Word Spirit – Sunday 19th May

27; 16:4b-15, Advocate, John 15:26, pastor adrian kitson, pentecost, Sunday 19th May 2024, Word Spirit

John 15:26,27 16:4b-15

26 “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.

27 And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

4 I have told you this, so that when their time comes you will remember that I warned you about them. I did not tell you this from the beginning because I was with you, 5 but now I am going to him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things. 7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8 When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: 9 about sin, because people do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11 and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Everyone needs an advocate sometime, don’t they?

An advocate sticks with you when others want you gone. And advocate stands with you when others are trying to push you over. They defend you when you are under attack, protect you when you are under threat, speak up for you when you can’t speak or cannot be heard by others, represent you for your best when others are bringing up your worst.

I bet you could tell stories about having an Advocate at times in your life? I bet you have at times fulfilled that role for someone else too.

And the best Advocate is not merely a ‘yes’ man. The best Advocate is a truth teller. They will challenge you as needed, but never leave you or condemn you either – so you can trust that their truth telling word is never vindictive but always for love.

And you need a truth-telling advocate the most when you done the most wrong. It is then you find your self reaching out for someone to listen, to care, to forgive, to see the real you despite your mistake, and to help you suffer whatever the consequences of your action with dignity and grace.

Jesus says that this is the character, intent and role of the Holy Spirit for all of us. He is our advocate through good and bad.

These disciples are going to need an Advocate, and Jesus knows it. They are that last part of the last words of Jesus in the upper room after that last supper before that first kiss of betrayal meets Jesus’ cheeks in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Surely these band of disciples really needed to know they were not about to be cut loose, left alone: vulnerable, unprotected, unshielded, thrown to the circling wolves as Jesus was about to allow himself to be.

But Judas has left the room. Jesus has named the betrayal. It is looking very dark as this Passover night falls. Things will soon seem darker still.

Jesus says he is no longer going to be readily in reach, available, touchable, knowable as a person in their midst. They are all going to feel the distance and wonder about trusting him.

I wonder whether you are feeling the distance and wondering about putting your faith in him today?

When it is like that distance, doubt, fear and anxiety into our heart.

None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?’ 6 Rather, you are filled with grief because I have said these things.

Instead of even asking ‘Where are you Jesus?” in our confusion and doubt, we are prone to just be enveloped in grief and its doubt. So much so that we forget to even ask or trust that we have any advocate to support us.

But then the good news of life in and beyond this present darkness:

7 But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you

Eventually he does.

That sound of rushing wind. That appearance of flames over everyone’s head. Those words of God’s truth in all languages present. That first public word from the Word spoken by the fisherman from the north now transformed into a spokesperson of people in Jesus’ stead…..

The Advocate arrives and all these words of truth and love occur, and hey presto, we have a church – a holy gathering, a public assembly in the city, a new movement of love, a new creation beginning in the old one, a new future rolling out in the world with God’s Word to carry.

The Advocate with us and in us does his loving word in one way with three strands.

²⁶ “…he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment

Proving them wrong will have its consequences.

Luther puts it in his comments on this text:

[This King] will not lay about with the sword, depose of or instate kings and lords, or establish a new order and law; but it will be a kingdom that is ruled solely by the Word or the ministry of the apostles. And yet through this Word all the world shall be made subject and obedient to Him.

^[1] Martin Luther, Luther’s Works, Vol. 24: Sermons on the Gospel of St. John: Chapters 14-16, ed. Jaroslav Jan Pelikan, Hilton C. Oswald, and Helmut T. Lehmann, vol. 24 (Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 336.

The Advocate creates a new kingdom. It is not a political, military, ideological, scientific or technological by nature. It is a kingdom of grace received by faith in this resurrected, not created or led by us.

You can surely see where we live. The same place Jesus and these Twelve lived – between two clashing kingdoms! This is not easy.

