Message Text: John 14: 8-17, 25-27
8 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.”
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work.
11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.
12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15 “If you love me, keep my commands.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
25 “All this I have spoken while still with you.
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Morning Message:
We celebrate and remember the day of Pentecost. Pentecost is seen in many ways in the church. We like to refer to it as the birthday of the church, and that is true. This is the starting point in history when God’s Spirit would not just dwell with mankind, but also, because of the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, because the Son of God, God incarnate, came down from his heavenly dwelling, took the form of a man, took upon himself the sins of all mankind, and paid the price for our sins, could now dwell in any person who accepted this sacrifice. Let’s take a moment and let that sink in. I have just given you the whole plan of salvation. Do you understand what I am saying? Think through this for a moment. Have you accepted God’s truth?
I am going to start with verse 27 today. I don’t usually start at the end of our scripture reading, but today I want you to first understand the peace of Christ that is available to you as a Christian. What is the context of Christ’s peace? Faithfully believing that He is the Son of God. Many times, God puts a real, true burden on my heart for people I meet. I met a man this past week who, once he found out that I was a Pastor he became defensive. I don’t advertise my vocation, nor do I hide it. I feel that sometimes, when God wants someone to know it, he reveals it to them. Here is the response that I immediately got from this man before I could say a word. “Oh, you’re a Pastor, I need to be careful what I say in front of you. I have my own beliefs; I don’t go to church, but I have things that I believe in and disagree with. I believe in a woman’s right to choose, and I believe that gay people are born that way.” Believe it or not, sometimes God causes me to hold my tongue. I don’t always say what’s on my mind. After taking some time to think about it I realized this poor soul has no peace. He doesn’t yet truly believe in the Son of God, and he has no true peace, even in the things he says he believes.
Do we have confidence of His peace? Do we have a full trust that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all actively at work and in complete control. I believe that some of us are like Philip. Verse 8: Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.” Our peace depends on us believing that Jesus is God and God is Jesus, but too many times, we, like so many in this world, are looking for a God that is more spectacular. We want to see the amazing works, the signs, the miracles with our own eyes. Philip was with Jesus during his three-year ministry. He saw miracles and signs, but his response to Jesus is still, “Show us the Father.” You know the saying from the movie, you have heard it somewhere, “Show me the money.” In other words, I will only believe what I can see with my own two eyes. It takes faith to believe that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is one with the Father and the Son. The miracles on Pentecost through the Holy Spirit is the same power that Jesus displayed in the miracles that He performed, that He gave glory to God the Father for.
If you contrast the world’s version of peace with the peace of Christ, you find that the world achieves a sense of peace through fear. The peace that Jesus can give believers is a peace absent from fear. Faith and fear do not belong together. All of us face things that make us afraid, but a believer in Jesus should never live in fear. Pentecost was a revelation of truth. It is the Holy Spirit dwelling in us that gives us the faith to believe that the conditions of peace with God were met through the death, burial, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
Pentecost is a striking, surprising disclosure of truth. Think about what the world looked like before Jesus. There was darkness and confusion, by design. I am always reminded of the story of the tower of Babel. Do you know this story? The people gathered together and had determined that they would build a tower to the heavens. They thought that through their own power they could make their way to God. They worked hard every day in an attempt to prove that God was not unreachable and that they could get to heaven without any help from God. God looked down at his creation: these silly humans with unpure motives and no sense of who God truly was. There was zero chance that they could accomplish their goal, but their minds were made up and they were willing to waste their entire lives in this useless pursuit. What did God do? He confused their languages so that they could no longer communicate with each other, so the project was abandoned and the people scattered. One of the most amazing miracles that took place on Pentecost was the ability to speak and understand the gospel of Jesus Christ in various languages.
I believe that we take the Holy Spirit for granted in so many ways. The Holy Spirit is a true revelation of truth. The Holy Spirit not only convicts believers, but guides them into all the truth, and points them to Christ. That overwhelming guilt that you feel when you do or say something that you know is wrong; that’s the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Truth because He guides us away from the lies of the devil and into the truth of God’s Word. As powerful as the Holy Spirit can be in our lives, we still have the ability to negate and short circuit His effect on our lives. The Holy Spirit can be a revelation of truth in our lives, a constant presence, comforter, and counselor, but we must stop resisting. There is always a choice. That’s the way that God created us. To have free will. I heard it put this way. When we resist God and the prompting of the Holy Spirit over and over again, we develop a callus on our hearts. Have you ever had a callus? When you get one it takes away your ability to feel everything. When we continue to resist the Holy Spirit, eventually we stop feeling His prompting. The conviction of our sins grows fainter and fainter until we no longer hear it at all. Look around my friends. Have we become immune to God’s call?
In Christ’s Love and Peace,
Pastor Bob
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