TROTS: Holy Spirit 2

TROTS: Holy= Spirit 2—REVELATION John 16:12-15

This morning, we return to the sixteenth chapter of John’s Gospel and the teachings of Jesus concerning the Holy Spirit.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Jesus is in the Upper Room with His disciples, teaching them one last time before leaving to go over to the Mount of Olives where He would be arrested and, onl= y a few hours later, crucified. B= eginning with verse 12, Jesus tells them:

12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He w= ill not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That = is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Last Sunday, we heard what Jesus had to say about the = Holy Spirit’s work in bringing conviction to our lives, specifically, how = the He convicts us concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Today, we turn our attention to how the Holy Spirit wo= rks to reveal new truth. When the Sp= irit comes, Jesus said, “he will guide you into all truth” (v. 13).<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'>

Now, a couple of warnings: 1) this involves some prett= y deep stuff, so we are going to have to dig a little to get it; and = 2) we’re doing this in the context of a society that increasingly questi= ons whether there is any absolute truth—at least, any that we can really = know and believe in.

Jesus says there is—first, He tells us that He, Himself, is the embodiment of God’s truth--and that the Holy Spirit w= orks in our lives to make God’s truth known.

That’s what we mean by “revelation.”= It’s much easier to say that everything’s relative, so there is no absolute truth--which would mea= n, of course, that you and I are accountable to no one but ourselves. Which is how most people live their lives today.

But God’s Spirit convicts us concerning the trut= h, and tells us there is more of God’s truth yet to come. Listen again to the words of Jesus= in v. 12: “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.̶= 1; There is more truth that you need = to know, Jesus is saying, but you are not yet ready for it.

Now, what I want you to understand is that this is a p= attern we see all through the Bible. Only Jesus expresses it like this, but what He says here reveals something of the mind of God as He has inspired the Biblical writers all along.

After three years with the disciples, impressing them = every day with His words and His actions, there was still much more that Jesus ne= eded to teach them. He told them t= hat He had shared with them so far only what they could “bear,” in oth= er words, only what they could take in, understand, and put into practice.

But here’s the thing: this is the same pattern t= hat God has followed from the beginning. You’ve read those Old Testament passages which seem so contrar= y to the teachings of Jesus. For instance, when God tells His people to conquer a city and then to annihilate all the inhabitants. That tro= ubles us as Christians.

The reason often given for so completely destroying th= eir enemies is to avoid any contamination by their heathen beliefs and practices—kill them all and there isn’t much danger of any nega= tive influences, right?

It’s just hard to get that kind of thing to mesh= with the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament. He told us to love our enemies, tu= rn the other cheek, be kind to one another--that sort of thing.

The only way I know to resolve this is to understand t= hat God’s revelation of Himself and His will for us is “progressive= ” in nature. In fact, Bible sch= olars often speak of the “progressive revelation” that we find in the Bible= .

This simply means that we don’t receive all of God’s truth at once—it comes to us in stages. There’s a big difference, for example, between what we find in Leviticus and what we find in Luke. Jesus explained to his disciples t= hat God gives us only what we can bear at the time. Are you following this?

Of course, God still wants us to maintain purity in our lives, in our faith, and in our relationships—just as before. But this doesn’t mean we att= ack others and destroy them.

With the full revelation of God in Jesus Christ and no= w with the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we understand that we are not= to destroy those who do not accept our faith or our lifestyle. Instead, we are to love them and s= erve them and seek the right time to share with them the Good News of Christ.

So God revealed Himself progressively over the centuri= es as His people were ready to receive what He wanted to show them. Jesus simply says that God isnR= 17;t finished revealing new truth, that there is still more to come--much more to understand--as God continues to make Himself known.

Now, we’re going to take this a bit further̵= 2;and like last week, you may feel like we’re wandering off into the woods again—but try to stay on the trail with me, and hopefully, we’ll get where we need to go. Foll= ow this:

1. In our text, Jesus calls the Holy Spirit the “Spirit of Truth.”

2. His purpose is to bring people to the “God of Truth” (Is.65:16)

3. God has made Himself known through His Son, who is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6).

Jesus explains further how this truth comes to us. Listen closely to verse 15: “= ;All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.” If you follow that, you realize th= at the entire GODHEAD, and by that we mean the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is involved in getting God’s truth to us.

What the Holy Spirit reveals to us is only what He has received from the Son, who gives to the Spirit only that truth which He has= received from the Father. There is a complete consistency and continuity here—and if you are thinking by n= ow, “do we really need to know this?” you’ll have to take tha= t up with Jesus. He felt it was im= portant to teach us these things.

But that doesn’t mean we’ll understand it all. The great theological th= inkers down through the centuries have wrestled with these issues. The Bible clearly says there is on= ly one God.

It also says that God has made Himself known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They have tried their best to explain this truth, but it forever remains a myste= ry. I suppose there will always be thi= ngs about the Infinite God that you and I cannot comprehend with our very finite minds.

We have no choice but to walk by faith in our relation= ship with God, and to be thankful when those moments of revelation come to us—when we get some fresh glimpse of God, some new understanding of H= is nature or His will for our lives.

