Easter 5

1  We also have Jesus with us in His Spirit

If you suddenly realized that the one you’ve been trusting

through thick and thin, through good and bad

wasn’t really behind you like you thought:

would you be disappointed?

Last week we heard about the sorrow of Jesus’ disciples

when they could no longer see Jesus with them.

We might feel a similar sorrow sometimes,

but though we don’t see Him, He is with us.

There is more than one way that our Lord is with us.

Today we hear from the same chapter as last week,

as Jesus prepared His disciples for His ascension to heaven.

Even this announcement made them sorrowful,

but He explains that He will still be with them — and us.

He is with us through the Holy Spirit He has sent to help us.

Though the Holy Spirit is not the Son of God,

He does share the same divine essence as the Son, and where the Spirit is found, the Son is also found.

Jesus explains that it’s better for His disciples and us

that we have the Spirit with us instead of Jesus’ local presence.

In fact, it’s better not only for His disciples, but for the world.

Today we focus on this theme revealed in our text:

We also have Jesus with us in His Spirit

So that His Word convicts the whole world So that we have the whole counsel of God

2  John 16:5–15

“But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled 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 depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.”

2.1  So that His Word convicts the whole world

There are many around us who think God is far away.

A very popular song a few years ago claimed:

“God is watching us, from a distance.”

Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,

unlike most of the founding fathers,

were not Christians.

They were Deists, and later, Unitarians.

They believed in a god,

but one so removed, that we can’t rely upon him now.

Is God really so far away as that?

Not according to Jesus.

Jesus said it’s advantageous for us

that His local presence be removed from the earth.

But He never said He wouldn’t be with us.

Instead, He promised to send the Helper, the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit has come,

so Jesus’ presence with us continues in other ways.

Jesus teaches us three activities of the Holy Spirit on earth.

He doesn’t list the outward gifts

like speaking in tongues, or interpretation of tongues, or prophecy, or healing.

Those things did happen, but His main work is different.

Jesus teaches us that the main work of the Holy Spirit is to convict.

That is, He changes human hearts to admit that God is true.

So each of the Spirit’s three main activities happens in the heart of man.

And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

This is exactly what we and the whole world need:

a change of heart, through the Word of God.

The sin that separates us from God is a condition of the heart, and so that’s what the Holy Spirit has to change.

We could spend all day talking about the things we say and do,

and the many ways we suffer from what happens.

We could spend another whole day talking about our bad choices,

and how much sorrow and hardship they usually bring upon us.

But the Holy Spirit works where the real sickness lies:

the sinful heart of man.

Jesus said,

For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies.

We could add: out of the heart proceed our bad choices,

and the cause of most of our suffering.

So the work of the Holy Spirit is exactly what the world needs.

Jesus said He convicts the world of sin.

That is, He causes us to admit

that it’s our rebellion against God’s authority, that it’s our rejection of His Word

that has estranged us from our Creator and our God.

We are at fault,

and in our fault, we deserve to be damned with the devils.

Jesus said that He convicts the world of righteousness.

That is, He causes us to admit

that our salvation from sin is found in God, not in us, that the obedience and righteousness of Christ is His gift, and that He has reconciled us to God through His blood and death.

Through Christ alone,

we are righteous in God’s sight through faith, and are saved.

Jesus said that He convicts the world of judgment.

That is, He causes us to admit

that the earthly glories we hold so dear are passing away, that worldly works now so highly praised will be judged, and that we who are justified have no enduring city on earth.

Because Satan is already judged,

we seek the city that is to come.

These works of the Holy Spirit are of great importance,

far above our own desires and deeds, and far more lasting than the greatest works of mankind.

If we have the eyes for it,

we can see these works happening all around us, especially as the End draws nearer.

Though we might suppose that our God and Savior

are nowhere to be found on earth,

Jesus was right. It is more advantageous for us to have the Helper:

and better for the whole world.

Because we have Him, we also have Jesus.

2.2  So that we have the whole counsel of God

Jesus also said, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.

The apostles still had much to learn.

Jesus also accomplished this through the Holy Spirit.

After He ascended into heaven,

Jesus sent His Spirit upon the Church at Pentecost. After that, the Apostles continued teaching and writing

until the New Testament was written.

The apostle Paul said to one group of pastors (Acts 20:27):

I have not shunned to declare to you the whole counsel of God.

Now, all of that has also come to us in the scriptures.

We find that the fallen world doesn’t much appreciate the Spirit’s work.

Even among Christians, we find that lesser gifts are sought after,

while the greater gifts are neglected.

For example, miracles of healing or removing demons,

prophesying the future, seeing angels, and such:

Those are the spiritual things that excite us,

But hearing God’s Word, confessing our sins,

even eating the body and drinking the blood of Christ:

Those are the things that seem ordinary,

hardly worth talking about with each other, much less telling our unbelieving neighbors.

But the Word of God is by no means ordinary.

This is the power of God to salvation, for everyone who believes. This is the truth that Jesus promised to His disciples,

brought to us by none less than the Spirit of truth.

We may wonder sometimes what we can say to other people,

to give them a reason to visit our Church on Sunday.

Maybe we can’t think of anything special. But there is something special here!

By God’s grace, we actually teach and believe His Word!

Sure, a lot of churches claim to do this,

but talk is cheap. Compare them to Holy Scripture.

It’s a rare thing that we have here, by God’s grace. The Bible truly determines all that we do and say,

and Christ crucified is at the center.

As I said, the fallen world doesn’t like the Spirit’s work.

Why would it?

The Holy Spirit puts every sinner to death

through the message of the Law.

Natural man would rather live, and live his own way.

That’s why it’s so hard for us to be good

employees, citizens, or members of our own households;

and why children have such a hard time being obedient.

But death is the only answer for sin,

and it’s better to die to sin and live forever with Christ, than to live now in sin and then suffer death eternally.

Also, the Holy Spirit plants the seed of faith

through the message of the Gospel.

The world wants nothing to do with that,

because it means that we are restored to God, owingh more thanks to Him than we could ever repay.

So the world and the devil conspire to resist the Holy Spirit.

For hundreds of years, the world rejected faith out of hand.

It’s unprovable. It’s never really helped anyone, anyway. It contradicts what we observe in the universe.

Karl Marx called religion the opium of the masses,

meaning that it only keeps the common man happy

while he is enslaved by the wealthy.

Darwin and others went to great lengths

to explain how we could exist without a Creator.

Thomas Jefferson tried to edit the Bible itself.

Today, we see all these things,

and the condescending frustration that Christianity keeps mankind from its full potential.

So says the modern world.

But now we’ve begun to see the rising of many religious beliefs.

Most, if not all, are recycled from long ago.

But the multitude of contradictory teachings

has given many people the excuse that they can’t tell which is true.

How can the Word of God continue to exist in such a world? How could the Gospel possibly enlighten such rebellious hearts?

The answer is not found in the Church, but in God. The Holy Spirit alone keeps the Gospel with us.

Thanks be to God!

He’s the one who has enlightened our own rebellious hearts

by the power of His Word and Baptism.

He’s the one who has brought us to our Savior,

and He’s the one who can answer lies with the Truth.

So as we may be disheartened by the forces against our Lord’s Church,

and by the weakness in our own hearts,

This text is for us.

God may not be occupying space on earth right now,

but He is nevertheless here with us.

He forgives our failings and our weaknesses. He strengthens us and feeds us with the power in Himself. He invites us to receive forgiveness and strength again each week.

And now, He sends us out to serve Him and to love our neighbor;

our spirits having been restored by His.

Jesus is still with us.

Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria!