Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] All right. It's been more than a week, so I want to make sure we're all quite literally on the same page.
[00:00:07] John, chapter 16 today. And John 15, Jesus says that I am the vine and you are the are the branches. And he talks about the value of abiding. We talked about that some weeks ago. A couple weeks ago, before the week before Easter, Pastor Les walked us through verses 18 and following the tail end of chapter 15, where Jesus says, you will be hated because you are following me because of your commitment to me. And then chapter 16, where we're going to start today, is really Jesus continuing that conversation. And really these last. These chapters that we're in. Chapter 14, 15, 16, 17 is one long monologue of Jesus just talking to his disciples with a few questions interspersed in there. So we'll start in verse one of chapter 16.
[00:00:54] So let's read the passage and then we'll pray and get into this.
[00:00:58] Starting in verse one of chapter 16, Jesus continuing after saying that there's going to be a world hating you. People are going to hate you. He says this. I have said these things to you to keep you from falling away.
[00:01:13] They will put you out of the synagogue. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. And we'll walk through this together in a few minutes. I did not say these things to you. When he says these things, he's referencing back to the end of chapter 15, this persecution that's incoming.
[00:01:40] I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you. But now I am going to him who sent me.
[00:01:47] And none of you asks, where are you going?
[00:01:50] But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your what your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin, because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father. And you will see me no longer in concerning judgment because the ruler of the world is judged.
[00:02:25] I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
[00:02:41] He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. And we conclude in verse 15 here, all that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Let's pray together.
[00:02:58] Lord Jesus, we are grateful that it is through your power and your strength, through your work on the cross, that we're able to. To come before you this morning, knowing full well that we are redeemed, that we are righteous in your sight. Those of us here today who have called upon your name for salvation, we realize that in by ourselves, in and of ourselves, we will walk away from you. We will run and flee from you that is light and good, you who are righteous and holy. But you called us back to yourself, Lord. You opened our eyes. And Lord, we, because of your work, are able to stand before you after we have confessed and trusted in you.
[00:03:40] When that happens, we see in this passage here that your spirit, your helper, comes to us.
[00:03:46] And so, Lord, we ask this morning that you would help us to understand what you want to say to us this morning. That you would open our eyes and our hearts to be moved by your word, by your spirit. This morning, the things that I say would really just be the things that you want to say, that I would get out of the way and your spirit would teach us this morning. In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:04:08] Assumptions.
[00:04:10] Assumptions can be good and helpful. Or assumptions can be unwise or dangerous. Can you say assumptions?
[00:04:20] Assumptions.
[00:04:22] Today there is an assumption that is vital for us to have in order for us to properly understand this text.
[00:04:32] So we know that assumptions, they can be good, they can be dangerous.
[00:04:37] The assumption that you and I need to have as we look at this text today is this. It's the assumption that Jesus has as he's speaking to his disciples. Jesus assumed that his disciples would represent him in words, in actions and his mission. And after he left, it's because of this assumption that Jesus says, Chapter 15. Look at chapter 15. There. He says the tail end of that. He says, people are going to persecute you. People are going to hate you. Because there's an assumption that we need to have. Say assumption.
[00:05:12] Assumption that these disciples, and even for us today, the assumption that is true for us today, if we want to properly apply this text, the assumption is this, that you and I are going to properly represent Jesus in our words, our actions and our mission.
[00:05:27] If we don't have that assumption as we look at this text, as Jesus has that assumption as he's speaking to his disciples, it's actually not applicable to us.
[00:05:37] For example, he says, the world will hate you because of me. But if you don't represent Jesus, will the world hate you because of Jesus?
[00:05:45] No.
[00:05:46] So the assumption that we move forward with is this, that we are properly striving daily to represent Jesus in our words and our actions, in the things that we do. Because of that, people will, as we saw from what Jesus says, he says the world will look at John, chapter 15, verse 18 says, if the world, or since the world hates you, know that it has hated me first because I am representing the Father. So our title today of the message is this the evangelist's helper. That is you and I as the evangelist. That's the assumption that we're moving forward with today.
[00:06:24] You and I are called to be evangelists. Amen.
[00:06:27] Like, we heard this even from Tom and Nicole as they were sharing just a minute ago. Called to go to reach the lost. That is not just something that we are called to do, to go thousands of miles away, but it could just be the neighbor next door. Right? The people next door also need to hear about Jesus. But the assumption we must have is, is this. That's our calling. Our identity is evangelists. So with that kind of backdrop, we're just going to walk through this text. There's a lot of verses here that we're covering. So let's jump right in. The first point you could write in on your outline. There's kind of 1.1 and then.2, and we'll see some letters underneath that in your outline. Point one, is this the previous warning? Jesus is just addressing what he's just spoken about. And he's elaborating a little bit more for.
[00:07:14] If you're looking at verses one through six, if you like to underline things or note things in your Bible, one of the things you want to pay attention to is this. Look what he says a few times. He says, I have said verse one. I have said all. It's on the screen here. Verse 1 and then the last part of verse 4, I have said all these things. Do you see where it says these things multiple times? I think five or six times in these first few verses, he says these things because he's referencing backwards to what he has just talked about. So people are going to hate you. They're going to persecute you. Here's the reason you could write that in point A, the previous warning. Here's the reason I have said these things to you. To keep you from. There's an interesting phrase there. To keep you from what?
[00:07:57] Falling away.
[00:07:59] Before we talk about that, just look at verse four, kind of the bookends of this first paragraph, verse four. The first part of it says, but I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. That is the hour of the persecutor, the person who's going to be hating you when their time comes. Now Jesus gives us a reason for why he's telling the disciples this.
[00:08:23] To keep you from. What's the two words?
[00:08:26] Falling away.
[00:08:27] It's an interesting phrase there, because is he talking particularly about them leaving or abandoning the faith? Because sometimes we talk about falling away. We think about, oh, they fell away from Christianity, right? You may know people like that, they grew up going to church and after a while something may have happened or time went on and they've walked away. So Jesus here, he's saying, I'm saying these things to you to keep you from. What's the two words?
[00:08:52] Falling away. So is Jesus saying, I think you might abandon the faith? What he's saying here is this. And maybe not necessarily the abandoning of the faith, but the phrase actually means this. I'm saying this to keep you from stumbling, to keep you from getting caught up, from getting discouraged, and maybe write some of those words in. To keep you from stumbling, maybe on the short run. Yes, to keep you from falling away. Remember what happens just a little while from this time that reading Jesus, arrest. The arrest is going to happen. He's in the garden. And what happens? Judas walks up the. The guards are with him. What do the other disciples do?
[00:09:30] Scatter?
[00:09:32] They would say they fell away.
[00:09:35] In Matthew chapter 14, Jesus says to his disciples, all of you will fall away.
[00:09:41] And then Peter, being Peter, steps up and says, this is John, Matthew 14. He says, if they all fall away, not me, I'm not going to be the one to fall away. They all might be the ones to fall away, but it won't be me. And then Jesus says, actually remember the rooster crowing?
[00:10:00] And he's gripped to the heart when that happens. So the reason here, he says, I don't want you to stumble. I don't want you to be disheartened. I don't want you to think this because hardship is happening. You might be doing the wrong thing. Because don't we as Christians believe that sometimes I'm going through My life. And then life gets really hard. And then you start thinking, does God really want me to do this? Have any of you thought that before? Maybe God's telling me to go do something else. And the disciples might fall into that trap. I am called to represent Jesus, but life got really hard. And they might think, am I really supposed to be an evangelist? Am I really supposed to represent Christ in this way? Here's what Jesus is saying. In order for you to stay strong, representing me, you, even you and I today. And the disciples need to know this.
[00:10:46] It won't make the persecution become any less, but it will make the persecution be a little bit more bearable. So I'm telling you this so that you don't give up, you don't get disheartened. He says something else. The second point B on your outline, is this the previous warning? He says, here's the reason for that. And then he gives a little bit more detail to this rejection that's going to happen. They will disown you and they will kill you. Look at verse two with me, the rejection. You could write this in on point B.
[00:11:14] And yes, this whole abc, I think, in a D is all starting with an R, if you might be wondering. The rejection, verses two and three, they will put you out of the synagogue.
[00:11:28] Now, that phrase out of the synagogue, you see that a phrase is actually in the original language. It's one word and it's to be kicked out. And we see this another time in John in chapter 9:22, when there was this man who was born blind. Remember that story? And then Jesus comes along and he heals him, and the guy doesn't know it was Jesus. And then they go to the. He goes to the religious leaders, and he's like, why are you carrying your mat? And he's like, well, Jesus told me to carry my mat. And then they said, well, you shouldn't do that because it's the Sabbath. And then they said, well, you don't really think you were born blind. So let's call your parents. They called the parents and the parents said, you should ask him.
