John 14v15 — David Gooding

Jesus Promises the Comforter and the Spirit of Truth

Chapter 14, beginning in verse 50. This is our Lord Jesus talking to his apostles, and he says,. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, for it beholdeth him not, neither knoweth him.

Ye know him, for he abides with you, and shall be in you. And then some verses from chapter 16 of the same gospel. Chapter 16 and verse 5,. But now I go unto him that sent me, and none of you asks me, Whither goest thou?

But because I have spoken these things unto you, sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you.

But if I go, I will send him unto you. He, when he is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me. Of righteousness, because I go to the Father, and ye behold me no more.

Of judgment, because the Prince of this world has been judged. I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. Howbeit, when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth, for he shall not speak from himself.

But what things soever he shall hear, these shall he speak. He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine, and shall declare it unto you. All things whatsoever the Father hath are mine.

Therefore said I, that he taketh of mine, and shall declare it by that same Holy Spirit, good understanding of his word. In this series of studies this weekend, we have been thinking of the Christian pathway.

After we become Christians, our development in the sins of God, our development of Christian character, our development in the school of holiness. And we began last night by considering first of all, that profound Christian assurance and confidence that we have.

Confidence that we shall attain the glory of God. Confidence even in face of tribulation. Knowing that tribulation, when it has done its worst, can only produce faith and endurance. And confidence based not in the feeling of the moment, but confidence based in the very nature and character of the love of God.

And as we were thinking then of our Christian assurance, how that we may be absolutely sure, not only that we have already peace with God, but that one day shall attain the very glory of God. We found it comforting and encouraging in the extreme.

Discipleship as Learning from Christ

This morning however, we were thinking of the topic of discipleship. For when we become Christians, among other things, we become disciples. Or if you like to translate it so, learners. And Christ who is our savior, becomes also our teacher.

We found that idea attractive too. Why if we had had parents who could have afforded to have sent us to some high-ranking school, happy shouldn't we? And if they had had to pay a lot of money for our education, the world would hear of it.

Do you know it cost my parents 400 a year to send me to school. God's own son was prepared to become my teacher. By the insignificant word that I am, and daily taught by God's own son, my heart is lifted up not in pride, but in profound thankfulness and gratitude to God that he should even bother to try and teach me.

And we were comforted to remember his words that as he invites us to come and learn and to accept his yoke, his yoke is easy and his burden is light. We were encouraged too to think of the advantages that come from our learning, from our discipleship.

In the words of our Lord, if you continue in my word, then you shall be my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. This morning we did sense that there was another side to this whole business.

The Cost of Following Christ

We found that the path of discipleship can be, and frequently is, very costly. And we found our Lord's demand so absolute that perhaps some of us fell to thinking, well, perhaps the cost would be a bit too much to bear.

How could we really face it? We heard him say, look, if any man comes after me and hates not his mother and father and brother and sister, that is, if he's not prepared to give them the second place and put me first, then he can't be my disciple.

And we heard him say again, if anybody comes after me and doesn't deny himself and take up his cross, he cannot be my disciple. And we heard him say again, whosoever he be, that renounces not all that he has, cannot be my disciple.

And as I say, thinking about those demands of our Lord Jesus and how absolute they are, we may well have felt, pay the price, so I could stick the call. It has often been a difficulty like that that has stopped some people actually trusting Christ at the very beginning.

They have found it very attractive, the idea that if you trust Christ, he gives you as a gift his salvation, gives you eternal life, gives you forgiveness, free and for nothing. And they say, yes, of course, that's marvelous.

All to know that when we become Christians, that's just the beginning of a life that is expected to live to please God. And they say to themselves, write down honestly, yes, well, that's the snag you see.

Suppose I trusted Christ tonight, I feel somehow I could keep up the standard of a Christian life. And they say to themselves, therefore, I'm not going to be a hypocrite. I'm not going to pretend to receive Christ today only to find that next week I can't keep the standards up and I'll let the side down and understand that reasoning shortly.

