The Holy Spirit Will Teach You All Things

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel According to John 14:23–31

The Holy Gospel according to St. John, chapter 14, verses 23 -31. Jesus answered him, If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. The Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.

He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. And let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

You heard me say to you, I am going away, and I will come to you. If you loved me, you would have rejoiced, because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, that you may believe.

I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.

In the name of Jesus. Amen. Alright, so here's our primary text. It's from our Gospel text today. John 14, 26. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Notice the emphasis. You, your, you. Now today is Pentecost Sunday, and if I had a dollar for every time I've heard that we Lutherans have a defective, underdeveloped understanding of the Holy Spirit, well then I'd be a very wealthy man.

But apparently they don't pay up. I'll have to make my money somewhere else. So the claims that are often made by Charismatics and Pentecostals are that we do not believe in the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

We've somehow put the kibosh on the Spirit, and because of that we Lutherans are missing out on our God-given right and ability to speak in tongues, to operate in the signs and wonders, hear the voice of God speaking directly into our hearts by giving us prophecy, dreams, visions, and words of knowledge, etc.

Apparently we're part of a dead religion. I don't know if you've heard that, but that's the claim. So now I touched on some of these claims last Pentecost Sunday when I preached on Acts chapter 2. Please see the Kongsvinger Lutheran Church website for further details.

Now, suffice it to say that we Lutherans do not have an underdeveloped or defective understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we have a very measured, careful theology of the work of the Holy Spirit that pays careful attention to what the Holy Spirit has revealed in Scripture about His works and activities and does not go beyond what is written in the Bible.

And our gospel text today, if we pay careful attention to what is said, will give us profound insight and comfort regarding the work of the Spirit, especially as it relates to the writings of the apostles.

So we will begin by looking again at John 14 26, which is highly misunderstood by charismatics. We will then carefully work our way through our gospel text, noting the context and what and to whom is Jesus making specific promises and then we'll examine other passages of Scripture that will shed light on these details and finally we'll ask the question, so what?

What does it benefit me? What does it mean to us? You know, the show me thing. It's like, you know, what's in it for me, right? Again here, John 14 26, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, Jesus says He will teach you all things, bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Now by way of a little bit of foil, Jennifer LeClaire, she is one of the editors of Charisma Magazine and in her article titled, Four Things You Can Do If You Can't Hear God's Voice, describes how immediately after she was saved that she began hearing the voice of God audibly apparently but there are apparently many, many, many Christians who are not hearing directly from God like she is and so she wrote this article to help them unclog whatever is blocking God's voice so that they can hear directly from Heaven apparently not hearing God's voice is like a plumbing problem, you know, maybe you got a hair stuck in your ear and I don't know how this works, so these are four things that she says that you can do so that you can hear directly God's voice.

Step number one is believe that God wants to speak to you. Well, I believe that otherwise I wouldn't have a Bible, right? But here's what she says, quote, if you don't believe God wants to speak to you, well it's likely that you won't hear his still small voice.

The key here is that you are to expect him to speak. David said, oh Lord, in the morning you will hear my voice, in the morning you will direct my prayer to you and I will watch expectantly. The Holy Spirit lives inside of you and may be speaking to you more than you realize.

And then she quotes our gospel text. But the counsel of the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you. Huh. Interesting. She's not paying attention to who the you is in that text and we'll get to that.

By way of summary though, here's the other three things you need to do if you're not hearing God's voice directly. Number two, you need to position your heart to hear his still small voice. I have no idea what that means.

I mean, which position do I need to put my heart? In this position? Maybe this one. I mean, it's kind of like the old days when we had televisions that had the antenna on them. You remember this, right?

This was always a very fun thing when I wanted to watch my favorite cartoons. There was one channel where in order to get the reception the rabbit ears had to be like this. There was another channel that had to be like this.

And then one of my favorite cartoons, it was on one of those channels that was not so good. There was a lot of snow and so in order to watch that you had to hold on to the rabbit ears and if you let go it got snowy again.

Very frustrating. Step number two from Jennifer LeClair about positioning your heart to hear his still small voice makes no sense to me. How does one position your heart? I don't know. Step three, learn the fine art of listening.

Now my wife agrees that this is an important step. But in this context I'm not sure what this means either. And then step four is fellowship more with the Holy Spirit, which again leaves me scratching my head.

How does one fellowship with the Holy Spirit? We have fellowship time here at church after our service, right? We go over there and we enjoy the sweets, the cakes, the donuts and all the wonderful things and the coffee and even talking with each other.

Is that what we're supposed to do? Have a donut and coffee with the Holy Spirit? I don't get it. Right? So these are the four steps that you can go through to unclog what's clogged if you're not hearing directly from God.

Note this fact that nowhere in the Bible are these four steps given. You can't go to the book of Second Hesitations chapter 66 and read these four steps, unclogging what's clogged regarding hearing God's voice.

And there's a reason for that. Now, this kind of then begs the question, what's the problem here? Well, the problem is, is that apparently God's word isn't enough. We need other words. And these other words don't make any sense.

Now let me give you a metaphor that we will all understand immediately because of this week. Alright? We are now living in a world where the world has gone crazy. And I mean that. Absolutely crazy. If somebody who is born a man, alright, born male, and it's on their birth certificate, boy, these things are not hard to figure out by the way.

It always amazes me. We always ask the question right after a baby is born, was it a boy or a girl? Well, it was a boy. How'd you know? If you're not sure how you discover these things, come talk to me privately afterwards.

But apparently if you're born a man, you can now self-identify as a woman and you can now use women's facilities in your local Target store. And all of us are going, what is going wrong with the world?

Right? Think of it this way. Here's where the tension is. The question has to do with where do we go to find what is true or not true? Right? Is truth objective or is it subjective? Think about this. The person who says it's subjective says, I reject what my birth certificate says and what my body looks like and my DNA and I substitute what is real and true with something I feel in my heart.

Right? And it leads to all kinds of absurdities, but now we have the federal government saying you cannot, without risking losing your job or being branded a hater, say to that person, dude, wake up. Come out of your dreamland and come back into reality.

That's apparently hateful. Okay? So people want to believe what they want to believe and they don't want to be told what they don't want to be told by objective truth and reality. Right? Well, so I've decided this week that I now self-identify as a 21-year-old movie star.

That's right. And I have six-pack abs. Expect the paparazzi to show up any minute. Okay? Right? Now, those of you who are interested in showing me a photograph of myself, I don't want to see it. I know that this is true about me because I feel it and I felt a feeling.

So therefore, it's true. Right? Now, you're laughing though, but understand this. This is deadly serious. People play the same game when it comes to God's word. Rather than listening to what God has said in his written word, they feel that they have a better word.

A better one than what's written in scripture. And it's all because I felt it. Or maybe I had goosebumps when it happened. Or maybe the person who told me was really charismatic and had a great delivery and he made me laugh.

These are no ways of determining truth when it comes to God. In fact, this is a form of idolatry. Rejecting the objective word of God and substituting it with our own words. And the reality is that we are all guilty of this.

Every single one of us. So let's come back to our text. We'll do a little bit of textual work here. Pay attention to some things. Using basic reading comprehension skills. Right? So we'll go back to the Gospel of John chapter 14.

And you'll notice that our pericope begins with verse 23. And here's what it says. It begins with these words. Jesus answered him. Answered who? What was the question Jesus was answering? I always love it when the people who put the lectionary together do stuff like this.

It's like you're going to start with a text that says Jesus answered him and you're not going to tell me the question. Need to talk to that committee. Anyway. So who is Jesus talking to? What was the question?

I'm glad you asked. Let's look back at verse 22. Here's what it says. Judas, not Iscariot. And we all went Okay. Not that one. Okay. The other Judas. The other Judas asked Jesus, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world?

Oh, now there's your question. Notice that Judas's question assumes that Jesus isn't going to manifest himself to everybody. Remember last week's sermon? I hope you do. But then again, you know, what's the point of preaching if you're not going to...

I know you guys can take a quiz on it and y 'all ace it. But anyway, here's what I said in last week's sermon. In Jesus's high priestly prayer, Jesus prayed, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word.

Whose word? The apostle's word, right? Notice that Judas's question assumes and understands that Jesus is not going to manifest himself to everybody, but only to his apostles. And this makes sense because Jesus said in John 13 20, Amen.

Amen. I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me. Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. Who did Jesus send? His apostles. Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Well, actually Mark is not in, but Peter and James and John, those guys, right?

And then of course Jesus says of the ones he sent in Luke 10 16, the one who hears you, not me, but them, hears me. The one who rejects you rejects me. The one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me.

So you kind of get the idea here, right? So Judas, not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus is answering this question. Now here's his answer.

Ready? If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. And my father will love him. We will come to him, make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the father's who sent me.

Well, that kind of begs the question, where do we go to get Jesus's words? Do we climb a mountain, assume the lotus position, and listen to the voice of God on the wind while swaying like this? Is that where we go to find Jesus's words?

Or maybe it's inside a feeling that you had. No, it's not that either. I know of only one place you can go to find Jesus's words. Only one. It's to the writings of the ones he sent. And he said of them, when somebody hears you, they hear me.

Now, another quick thing. Some translations may have this translation. If anyone loves me, he will obey my word. Bad translation. The Greek word there is tereo. I know that you all love learning Greek words.

Put this one in your vocabulary list. But it's important that you understand where this word comes from. It's a military term. It means to guard, to keep. When Jesus was dead and his body was in the tomb, the Roman soldiers were tereo-ing the tomb.