[00:12:02] I mean, he's of age.
[00:12:05] And then it says in verse 22 of John 9, it says this. The reason the parents said this is because. Because they did not want to be put out of the synagogue.
[00:12:12] There was great fear for a Jew. This was a great threat to be kicked out of the synagogue. For us today, here's why. Because for us today, you and I know that we can go home and we can worship God. You can go on a trip and you can worship God. But for the Jew, they believed this in order to worship God, you would go to a place.
[00:12:34] That is how you worship God. Rightly you go to a city, you go to, for example, Jerusalem or you go to a synagogue, a place of a gathered people to worship. And so for them to be, for someone in Jewish culture to be kicked out of the synagogue, it was basically this, you can no longer worship God.
[00:12:51] Now imagine if somebody told you that, hey, you want to worship Jesus, I'm not going to let you worship God anymore. And not just that you're going to be kicked out of your community, your friends are going to be gone. We see also through this text as well is these are good Jewish men. They would have had friends in the synagogue. They would have had neighbors and co workers in the synagogue. Here's what we're seeing from this is Jesus is saying you're going to lose your friends, you're going to lose your neighbors, you're going to lose co workers because you are following me.
[00:13:24] Now why would God fearing people hurt followers of Jesus?
[00:13:28] Right? Isn't that the question? Why would God fearing people, These are God fearing people, they say kick you out of the synagogue. That means these are not Romans that are causing this persecution on the disciples. These are Jews. So the Jews might be wondering, wait a minute, why would people who love God persecute me?
[00:13:47] Romans 10 says this. For I bear the witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.
[00:13:55] They love the idea of God, their way of worshiping God, but they're missing Jesus.
[00:14:01] Jesus lays this out. He says this in verse three. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father doesn't. Saul, whose name was changed to Paul, didn't he do this because of his great love for God? He went and found Christians that he could persecute. He had a great zeal for God, but he missed Jesus.
[00:14:24] Friends, you and I might be rejected because of our faith with the assumption that it's because you're representing Jesus.
[00:14:35] This is hard. Imagine for the disciples as they're thinking this. Wait a minute. My brother or my sister who's not following you? Jesus. Does that mean they're going to reject me too?
[00:14:45] Following Jesus. Here's the takeaway here. Before we look at C on your outline. Following Jesus will cost you something.
[00:14:53] If it doesn't.
[00:14:54] Bold words here. If it doesn't, you're not following Jesus.
[00:14:59] Now maybe ask two questions. One, what have you given up because of your Commitment to Jesus.
[00:15:08] Maybe write that answer down somewhere. Maybe write that question down. What have you given up because of your commitment to following Jesus? Now, it may not feel like a loss to your soul because you love Jesus, but it should feel like a loss to your flesh.
[00:15:21] For example, I love going to church, but my flesh loses out on sleep that morning, right? My flesh feels the tension, feels like I'm losing something, but my soul is enriched.
[00:15:34] Secondly, a continual question for us in regards to this rejection, this cost.
[00:15:40] What do you still need to give up so that you can better follow Jesus?
[00:15:46] What is your flesh clinging to that the spirit of God is calling you to abandon?
[00:15:52] Hold those questions.
[00:15:54] Wrestle with them. Let's look at point C here.
[00:15:57] Not just that, we see the reason. Jesus says, you're gonna be hated because you're following me. They're gonna kill you. They're gonna persecute you. They're gonna arrest you because of me. See on your outline, is this the last part of verse four? In the first part of verse five, the relevance. He says, I didn't say these things to you from the beginning because why I was.
[00:16:18] I was with you. I was with you.
[00:16:22] But now I'm going to him who has sent me, Jesus. He gives really a reason. Here's why I didn't tell you this before. Because early on in Jesus ministry, when people didn't like the disciples going to and fro, healing people, all of that, Jesus as the leader, he got the brunt of the attack, didn't he?
[00:16:42] The Pharisees showed up and they weren't arguing with all the other disciples so much as they were arguing with the leader. Who was the leader?
[00:16:48] Jesus was. He was the face of this new movement. And so now Jesus is telling you, telling them, I'm about to leave. And guess what? No longer am I going to be the face of this new movement. Who's going to be the new face of this movement? The disciples are. And so he's saying at the first part. Three years ago, I didn't have to tell you this. Not because it wasn't important, but because I was going to take the brunt of it all. But now you're going to take the brunt of it all. Now, instead of me being killed because of my proclamation of truth, which Jesus was, then he left, you now are going to be killed.