Human Inability to Keep God's Standard

So tonight we move on to another provision that God has made for us. For it is quite true, if you feel that way, it is certainly true. You cannot keep the standard on, neither can I for that matter, neither can anyone.

And it's a lesson that we do well to get well and truly into our hearts. There is none of us that can keep the standard up. Some of us that are a little bit more prickish than others, sometimes fall into the idea of imagining we can.

But that is a great deception. Sometimes even after we have received Christ and we've gone on and hey, it's been wonderful, we gradually slip into the idea that we can, yes, we're managing, we're coping, we can make it, we're quite strong.

God has to teach us, even after we become Christians, that we're not as strong as we think we are. It's a hard lesson to learn. But if we are going really to enjoy and lay hold of this provision that we are to think about tonight, we shall first have to get it into our hearts and all the way along the road that in ourselves we cannot keep up the standard.

St. Paul, in his seventh chapter of his letter to the Romans, bravely and courageously opens his heart to us and tells us a bit of his own personal experience. Old fellow. He says, you know, what I have found is this, that when I would do good, evil is present with me.

And the curious thing is, he says, I don't want to be a rotter, I don't want to do wrong things. In my mind, in my intellect, I serve the law of God. You read God's word, it says thou should love thy neighbour as thyself.

I say, yes, of course. Why, who wouldn't? Intellectually, that's a, obviously that's the right thing to do. If we could love our neighbours as ourselves, well then there would be no atomic wars, there would be no shortages, there would be nobody starving anywhere if we loved our neighbours ourselves and the atmosphere in the home would be a perfect.

We agree with it mentally. And he says that I don't enjoy being as I ought to be in my inner man, in my emotions. I delight in the law of God. And what is more, says Paul, I bring my will to bear upon the subject.

Now I take myself by the scruff of the neck and I say, Paul, old boy, sit down there a minute. Now look here, old chap, your mind tells you that the law of God is the sensible thing that you've got to carry out.

And your emotions say, yes, it's jolly good when you can carry out the law of God and behave as you should. Now Paul, be a man, do take yourself by the scruff of the neck and preach yourself a sermon.

Now tomorrow, Paul, you're going to do it. I will that you would do it. With every side of his personality, bent on doing the will of God and keeping his law, he didn't want to do. Well, he said, it wasn't I so much, it was the sin that dwells in me.

It is a hard lesson to learn, but it remains true that in us all, unconverted, yes, and converted, a newborn Christian, an old Christian with a beard and nearly home to glory, that in us, that is in our flesh, there dwells.

The Holy Spirit as God's Provision

How then am I ever going to make progress in the school of holiness? How am I going to learn my lessons as a disciple and learner in the school of Christ? However, am I going to attain the glory of God?

The answer is in that other gift that God has given us. God has given us amongst his innumerable gifts, two outstanding gifts. The one is described in these words, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

And the second is this. We've read the words together. It said, Our Lord, I will pray the Father and he will give you even the Spirit of truth, that he may be with you forever. Whoever becoming holy and increasing in our holiness in the school of Christ and attaining the glory of God is to be found in that blessed person who we are taught to call the Holy.

The person of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We may they hold fresh and with a firm grasp, the glorious sacrament of that he gives to us. Point out first of all that God gives his Holy Spirit to everyone that trusts Christ.

First of so saying that, is to be found in the epistle to the Romans chapter 8 and verse 9. Let me read it to you. Epistle to the Romans chapter 8 and verse 9, but you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you.

But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. I'll read that verse again, particularly the first part. For it is an explicit, clear, fundamental statement. It runs like this, but you are not in the flesh, in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you.

I must read it, it says you are not in the flesh. And you say, goodness me, what am I in then? I sit here very much and I can pinch myself. I'm in something or other. What am I in if I'm not in the flesh?

But if we had time to consider the whole context, we should find that Paul means something like this. He is talking about the very roots of our being, source of our life. He is saying, so to speak, you, you now, take yourself, where is your life rooted in?