If I may go back to the imagery of hiking on a mountain trail—if you’ve ever done it, you know that much of your time is spent under a thick canopy of vegetation.&= nbsp; Even in the middle of the day, it can be so thick that you hardly see the sun at all.

But then there’s a bright spot up ahead. Usually this is caused by an outcr= opping of rock, or perhaps the trail takes you above the tree line. Whatever the reason, when you̵= 7;re in the clearing, you get to see things that you haven’t been able to = see before. And it’s beauti= ful, often it’s awe-inspiring.

Well, that’s how it is when the Spirit reveals n= ew truth. Often it’s a tru= th that we’ve heard about before, that we’ve always sort of assumed was true, but now we SEE it—and that makes all the difference. God’s Spirit works in us, an= d now we KNOW it’s true.

We may hear for years, for instance, that it is in los= ing our lives that we find life—but then we experience it—we have an “aha” moment—a revelation--and life is never the same.

We’ve been told about something called “the peace that passeth understanding,” but then in the midst of a crisis,= we finally turn our burden over to the Lord, and this sweet peace actually hap= pens in our hearts! That’s a= nother revelation—a life-changing inspiration. That’s the work of the Spiri= t, friends.

So the Holy Spirit reveals God’s truth—tru= th which always changes our lives for the better. Above all, He works to draw us to = Jesus, to bring us to repentance and faith in Him, and to help us understand and follow in His way for our lives.

Jesus Christ is the ultimate Truth that the Father wan= ts us to receive, so the Spirit never points to Himself, but only and always to Jesus. Listen to what Jesus s= ays in verse 14: “He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” The Spirit always directs us to the Savior.

There is a story that is told about the Apostle Peter = as he preached to the crowds at Pentecost. You recall that that’s when the gift of the Holy Spirit first arrived. As Peter is preachin= g and the Holy Spirit is working, among those responding according to the legend = were these:

1) A man pushes his way through the crowd, and says: "Peter, do you think there is any hope for me? I am the man who made that crown of thorns and placed them upon Jesus’ head; do you think he will save me?"

"Yes," said Peter, "if you will call upon Him now, he will h= ear you. He will answer your pray= er and save you."

2) Another man came forward saying, "I’m the man who took that r= eed out of Jesus’ hand, and used it to beat on that thorny crown sending it deep into his brow: Do = you think he will save me?"

"Oh, yes," said Peter, “he told us to go into the world and preach the Gospel to every creature. He did not mean for you to be left = out. He did not come to condemn us. He came to put his arm under us an= d lift us toward heaven."

3) Another man, elbowing his way through the crowd, gets to Peter and says, "I am the Roman soldier who took the spear and drove it into his heart= ; could there possibly be any hope for me?"

"Yes," said Peter. = "And there’s an easier way to reach his heart than that: ‘Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

All three men had access to Christ’s forgiveness= and salvation in that moment. It’s the Holy Spirit who work= s in us to let us know, and who leads us to the Savior. If we’ve ever come to Christ= and received Him as Savior and Lord, it was the Holy Spirit who enabled us to s= ee our need, and to see Christ as the answer to our need.

But the revealing work of the Spirit does not end there. He continues to point = out new truths for as long as we live and walk with Christ Jesus. A little girl asked her father, “Daddy, why do big people stop growing?”

Well, we never reach a place in our Christian journey = when it’s time to stop growing, or to stop moving forward into new truth.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Receiving Christ as Savior begins a lifelong process of growing and learning.&= nbsp; That’s why the Holy Spirit takes up residence in our lives. He becomes the teacher inside of u= s that keeps pointing us onward and upward in pursuit of God’s truth.

Sometimes the Spirit works gently and gradually to gro= w His fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Sometimes He prods us a bit to reveal gifts for servic= e that we didn’t know we had—because we didn’t have them--until = the Holy Spirit put them there.

Sometimes He leads us into a period of spiritual uneas= iness because He needs to break through our preconceived notions and prejudices to confront us with a new truth—perhaps something that we have spent mos= t of our lives resisting!

We dare not get so comfortable in our status-quo relig= ion that the Spirit does not occasionally take some long-held notion that we’ve clung to and turn it on its head. Don’t think for a moment tha= t God has finished revealing His truth to you or to us.

As Jesus Christ continues to grow us up, He works thro= ugh the Spirit to challenge our beliefs, our attitudes, our ways of living. He challenges our values and our motives. He challenges our ap= athy and our neglect of the things that matter most.

The Holy Spirit not only reveals the truth about God.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He often reveals the truth about u= s—more truth at times than we want to acknowledge. But that’s part of growing, friends. It may be painful at= times, but it’s necessary.

So unless we allow the Holy Spirit to challenge us, our faith shrivels and our spiritual lives become a bore. The excitement comes with the chal= lenge to keep growing in Christ.

If God’s Spirit hasn’t challenged your life about anything lately, then it’s time to shake the dust off your faith and get in touch with the Sprit of God within you. There is always more He wants to r= eveal to us—and if we’re open to Him, He will. And with each new revelation comes= new insight and new joy!