[00:17:26] Church history tells us that other than John, the author of this gospel, all the other disciples were killed because of their faith. What's the lesson for us here?
[00:17:38] Jesus finishes his mission. He's finishing his mission. It's just a few hours, one could say not very long before Jesus is going to say three incredibly powerful words as he hung on the cross. What were the last three words? He says it is finished. Jesus is moments away from saying it is finished.
[00:17:58] And before he does that, here's what he's doing. He's telling the disciples, it's going to be hard. It's going to be really, really hard. Now that's not secret information. Even at the beginning of his call, he says, you're going to have to take up your cross and follow me. What's the lesson for us?
[00:18:16] Don't sugarcoat what it looks like to follow Jesus.
[00:18:20] It isn't all roses and daisies and sunshine. Sometimes it's hard and confusing and seems backwards and will draw weird looks or opposition from others. And that's okay. Jesus said that was going to happen. When with again that assumption that we're walking into today, that we are accurately striving to represent Jesus in our words and our actions and our mission. So as Jesus people, let's be willing to be honest with each other about hard things.
[00:18:53] Jesus did that.
[00:18:55] He said it's gonna be hard.
[00:18:57] Even following me is going to be hard. It's going to be hard to wrestle with. What does hope look like in the midst of despair? What does peace look in the midst of anxiety? What does joy look like in the midst of sadness and grief and loss? How do we struggle through that alone? We shouldn't.
[00:19:15] Jesus didn't. And he offers that to his disciples. We are going to do hard things together.
[00:19:22] We're going to see that in just a few minutes. The last R D on your outline is this not just the relevance, but let's look at their response. Verse five, the tail end and then verse six look with me.
[00:19:33] Yet none of you asks where are you going?
[00:19:39] And actually earlier on we have seen them ask where are you going? But we see the aim in their question wasn't celebrating Jesus journey, but rather you're leaving.
[00:19:49] What? And you see immediately in chapter 14 their question isn't yea, go Jesus, where you going? But more, how can we come with you?
[00:19:58] We don't want you to leave any of you. Like thought that before a friend or a neighbor or someone that you love, it's not, yeah, you're gonna go somewhere good, but can I come with you?
[00:20:07] That's their question to Jesus. But verse six, here's what it says. But because I have said these things, one, that I'm leaving and two, that you're gonna experience hard things while I'm gone.
[00:20:19] Your heart has been filled with what?
[00:20:22] Sorrow.
[00:20:24] Sorrow. Understandably so. Right.
[00:20:26] Jesus has been walking with them for years.
[00:20:29] And now he's saying, I'm leaving. And not just that. It's gonna get harder for you. Talk about good news.
[00:20:36] Talk about good news.
[00:20:39] In the midst of all that, Jesus is saying this. You're caring more about your comfort than about where I'm going. You're considering more about the moment than. Than about eternal things. Don't we do that too?
[00:20:55] We often forget about our true calling as Christians rather than our eternal.
[00:21:00] We often care more about our current situation rather than our eternal home.
[00:21:05] Thinking about, how can I be comfortable right now in my little space right here rather than I've been called to something greater.
[00:21:14] Let's not forget, friends, that our true calling as Christians is to our eternal home and allegiance to the kingdom of God.
[00:21:23] That's our primary aim.
[00:21:26] So as I entitled the sermon, like the Evangelist's Helper.
[00:21:30] Want to kind of give a little bit of context or a little bit of structure. Now, before we look at the second part of this, I'm going to ask you this question. Write this down if you have a pen or pencil.
[00:21:40] I want you to think about someone in your life that you love and care for that has not submitted to the Lord. That's not a Christian. Think about somebody in your life right now that you know you care for. They are not following Jesus.
[00:21:56] This is important for this next part. So think about somebody's name. Hopefully you have somebody in your life that you love and care for is not following Jesus. Write that person's name down in your outline somewhere.
[00:22:10] This is really hard to hear.
[00:22:12] Their friends for the disciples, that is their friends, their neighbors and their families will be rejecting them and fighting against them.
[00:22:19] But they love the disciples, love and care for these other people. The disciples might even be thinking when Jesus says people are going to kill you and kick you out of the synagogue and reject you because of their commitment and zeal for God. The disciples might be thinking, I know people who are zealous for God, but they're going to work against me.