But he says if you are a believer, trust in Christ, if you have believed God, and you have peace with God, you have been justified, now listen, he says, you, you are in the Spirit, the roots of your being, by God and put in, you still have the flesh around you, but the root of your being is no longer in the This day, your old body will die, won't it, won't it?

What? And disappear to dust. Your old fallen body, seen of so many a defeat, is going to be left behind forever. Will you perish? Oh no, you shall not perish. I shall be raised and be given a glorious changed body, a new body.

Yes, do you see what that shows? That your life, rooted in that old thing, is it? It's now rooted in God's Holy Spirit. A man who hasn't trusted Christ, or what a pathetic state he's in, he has no other form of life, you know.

As a fallen creature, sin has marred him, no other form of life, no other source of life. Happy the man who saw his sinful predicament, as a fallen creature, saw himself under the judgment of God, saw himself sentenced to die, and instead of waiting for the great judgment day, for the sentence to be carried out, ran to Christ for mercy, and seized Christ, and agreed with God, yes God, I accept your judgment, but I take Christ, and that's all the source of life he ever had, is changed over, and God puts him in the Spirit.

You are not in the flesh, but you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you. That is in one sense what it means to be a Christian, have a new source. So let's mark it well. It is a plain, straightforward statement, true of every believer, you are not in the flesh, now listen, you are in the Spirit, if the Spirit is in you.

To tell us that a Christian can be in the Spirit, but not have the Spirit in him, and that he has to wait before he gets the Holy Spirit, that's absolutely false, that contradicts God's holy word. Don't you let anybody rob you, like that, will you, of your joy.

Word of God categorically states it, if you are in the Spirit, the Spirit is in you. Glorious then the source. A very simple but glorious fact, that once we have received the Holy Spirit, he remains with us forever.

He said to his disciples, I will pray the Father, and he will send you another comforter, even the Spirit of truth, that he may be with you forever. A wonderful thing. Let us think how it came to be. God was talking to his disciples in the upper room in Jerusalem just before he died, and he was explaining to them why he had to go away.

And the apostles were very down in the mouth. In fact they didn't quite understand it really, all this talk about going away, and what he wanted to go away for, they couldn't make out, why couldn't he stay?

And it felt so much better if he stayed, and they were so gloomy and down in the mouth, because he'd been talking about going away, that they hadn't really thought to ask what he was going to do anyway.

So our Lord had to explain to them why it was that he had to go away. He said, if I don't go away, the comforter will not come. If I go away, I will send him to you. What does that mean? The obvious is indeed what it says.

When the Lord Jesus was sitting there with the disciples in the upper room, the Holy Spirit had not yet come. If I don't go away, said Christ, he won't come. So he hadn't come then, because I read in the Old Testament that the Holy Spirit came upon Gideon, and I read David talking about his experience of the Holy Spirit, all those years ago.

And indeed you say, what, a few verses earlier, the Lord Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Spirit was already abiding with them. You know him, says the Lord Jesus to the disciples, for he abides with you.

Add that sum up and make it balanced, because one minute he says the Holy Spirit is with you, and the next minute he says he hasn't come yet. Back into the Old Testament, remember that one night, one very dark night, when old Jacob had run away from his father-in-law David, like some young men do, and was going back home, and he was afraid that his brother Esau, whom he had robbed, was going to come and smite him, Jacob had got the jitters, and he was praying that night, he generally prayed when he got the jitters.

And in the dark, someone grabbed him and wrestled with him. As the wrestling went on, Jacob realized he was in the grip of someone more than human. And it was over, Jacob realized the truth, he said, I've seen the very face of God.

It was the one whom the Old Testament calls the angel of the Lord. It was the one whom we call the second person of the Trinity. For God the Father nobody has seen at any time. If anybody in the Old Testament saw the face of the Lord, it was the one whom we are taught to call the second person of the Trinity.

