
now, that God's Holy Spirit would be present in each of
our lives in a real way; that we would recognise his
presence and draw great comfort and peace from it as we
enjoy being part of God's own family. |