For what is the world? Not one or two people of their [the Apostle’s] own class but all emperors, kings, and princes, all noble, rich, great, learned, wise, and important [people] on earth. All these are to be reproved by the preaching of the apostles as ignorant, unrighteous, and condemned sinners before God, together with all the wisdom, righteousness, and power they have had and have gloried in up to this time. Oh, how distasteful and hard this will be for the holy servants of God! No wonder the apostles will be repulsed… Why do they not keep silence and let such people go unreproved?

The Advocate will still continue his work: he will speak words proving the world wrong about its belief about sin:

⁹ … because people do not believe in me;

The world believes sin (if it ever even acknowledges it is real anymore), and many a Christian believe sin to be a mere moral problem or an ideas problem, or a lack of training or lack of education or opportunity…

But;

“Christ is not referring here to man’s outward life and conduct, which the world can judge and condemn; but He is going to the very core, namely, to man’s heart, which is the fountainhead and the source of the chief sins: false worship, contempt of God, unbelief, disobedience, evil lust, resistance to God’s command (Romans 8:7).

With the best of intentions, but never knowing the real foundation of the problem or having the tools to get to there:

“… the world sees these outward manifestations of evil; yes, it wonders about them and laments such wickedness on the part of the people. But it does not know the source of the trouble. It sees the [trickle], but not the fountainhead that feeds it; the fruits and the leaves burgeoning forth everywhere from the evil tree, but not the root.

Attempts to fix our many problems are better than not doing anything good! But governments, science, welfare agencies, technology, police and the legal profession, and even education by itself cannot get to the root of our problems.

So, what can, or who can? The Advocate. He ‘convicts the world (ad the church) of real sin’. Like when I am in the wrong and my good advocate friend tells me straight, not to shame me but to stand with me through it, this Spirit in this Word tells the truth of our broken way and gives the light of a new way in this Jesus the king ruling in grace for sinners!

About ‘Righteousness’? The world is wrong about righteousness

¹⁰ … because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer;

In our Australia, people who keep the rules and expectations our community hold are called right and good (righteous). This seems to be getting harder though! There are so many expectations now spoken into our community from so many different angles!

But Jesus points to a much deeper righteousness of a different kind.

He is speaking here of a righteousness recognized by God, a righteousness far different from that acknowledged by the world. This righteousness he exalts far above all the work that can be done in this life and identifies it exclusively with Himself.

The Advocate with us is calling the world to not more rules or technological fixes or even more education and awareness of problems. He is calling sinners to belief; those dead to him alive in him by faith, not trying to be good but be allowing him to make us new.

Wrong about God’s judgment.

¹¹because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

It so easy to hear in our time. The world thinks it is the ultimate judge of itself. Of course, we know that Evil One cons us into believing that he is the almighty final judge of us as he constantly accused us to shame us.

But not so and don’t listen, says Jesus!

But friend, here is where we really live:

¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

What a relief. He has come. He is guiding you in his truth. He speaks what he directly hears from the Father and the Son.

That means you don’t have to know it all or get it all right and somehow, as Luther puts it, try and ‘flutter your way to heaven’.

The Holy Spirit, the Dove, the tongue of fire has made his way to your earth and promised to stand with you here speaking truth and life into our very soul.

One should know and learn that He [The Holy Spirit] will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations.

I, too, am a half-baked theologian. This I say lest I exalt myself over the great minds who have long ago ascended into the clouds beyond all Scripture and have nestled under the wings of the Holy Spirit.

So, ‘half-baked theologians, no need to live ‘wordless’ and therefore ‘Spirit-less’, alone and vulnerable. There is every hope this day that we are living ‘word-filled’, and therefore Spirit-filled together and connected.

From Luther’s hymn for Pentecost published in 1524;

Thou sweet love, give us thy favor.
Let us feel the fire of love:
That we from our hearts love one another,
Of one mind in peace remain together.
Kyrioleis.

Come, Holy Spirit. Amen.

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