[00:22:39] If you were in your shoes, their shoes, you'd be hoping that these other people convert and trust in Jesus, wouldn't you?
[00:22:48] I am hoping that the people who are opposing me would one day trust in Jesus and maybe hopefully very soon, you want them to repent of their sins and trust in Jesus so that hard words so that their path does not take them to hell.
[00:23:06] There's A burden here that rightfully weighs upon our hearts and their hearts. Even more so when we see people fighting not just against us, but when we realize their battle is not with us as followers of Jesus, but their battle is with Jesus.
[00:23:21] Because when people hate us because of Jesus, they're hating not just us, but they're hating Jesus. Right?
[00:23:28] That's the problem that we want to wrestle with here for just a moment. So when I experience hardship because of my faith in Jesus, I need to realize this.
[00:23:37] They hate Jesus. And that's a bigger problem than them hating me. That's a much bigger problem because sin is primarily not against us as people, but against God. And so as people press against even Christians today around the world, our brothers and sisters are dying and being persecuted because of their faith. The problem of the persecutor is not simply what they're doing to the other human, but their heart as enemies of God.
[00:24:06] Because we all are going to sin in various ways. But the greatest sin is our rejection of God.
[00:24:13] And so as you and I might experience hardship from other people who are not Christians, maybe the person you wrote down, you care about them, you receive, you realize they don't like me because of this. The problem is their heart and relationship with God.
[00:24:29] And so now we ask the question, what are we going to do?
[00:24:33] What are we going to do? I love these people. You wrote down somebody's name. I love this person and they matter to me. But their path is taking them apart from God, not closer to God. The disciples now also might be wondering, wait a minute, these are God fearing people who you're saying are going to hell.
[00:24:52] What?
[00:24:55] Now a rightful question then is what are we gonna do about this?
[00:25:00] And if matters couldn't make it any worse, Jesus is saying this, and now I'm leaving.
[00:25:08] You have to do it by yourself. And they say, no, we can't, but you won't be alone.
[00:25:15] They say, we need help. You're calling us to go out into the world where people are going to oppose us and kill us and kick us out of our community because of you, Jesus. And then you're saying, I'm leaving and.
[00:25:26] But I will send you help.
[00:25:28] I will send you help because I know you need it. I know you need a lot of help because this is a high calling that I'm sending you out into.
[00:25:39] I'm sending you help.
[00:25:41] The helper, the helper.
[00:25:46] I'm going to say something here that I hope and it helps us to get the, the gravity of what we want to step into next in this helper's work, we can't forget that the majority of people in Woodland are going to hell.
[00:26:06] The majority of people in California are going to hell.
[00:26:12] The majority of people in America are going to hell.
[00:26:17] The majority of people in this world are going to hell.
[00:26:25] Jesus knows this, and he's sending his disciples out into a world and he says, now go and make disciples, because I know the majority of people are going to hell.
[00:26:40] And by the way, don't go until you receive the Holy Spirit, because you won't be able to change people's hearts by yourself. It is the Holy Spirit who changes people's hearts. You can't do it by yourself. No matter how much convincing, how much training, how much reading you have done, you can't do it by yourself. Jesus knows that. And Jesus has a burden for the lost.
[00:27:06] And so he says, I'm going to send you a helper.
[00:27:09] Point two on your outline. The helper will do various things. The helper will do various things. The helper is, as you know, we see already have seen earlier, the Holy Spirit, someone who is called alongside us to help us.
[00:27:25] It is a he, not an it. It's not just a force, but the third person of the Trinity.
[00:27:31] As author and pastor Francis Chan says, he is the forgotten God. Even though we sing about him, we write about him, we about him here and there. 260 times the Holy Spirit is referenced in the. In the New Testament, in the New Testimony, in the New Testament. And yet oftentimes we can try to do things ourself. And Jesus says, you can't. You cannot convert the hearts of man by yourself.
[00:28:00] There are some groups and some denominations who say the Holy Spirit, who. Or the Holy Holy Ghost, just to add a little bit of, I don't know, something to that.
[00:28:10] And then there's the other side that so enveloped that everything is all about the Holy Spirit, maybe even to the detriment and the loss of talking about Jesus.
[00:28:21] We need to be somewhere really in the middle. We see the balance in the work of the Holy Spirit who's called alongside us to help us.
[00:28:31] Let's look together at why the Holy Spirit was sent into the world. We'll walk right through this here in verses 8 and following.