And though many times he had visited the earth and gone back again, he had not yet come. Oh, and the second person of the Trinity came to earth, in the fullest sense of that term. Jesus, my Saviour, to Bethlehem came, born in a manger, come to stay here, come incarnate in human form, leaving heaven.

Away from the Father, on earth, growing up as a baby, working as a young man, going out to preach, he had. Do you see the difference between that and those earlier visitations of comings and goings? In that same sense, our Lord uses the word come of the Holy Spirit.

He says, now look, I've been with you these thirty-three years, now I am at last going, and I'm going back to the Father, and you won't see me anymore. But when I go, the Holy Spirit will come. And he's using the verb in a similar sense, isn't he?

Not just visit people, not just come upon them for isolated occasions, but come to stay here, leaving heaven, coming to earth, staying on earth. Magnificent thing this is, the Holy Spirit staying here.

The Holy Spirit Dwells Within Believers

I would say to somebody, where does he stay then? For when the second person of the Trinity, when the Son of God came, he was in a human form, and you could have seen him in the workshop at Nazareth, preaching by the seaside, or in the streets of Jerusalem.

When the Holy Spirit has come, where is he to be found? Not incarnate, as our Lord Jesus was, in a body, incarnate in another sense, wearing the body of everything. When you wake up to know that is true.

When you have trusted Christ, it wasn't a question of some wonderful feeling that you had that day, and then the feeling evaporated and went. Well that can easily happen. When you trusted Christ, learn this, that the Holy Spirit came into your very body, and came to stay.

I'll be in you. Stay with you all the way home through life until at last he has got you to glory. That's why he's called a comforter, that's why he's called a guide, that's why he's called an advocate.

Let me use an illustration that may help you to see the importance of his coming in this sense. Way back in the Old Testament there is a love story, and it's a love story with a difference. Abram was getting a little bit elderly, and he was looking around at his son Isaac, and he says to himself one day, and that's the time Isaac thought of getting a wife.

He was pushing up 60 or something the man was. Goodness me, the time he thought about getting a wife, and because he didn't seem to be making much of a move, Abram thought it politic, and I do believe parents think the same today sometimes, that their parents ought to make a bit of a move themselves.

Now it's a question of where he should get a wife from. He says, I can't stick these girls around here, they wouldn't do for my son Isaac. I wonder if there are any suitable girls down in the land I came from, my home country.

All he said he'd done would be quite an attractive young man, you know, quite an attractive proposition, look at all the wealth he's got, and I'm going to leave him in my will and have everything. I don't know, I think it would be his son's name, the name of Rebecca, and send them down to Rebecca and say, Rebecca, dear Rebecca, when you get this letter, you will find enclosed, and then you will get a map how to get here.

If you would be interested in being the wife of my son Isaac, well, here's the map, find yourself here, and we can arrange it. ...desert on a caravan track, all by herself, to meet the man she'd never seen, and that made more sense.

He sent his senior servants, steward of all his house, all sorts of gifts and whatnots, down to where Rebecca lived. He personally put the question to Rebecca, he described Isaac, you know, in glowing terms, he showed that it was all real by pulling out an occasional earring here and slipping out a string of diamonds there, and then he put the question, would you care to be wife to my master's son?

The girl sensibly enough said, yes. The servant took her, didn't he? Known to her, but known to him. He'd been the wife many times. He didn't leave the girl until he had her right where Isaac was. Only a story.

The Spirit Reveals Christ and Leads Believers to Glory

...has a son, and he loves him, and to that son he has given all things that he has. All that the father has in his mind, says Christ. All of it. All that the father has in his mind, he said, and you'll find out about that one of these days, Peter, oh boy, you've known me down here with not two pennies to rub together.

When the Comforter is come, you'll find out the difference. For he shall take of mine and show it to you. So the Comforter did when he came, didn't he? He inspired a man called Paul to write a few letters.