They were guarding it. Gives it a little bit of a different picture, right? Obedience is part of it, but it's not really the main idea. The idea is to hold, to preserve, to keep it sacred. So, the one who loves you, anyone who loves me will keep my word.

A little bit of another note here. Conditional clauses are a little bit tricky in Greek. Jesus is not saying, you are saved by keeping my word. We've found the one thing we've got to do in order to be saved.

We just have to keep and guard Jesus' words. No. This kind of conditional sentence works like this. In front of my house is a street. And when I'm on the third floor in the pirate fun land, that is my office, looking down on the street, I know this.

If the pavement is wet, it's raining. I know this might sound profound, but notice that was a conditional sentence. If the pavement is wet, it's raining. I'm not saying that my pavement being wet causes it to rain.

I'm saying that because my pavement is wet, that it is raining. Same idea here. If you truly are one who loves Christ, you do keep his words. Because you've been raised from death to life. It's a sign that you are a Christian, not the thing that makes you one.

That's the point. So Jesus then goes on. These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. And now here's our kind of focused verse. But the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Who is the you and the your and the you in this sentence? Is it you? Is it me? No. It's Jesus' disciples. It ain't us. It's the ones Jesus is talking to. Jesus is literally promising his disciples a special miraculous gift of the Holy Spirit.

And this gift is the ability to miraculously remember the things that Jesus said, did, and taught. And that's important. Because I don't know if you've noticed this about people. Human memory has a way of kind of, well, wearing out.

And the older I get, the less I remember what it was like to be skinny and 18 and young. Am I right? I have a memory of these things. And so it's important that Jesus here is promising the gift of total recall.

Terrible movie by the way. I didn't really like that one. But that's the idea. The ability through the Holy Spirit to remember the things that Jesus said. And this then is dealing with what we call the doctrine of inspiration of Scripture.

That's what this text is about. And that's what Jesus is promising. Now Peter, writing in his epistle, 2 Peter 1 verses 16 through 21, he says this. He says, We did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now there are some who would like to make Jesus kind of like the 2 ,000 year old Middle Eastern equivalent of Zeus. Right? He's not. He's not a myth. He says, We did not follow cleverly devised myths, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. This is a reference to the mountain of transfiguration. This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.

We ourselves, we heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. Now watch the turn here. That's quite the experience hearing the voice of the Father, seeing Jesus transfigured brilliant white.

There's Moses and Elijah, right? You'd think, well, that's the thing that clenches this. Watch what Peter says. And we, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, more fully confirmed than the voice of the Father.

Yeah. To which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. What's he referring to? What's more sure than that voice of the Father that he's heard?

What is this bright light shining in a dark place? Answer? He continues, knowing this. First of all, no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man.

The men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Wow. That's right. The Holy Spirit carried Jesus's disciples as well as the prophets of old. And just as Jesus promised, the spirit miraculously brought back to Peter's and all of his disciples remembrance, all that he did and taught.

And this makes it so that we know now that the New Testament is not merely the writings of fallible men. Truly they were fallible. It is also the Holy Spirit inspired words of God. And therefore, it is inerrant.

It's inspired. Or as the book of Hebrews says, the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit, joints of marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

Oh, I trust you, if you try to master God's word, which is a good thing to try to do, it will master you. Because it's not like any other book out there. These words have the Holy Spirit attached to them.

It's a living book. Or as Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3, 14 -17, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

All Scripture as it says, all Scripture, all Scripture. Yeah, that writing stuff. Yeah, those books, those letters. All Scripture is they a new stuff that means breathed out by God, the Holy Spirit breathing out his word.

And it's profitable for teaching, for reproof. Oh, they can't do that nowadays for correction. Yeah, I can't do that either for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

There is no good work that God would call you to do in loving and serving your neighbor and in belief regarding what is true and rejecting of what is false that you will not be equipped by God's written word to do.

Yeah. Well, that being the case, huh, to keep in guard Jesus' words is to keep in guard the Scripture and to reject all other words claiming to be coming from God. Now, this then begs the question, why did Jesus promise this special work of the Spirit to his disciples?

Why? Well, the thesis sentence of the Gospel of John is found in John 20 verses 30 through 31. And here's what John writes. Now, Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book.

But these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life in his name. You see, God caused these books to be written so that you can be saved, so that you can have eternal life, so that your sins can be forgiven.

This is why Jesus then continuing with our Gospel text said this, peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give it to you. Peace? Peace out of nowhere. Jesus starts talking shalom, peace.

That's what this is all about. That's what this book is really teaching us. Now, some of you here, if I were to put you on the spot and say, from memory, tell me what Ephesians 2, 8, 9, and 10 says. Some of you would be able to do it.

You'd say, oh, alright, well I'm on the spot, but here you go. For by grace you have been saved through faith. This is not your own doing, it is the gift of God. It's not the result of works so that no one may boast.