[00:28:39] Firstly, we see this. The Holy Spirit was sent to convict sin. Convict of sin. You can write that in point A on your outline. When he comes, he will. We're gonna see that multiple times through these next few verses.
[00:28:53] Nine times, I think we see in these next few verses, between here in verse 15 that he will do so. The Holy Spirit is active, not passive. Not sitting back waiting for something to happen. Rather, the Holy Spirit is active. When he comes, he will convict. That word there also translated to expose or to refute, to bring light to the world concerning three things.
[00:29:16] What's the first one?
[00:29:17] Sin. What's the second one?
[00:29:20] Righteousness. We're all reading the same Bible. You could say it out loud. What's the third one?
[00:29:24] Judgment. And then we walk through the next few. He kind of unpacks what each of these things are. Let's look at sin. Firstly. It's already on the screen there. Convicting of sin. The Holy Spirit will expose to the world that their greatest sin is that they are rude sometimes, that they're rejecting Jesus to be hung up on any other sin of others who don't know Jesus. One doesn't make sense and two is futile. We at times can get so angry at the world out there doing terrible, terrible things. But if they don't know Jesus, why would we expect any different?
[00:30:05] They're running away from God. Sin is a part of their life. And so for us, we need to realize first and foremost, the greatest sin that anyone can commit is rejection of Jesus.
[00:30:18] And the Holy Spirit comes to convict people, to expose them. Say you've rejected the King of Kings.
[00:30:26] You know this. If you try to convince someone that they need Jesus or that God is real. Have any of you tried that before? Try to tell someone, oh, you should believe. Because look at this and look at this. And don't you know that you're a sinner? You've done this and you've done this. And they can say, oh, I don't care.
[00:30:40] And at times they're gripped to the heart and they realize, oh, my word, you're right.
[00:30:46] That's the Holy Spirit opening their eyes and realize, showing them you are walking away from God.
[00:30:53] After conversion and salvation occurs. You and I know that we continue to experience conviction at times, don't we? Hopefully there's times we know we're doing the wrong thing. The Holy Spirit continues to work that, to work conviction inside of us, to show us you're walking away from Jesus. Come back, come back.
[00:31:09] Be on your outline is this. Not only does he convict of sin, but also convicts of righteousness or he reveals righteousness. Look what it says there. Verse 10, concerning righteousness. Because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. What's he talking about here? How is that? How are those things connected?
[00:31:29] Here's how they're connected. Firstly, consider the people that Jesus is talking to and even the people in the world today who think they're good people. Have you talked to anyone who thought they were a good person before? You just think, I think I'm a good person. All right, great. Cool. You think you're a good person?
[00:31:44] Can you come back to life and go and be with God by yourself?
[00:31:49] No, you can't.
[00:31:51] Can Jesus?
[00:31:52] Yes. Yes, he can. And he is the one who's able to, without effort, approach the throne of God with confidence.
[00:32:01] You know that you've done some little mistakes. And when you compare your little mistakes with the holiness of God, you see, you can't approach him with confidence.
[00:32:09] You can't do it by yourself. So I'm going to the Father and you're going to see me no longer. This is the truth that he's communicating to them. The resurrection and ascension of Jesus are proof that Jesus is the righteous one. And we can't do that by ourselves.
[00:32:25] We cannot be with the righteousness and the holiness of God by our own good works.
[00:32:32] It is only through Jesus. Thirdly, see on your outline, he's not only convicting of sin, righteousness, saying, hey, world, you're not righteous by yourself, but also of judgment. Look what it says. Verse 11 says, concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged.
[00:32:49] The world is full of people who make judgments about people, about situations. Morality. Is judging a bad thing?
[00:32:58] Making judgments is that bad?
[00:33:01] No.
[00:33:03] It's necessary to stay alive.
[00:33:05] Like when you're gonna leave here today, you're gonna pull out onto the street. If you're driving, and you're gonna see a car coming from the left or the right, and you're gonna make a judgment, an instant judgment in your mind. How fast is that car going? If they're going like five miles an hour and they're way down there, you're probably gonna pull out. You made a judgment, didn't you? That's necessary. If that car's going 100 miles an hour and they're still like, you know, just right there at the light or something, are you gonna pull out?
[00:33:30] You made a wise judgment.
[00:33:33] You realized that's not a good idea. I have to weigh out based on what I'm seeing around me, with what I know, what I've experienced. Here's what Jesus is communicating to them here.