This man, they'd known of Jesus, was in fact the firstborn of all creation, in whom and through whom and for whom all things were made in heaven and in earth. That's who he was. ...seated at the hand of God, angels, principalities and powers being subject to him, all listened to the great servant of God, the holy paraclete, come down to talk to the rebeckers of this modern age, taking of all the father has because it's really Christ's.

...of sin, rejoined to come and says yes to that proposition. The Holy Spirit enters in, stays there, is to lead that person. Think what that means. It doesn't just come alongside me and quote the Bible at me.

Can you have any vision of utter perfection? Do you have any vision of what Christ is now? It's absolutely perfect. Well, you try and get there. It comes right inside me, right deep down into my very heart.

...of my neuroses, in all the tangle of my memories, amidst all my trials, amidst all my ignorance and twisted view of things, comes right where I am. He says, my dear man, we'll start here, shall we?

That's where you are. We won't pretend you're nearer heaven than you are, but we'll take you as you are, right where you are and between what you now are and what you shall be. All the way along the journey.

Come on, he says. We're going to do it together, you see. He leads us thus home. Not merely to the place of heaven, but he leads us until at length we have reached the very glory of God and we have met Christ.

Hear this statement, for I have taught you here now in parable. Hear this statement in the plain, straightforward statement of Holy Scripture. I'm going to read to you from the epistle to the Romans in chapter 8.

And it goes like this. That he might be the firstborn among many brethren. There is the proposition. God's determined purpose that everyone that has been justified by faith shall at length be brought to glory in the sense of being conformed to the image of his Son.

That's the purpose. How does it carry on? And what are the steps? And that the Spirit also helps our weakness. For we know not how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

And he that searcheth the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. That's how it happens. God has his will that I should become like Christ.

Oh, but it doesn't happen automatically. You see, my dear good man, let me tell you straight. You won't wake up one of these Friday mornings and when you first open your eyes, oh, goodness me, I've become holy.

Hmm. Well, what a surprise. I wasn't expecting any such thing. Because I've become holy, goodness me. God sort of waved a wand over me tonight and I've become holy. No, sir, it won't happen like that.

Personally, to walk every step of that journey, you'll have to make the decision, first of all, to trust Christ, won't you? You won't wake up one of these mornings and say, Christo, do you know, I think I became a Christian while I was asleep.

No, sir, you'll have to make the decision to receive Christ. You'll have to make the decision all the way along the road. It's got to be you. But if I were left to myself, I might make the wrong decision and say, sir, you mind.

We don't even know what to pray for next, as we ought to. What would be good for me next? A period of prosperity and peace? Allow my personality to blossom a bit? Or a period of persecution and difficulty?

What would be good for me next? You don't know, do you? Well, why? There is one who does know the next step of the road for me. Naturally, he dwells with sight. And when I say to God, oh, help me to be a good Christian and give me a Rolls-Royce tomorrow and make my house a good one, well, that's a bit wonky, that.

But inside me, the Holy Spirit, yes, is interceding. He intercedes according to the will of God. And he deigns to take that little first bit of my prayer, oh, God, help me to be holy. And all his divine energies go into that.

And it's my prayer, and yet it's his prayer. Yes, it should be needful for my spiritual development that I may have one. But he prays alongside of me. He doesn't pray for my family or personally. Romans chapter 8 tells us that the Spirit witnesseth with our spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs of God. You see, it's lovely to read it in the Bible, isn't it? What the Holy Spirit does is to take that word of God and make it real to our spirits. And where a man or woman has been born again and received God's Holy Spirit, he begins to witness to their spirit, their human spirit, that they are children of God.

As we saw on Friday night, he begins to pour out into their heart the love of God and give them his confidence. Children of God, heirs of God. Witnesses to them. Witnesses to us directly to our spirits.

So even if you couldn't read the Bible, the Holy Spirit could still witness to your spirit directly. But of course, in his witness to us, he also uses the word of God in the Bible. There's no secret, is there?