For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We know this text, it's a very familiar passage, but many of us are unaware of the great talk of peace that immediately precedes these verses or comes after them.

Here's what Paul says, Ephesians 2, 11, therefore because of this, because you are saved by grace, remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh called the uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision which is made by the flesh by hands, remember that at one time you were separated from Christ.

That's all of us. At one time you were alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and you were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope without God in the world. And that's the condition of every one of us.

We're all born dead in trespasses and sins. Each and every one of us. And notice what Paul says, without hope, without God. But now, Paul says, now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off you have been brought near by the blood of Christ for he himself is our peace.

Jesus is our shalom. He has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances so that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two.

So making peace and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. Yeah, that's right. Not only were we alienated from God, we were hostile to him. In fact, that hostility still lives in us even if we're Christians.

You see, none of us are born with the ability to say, hey, when it comes to God, I'm Switzerland. Yeah, I'm claiming neutrality here. You guys, you Muslims and you Christians and you Catholics and you Lutherans, you go fight it out.

I'm going to go have some iced tea. None of us are neutral. According to Scripture, we are all born dead in trespasses and sins and hostile to God. Hostile. None of you are innocent. Not one. In fact, you really want to get technical here.

We've all heard the story about the great rebellion that Lucifer waged against God in heaven, right? A third of the angels fell for the devil's deceptions and sided with the devil against God. And how'd that go for them?

Didn't go well at all. They were cast out of heaven, sent to earth. Jesus even describes how Satan fell kind of like a meteor from the sky. Great big crash. You sit there and go, yeah, that's right. Yeah.

God, he kicked the devil out. Yeah. Here's the problem. You were born in the dominion of the devil and his demons. You were born hostile to God. You're not one of the good guys. You actually are siding with the bad guys.

By nature, you were born this way. And you know what you deserve for that? The second death and eternity in the lake of fire and hell with the devil and his angels, which is why by the way, humanity on the day of judgment, those who persist in sin and unbelief end up in the same place with the devil and his demons ends up because they've sided with him.

And that's you and that's me. And every time we say, God, I have a better word than your words. You tell me not to do this. I have a better word than that. Right? You tell me not to believe that or to believe this.

I have a better word than that. You're engaging in hostility to God. And these are the very things that Christ came to forgive us for. This is why he bled and died. And this is why the gospel is so amazing.

Because in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for our sins. For he, Jesus, is our peace. He came and he preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him, we both have access in one spirit to the Father.

And because of what Christ has done, Paul says, you're no longer strangers. You're no longer aliens. You're no longer enemy combatants. Your fellow citizens were the saints and members of the household of God built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole structure is being joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

So we were all born dead in trespasses and sins and at war with God. But God in Christ has done the unthinkable. He's unilaterally made peace with us even while we were still sinners and hostile to God.

In other words, by these actions, God definitively proves he doesn't actually want to send you to hell. Which is what we all deserve. Instead, Jesus was pierced for our transgressions. Jesus was crushed for our iniquities.

And upon him was the punishment that brought us peace. Peace with God. And this is the kind of peace that transcends all human understandings. This is the peace, the shalom, that first reconciles us to God and then by the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, through the Word, begins to reconcile us to each other.

Where there was once only hatred, hostility, and death, there is now love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self-control, and eternal life. And that, dear brothers and sisters, is what makes this truly good news.

We are enemy combatants by nature. Many of us are even war criminals in this great war against God. And now we are called through these Holy Spirit-inspired words written by the ones whom Christ has sent to lay down our weapons.

That's what we're called to do. The war is over. Show up. Bring your arms. Lay down our weapons. Confess our guilt before God. But in so doing, we do not get what we deserve. Instead, we hear that we are pardoned, given amnesty, and told by God himself that we can go in peace.

Oh, and it's better than that. Oh, would you like to be a citizen of God's kingdom? You get that too. Oh, you get to be adopted into God's family as well. Who does this? Right? So these words of pardon and peace are so precious now to us who have been forgiven that we cannot help but keep in guard these precious words.

Right? Because they are the very words of eternal life. To lose these words due to neglect, or to lose these words by the twistings and connivings of the devil and his deceptions, to lose these words by foolishly thinking that we have better words because we felt something inside of our hearts, is to actually end up forfeiting life and peace itself.

This is why we keep and guard them. Because these are the words of eternal life. And these amazing and comforting words from Jesus that the Holy Spirit brought back to the remembrance of His apostles, they were written for you.

They were written so that you may believe in Christ and have life and peace with God through Him. The war is over. Christ has won. Lay down your arms. Better yet, why don't you instead beat your swords into plowshares?

Because you're forgiven. You're pardoned. And God through Christ has declared.

Peace to you.

In the name of Jesus. Amen.

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