[00:33:45] When it comes to the world, those of whom reject Jesus, that is, there is a big fault found in their judgment.
[00:33:53] Cause plenty of smart people, regardless of your faith, you pull out onto the street, you realize Should I turn left or should I turn right? How fast is the car coming? People make judgments all the time, regardless of faith, regardless of spirituality.
[00:34:05] But there is one judgment that is incredibly poor for those who don't yet know Jesus. And it's their judgment about Jesus.
[00:34:13] They look at him and say, eh, I think I'll pass bad judgment.
[00:34:17] Bad judgment.
[00:34:21] And so we see here that concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged, who's the ruler of the world?
[00:34:28] Satan.
[00:34:30] Satan is the ruler of the world right now. Not forever.
[00:34:33] Right now, he's saying even someone as powerful as him has made a bad judgment. He has not submitted to the power of God. And what happens to him?
[00:34:44] Eternal damnation. And so don't make judgments like the devil.
[00:34:51] That seems harsh, right? Like I don't make judgments like the devil. There's a key judgment that those who haven't yet trusted in Jesus, who haven't their eyes have not been opened, that there's making regular judgments similar to that of Satan.
[00:35:04] It's rejection of Jesus that's heavy.
[00:35:09] Second Thessalonians 1:9 speaks about the future that awaits those rejecting Christ. And it isn't good.
[00:35:16] It isn't good at all.
[00:35:19] They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
[00:35:31] 2nd Thessalonians 1:9.
[00:35:34] Eternal punishment, destruction. You feeling the weight of this?
[00:35:38] And then Jesus says, I've sent you as evangelists into the world not to do this by yourself.
[00:35:44] The Holy Spirit is going to do the work of convicting of sin, of showing people they're not righteous and showing them that they're making bad judgments. And about him. Now, the last two points that we'll look at here briefly is this. The Spirit will not only do that, but he will also show us, teach us true things. He will give us truth. Timely truth is what you can write it down. He will guide us in timely truth. I still have many things to say. Jesus says in verse 12, look in your Bibles, but you cannot bear them. Now, when the Spirit of what truth comes, he will guide you in all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will declare it to you that declare to you the things that are to come. If we zoom out for a moment, we see Jesus is realizing that there is much more for them to know.
[00:36:38] The disciples, right now, right here, they do not understand a lot.
[00:36:43] What I love is that later on in the New Testament it says that the disciples then realized what Jesus meant by something. It's the Holy Spirit opening their eyes. Have you ever read the Bible?
[00:36:55] And real, you know, you've read maybe a particular passage or a particular book and you see something and you're like, I have never seen that before. Any of you been there before or. I've read that so many times and it has never spoken to me that way. But literally the same words are there that were there 10 years ago when I read it or last year when I read it. But somehow I'm seeing this for the first time, friends. That's the Holy Spirit opening your eyes to something at the right time. Because I know, and you know this, that if I were to read that same thing 10 years ago, and even if somebody were explaining it to me like that, 10 years ago, I would have been like, okay.
[00:37:30] But here I am, maybe, hopefully grown over the course of 10 years, and I look at that with completely new eyes, timely truth, and he continues to do that for us. Someone, for the first time reading through John is going to see one thing maybe for the hundredth time. You're going to see something completely different.
[00:37:48] Because that's what the Holy Spirit does. He opens our eyes at the right time because he's personally working inside of us.
[00:37:54] It's not just an umbrella spirit who's like, I guess we'll kind of do this for all these people and hope it works out for all of them. He knows every one of us personally.
[00:38:03] Last point on your outline is this.
[00:38:06] The Holy Spirit will glorify Jesus. The Holy spirit will glorify Jesus. 14 on your outline, verse 14 point E on your outline is this.
[00:38:17] He will. There's another he will. He will glorify me. For he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. The work of the Holy Spirit is to point people to who?
[00:38:35] Jesus.
[00:38:37] The Holy Spirit does not aim to have a sideshow for himself as a man would do. No. The Holy Spirit, he is faithful to help mankind see Jesus for who he truly is, to help us to know him closely and intimately, to understand and to have wisdom and insights into the person. And the work of Jesus, to open our eyes to the mercy of Jesus, the grace of Jesus and the love of Jesus. That's the work of the Holy Spirit in us. It's like, I want to edify Jesus. That's what I want to do. And so when you step into a place, maybe a conversation or a Church, religious group, denomination, where the Holy Spirit is paramount and Jesus is on the sidelines. You know that that's not actually the work of the Holy Spirit.