He wrote it of spirituality. Not when people leave the Bible shut, you know, but when they open it and read it. Because it was the Holy Spirit who wrote it. He inspired it. If you go, you should find a spirit moving you not to read the Bible.

That won't be God's Holy Spirit. The Bible was inspired by God's Holy Spirit. And so that we may not be a prey to all sorts of deceitful feelings in our own hearts, the message that the Holy Spirit would speak within our hearts, he has in his mercy caused to be put down in black and white, so that I can read it there.

Let's take one instance of this thing. In the epistles of the Hebrews in chapter 10, we find this statement. Verse 15 of chapter 10. And the Holy Ghost also bears witness to us. After that he has said, this is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and on their minds, also will I write them.

Then he says, and their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. That was at Jeremiah. But you'll find it in the Old Testament, Jeremiah. It's the new covenant, isn't it? But here God tells us it was the Holy Spirit witnessing through Jeremiah, and witnessing to us and the trust of the Saviour, the glories of the new covenant.

And they are these. He witnesses to us the faithfulness of this new covenant that he's going to write God's laws on our hearts and on our minds, and our sins and iniquities. One day he reads in the Bible that his sins and iniquities God will remember no more, and he can be utterly sure that he's saved and forgiven.

And the next day somebody else comes along and says, oh no, you shouldn't be sure. And you can't know. Whoever told you that, that preacher that told you that must be wrong. And the man begins to get a little bit whappity, so to speak, that both rocks have been in him, and now we're to believe.

Isn't that a lovely thing that he's not left in the end to humans to convince us? Therefore the Holy Spirit also witnesses. He is the highest and final authority. ...laws on their hearts, and their sins, to our spirits directly, and via God's holy word, of the assurance that he's not only with us, but, says Romans 18, leads us.

The Spirit Leads the Sons of God

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. Yes, but it should be, literally, these are the sons of God. We are all children of God if we have trusted the Lord Jesus. We are all sons of God the moment we trust the Lord Jesus.

When we first trust the Lord Jesus, we're baby sons. What the Holy Spirit does within us is so to lead us that we gradually grow up in the spirit of the Father, and we become grown-up sons. You, madam, have got a son, I suspect, maybe.

He's ten. He's mad keen on rugby. So he comes in in his rugby boots. You've been playing rugby. Mum, I scored a try today. Walking across your lounge carpet with the mud all round his boots. Oh, glorious.

Yes, he's your child, isn't he? He hasn't quite got your spirit of decor in the lounge just yet, has he? Although, but you hope in your heart that one of these days the man will grow up and have a bit more of your spirit, so that you won't have to tell him.

He'll come in from rugby. Yeah, mud. Oh, glorious mud. Yeah, he'll come in from rugby still. So does the Holy Spirit. Source of our life. Witness to our salvation. He lives within to lead us. And as we are constantly led by him, you know, not that, but this Lord.

That way. Seeding into us, leading us in our day-to-day decisions. And, oh, there's so much more but the talk has run out, and we shall have to leave it there. Tomorrow, God willing, we shall get a chance to consider just a little bit more of his ministry towards us.

In the second half of tomorrow's meeting, God willing, to consider not only the Holy Spirit's work in me and to me, but his work through me. I should have had an apple tonight. And may that same Holy Spirit make himself real to every one of us, as is trusted to say.

Receiving the Holy Spirit Through Faith in Christ

But just one last question. He came to a place called Ephesus. And as he was mixing around the folks that he met there, Christians most of them, he came across about a dozen men. And as he got talking to these men, he sensed, you know, something missing here.

He would talk of the wonders of forgiveness and being sure you're a child of God. You know, no kind of response. Or, we do the best we can kind of business. Missing here is Paul himself. But being a very nice kind Christian gentleman, he didn't say, are you saved?

He said, tell me as a matter of interest, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Pardon, what did you say? He said, I said, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? I don't understand what you mean.

It says that if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his, he isn't a believer at all. If you haven't received the Holy Spirit, you are not a believer. What were you baptised to, my good man?