[00:39:18] Because the Holy Spirit's aim is to say, look at Jesus.
[00:39:22] Look at Jesus, over and over and over again. If you want to know more about Jesus, you say, spirit inside of me, teach me more about Jesus. And he's not going to be like, can we talk about me sometime? Like, I would really like some attention here.
[00:39:37] No, rather he says, of course I will.
[00:39:41] Of course I will teach you more about him.
[00:39:45] The Holy Spirit isn't here to make us feel all warm and fuzzy all the time or to make us do crazy things. No, we have the Holy Spirit in us to change us, to be more like Jesus, giving us boldness to proclaim him, the wisdom to articulate truth and the comfort of God in hard times. Why?
[00:40:06] So that Jesus can be glorified for the building up of the church. First Corinthians speaks about the building up of the church, the gifts of the Spirit. Not so we can just talk about the Holy Spirit and ignore Jesus, but rather church can be built up and thus Christ can be glorified.
[00:40:23] Close with a couple of thoughts here.
[00:40:25] The first portion, you have point one in your outline. It's kind of one chunk there, and then seven through 15. The second point in your outline, the first kind of maybe takeaway that you might have upon the many others that we've looked at is this.
[00:40:37] That first grouping of verses, verses 1 through 6. Losing friends and family because of your obedience to Jesus might happen according to Jesus, according to. If we're faithful to him and we're willing to invite people into our circles who don't look like us, sound like us, believe like us, there will be people who push back and say, I don't want that.
[00:41:02] It's important for us to know why they're pushing us away. It's because of Jesus inside of us.
[00:41:08] And too often we're like, I don't know if I want to tell someone. I don't know if I want to be this evangelist person. I don't know if I want to go and express actually that someone is far from God and needs Jesus in order to be close to God because it might offend them. I don't know because they might not like whatever the reason is, whatever the fears that we have, I'm not alone. I'm not saying that I'm different than you all in this.
[00:41:35] We all have some level of fear there, don't we?
[00:41:39] If someone says, hey, just on your way out of the store, next time you're grocery shopping, just tell the checker about Jesus.
[00:41:45] Something inside of you like, whoa, are you sure?
[00:41:48] There's something grips us.
[00:41:50] But if we truly are willing to say, I'm an instrument of the Holy Spirit, I'm here just as his, his tool, then the second part of this will be even more so true for us.
[00:42:05] I truly believe that he wants to help, that he wants to. He has not abandoned me.
[00:42:12] I'm not alone in this.
[00:42:14] So concluding here. Are you regularly praying for the lost in your life?
[00:42:19] Are you regularly praying for them? You have a list somewhere? Maybe. If not, start doing that, maybe write some more names down. You already wrote one person's name down. Write some other people's names down. I'm praying for these people, okay? I have been praying for them. Maybe I'm gonna ask them to read through portion of the Bible with me. I'm gonna sit down, we're gonna have a conversation.
[00:42:38] It's expecting the Holy Spirit to work through me.
[00:42:43] If you've never trusted in Jesus, I want you to ask right now, Jesus, do you want me to trust in you?
[00:42:51] And I promise you, he won't say no.
[00:42:54] Jesus. Assumption. Remember that at the beginning we had this assumption. Can you say assumption?
[00:42:59] Assumption. Here's the assumption that his disciples would represent him in word, in action and in mission. And when this happens, we can expect to receive opposition and we can expect to receive help from the great Helper. Let's pray. Dear Jesus, we are grateful today that we're able to know without a shadow of a doubt for those here in the room that have trusted in you, that you are helping us.
[00:43:25] You're giving us courage, you're giving us boldness.
[00:43:29] You're asking us to step outside of our comfort zone.
[00:43:34] I also realize, Lord, that your word is powerful and direct when it comes to those who have not yet trusted in you. And so I hurt this morning as I consider this passage and the judgment that you speak about for people that I love, people in this room who are loved.
[00:43:57] This is serious, Lord, you've burdened us.
[00:44:01] Help us to move outside of our comfort zone because of this great burden that we have for the lost.
[00:44:08] No matter what fear we might have, anxieties or tensions, uncertainty, Lord, that we would move with faith, great faith, because of the burden that you're pressing on us for the lost.
[00:44:20] In Jesus name, amen.
