Spiritually Healthy Lives—Life in the Spirit
- Stephen Phelan
- Mar 14, 2010
- Series: Spiritually Healthy Lives
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Spiritually Healthy Lives—Life in the Spirit
John 16: 5-16--Mid-City 3/14/10
I want to start with a controversial, but true statement. You ready. Here it is. If you aren’t in counseling, you aren’t a Christian? Well, Jesus’ disciples were even more confused by his statement in v5 than you are by what I just said. This is the night before Jesus is crucified and look at what Jesus tells them in v5 “Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, ‘Where are your going? Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am going away.” Really Jesus. I have left everything I have to come and follow you and you’re telling me that you are checking out of here and that this is going to be a good thing for me and my career.
This is the closest equivalent I could think of, and it pales in comparison, But imagine Steve Jobs of Apple calling all his employees and shareholders into a room and telling them that he is leaving and that this will be a good thing for them. Better yet--imagine Peyton Manning calling all his teammates into the team meeting room and telling them that he is retiring and that this is going to be a good thing for all his teammates and Colt fans. How in the world can that be possibly be true?
Look at Jesus’ answer. V7 “Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” See Jesus seems to think that the Counselor is going to make all the difference in the world. The reason it is going to be good for them is that the Counselor will come to you. Now this counselor is the Holy Spirit. v12-15 he makes the connection explicitly that the Holy Spirit is the counselor. So what is it about this Counselor, this Holy Spirit, that lead Jesus to say to his disciples that they would be better off when he left than they were when he was physically present. Well, that is what we will discuss. What is so special about the Holy Spirit? We’re going to look at 3 things
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Convicts (Counselor)
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Guides (Mentor)
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Applies (Therapist)
Name-THE COUNSELOR: When Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit here, he names it “The Counselor.” Paraclete is the Greek word. Not as in like a pair of cleats that you play football in. No, this word actually comes from the Greek word parakaleo. It is a really interesting word that Tim Keller called hard and soft. Think French bread. French bread is both hard and soft at the same time. It has an outer shell that is hard and crunchy and you bite through and the middle is soft and fluffy. It is that unique combination in French bread that makes it so special, right. Same with the unique role of the Holy Spirit as parakaleo.
See Kaleo is the hard outer texture—it means truth, to call someone to see truth. To exhort them. That is hard stuff to do. It takes courage and boldness. But, on the other hand, para is the soft inside of the French bread—para means to come alongside someone. To relate to them, to assist them. The Holy Spirit does both at the same time. Exhort, convict of truth and come alongside relationally. So, as you would expect with a name like parakaleo, the roles of the Holy Spirit are both soft and hard.
Convict (crunch outside) v8 “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” and then v9-11 explain that further. See the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment.
Now if you are follower of Jesus, then this should be incredibly liberating. You don’t have to be the moral police of San Diego. The Holy Spirit, not you, convicts people of sin and righteousness and judgment.
Andy Marin told me a story about how Billy Graham applied this principle in his ministry. Years ago Billy Graham attended an election rally for President Clinton after the President’s sex scandal with Monica Lewinsky. Someone from the media was curious and asked Billy Graham, why are you here supporting President Clinton after everything he did? His answer was this: "it is the Holy Spirit's job to convict, God's job to judge, and it’s my job to love." Billy Graham left the conviction and judgment up to the Holy Spirit and God—he was so bent on loving people that it lead him to unlikely places and unlikely people and millions met Jesus.
I had a chance to witness the power of letting the Holy Spirit do His job of conviction while I just focused on loving. Ford and Milly and I were filling up our stylish minivan about 8 PM at the Exxon right across from Hoover. As we were sitting there a Latina woman who appeared to be about 50 years old came up to me and asked if I could give her a ride down the street. She said she was walking home and could use some help. Now it isn’t my normal practice to pick up random women when I am alone, but Ford and Milly were with me so I figured, “Why not. Hop in.” So she gets in and the first thing out of her mouth is, “I am a hooker.” To which I responded, “I am a pastor, and our church is right over there. It may look like a school to you, but it is a church. And here is what I told her. “Jesus loves you. Do you know that? He loves you so much.” And when I said that the tears began to fall. “He does, doesn’t he. I knew that when I was a little girl, but I have forgotten it because of the way men treat me. They beat me, they wave guns in my face. You can’t imagine how poorly I am treated. But I keep doing this b/c I feel trapped—I have been doing this for 30 years and I can’t get out.”
And I told her that she wasn’t trapped. That Jesus wanted to provide a way out and I mentioned Generate Hope and told her that if that didn’t work we’d help her find a place so that the love of Jesus would become so real that it would set her free. And I asked her if Ford and Milly and I could pray for her and she said, “Oh yes, please.” Before she got out of the car, she was trying to stop crying and pull herself together and she said, “Today is my 48th birthday, and you’re the first person who has treated me with kindness.” See I didn’t have to be the moral police my friends. The Holy Spirit was convicting her. I simply wanted to love her and to lead her to Jesus.
See the last thing I wanted to do is take the woman at the well and make her into a Pharisee. Clean up, stop doing this. No. Just meet Jesus—b/c once He gives her the Holy Spirit, the soft and hard Counselor will convict.
(2) Guide (Mentor)
But convict isn’t the only thing the Holy Spirit does. The 2nd thing Holy Spirit does is guide us. This is more like mentoring than counseling. Look at v13, “But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.” Notice it says there guide you. The Holy Spirit is a guide. This is the soft side (para) coming alongside you ….into all truth (truth, crunch).
See what you have here is the Holy Spirit functioning as the ultimate mentor. A mentor guides someone. I read an interesting book on mentoring by Denzel Washington called A Hand to Guide Me. It brings together the stories of 74 different famous people that you would know and shows how each one of them could point to one particular mentor who made a difference in guiding them down the path they needed to be on. Listen to Denzel Washington, “We’re all destined to leave some kind of mark. I really believe that. We’re all meant to walk a certain path at a certain time in a certain direction for a certain purpose. I believe that too. But I also believe we miss our marks from time to time, and without a certain push in the right direction we might never find the path we were meant to follow.”
Denzel Washington is right. We’re all going to leave a mark, and we will at times miss the mark. So we need a hand to guide, a mentor. Do we need physical people? Yes. But Jesus said to his disciples even more than you need me physically you need me spiritually. Yes—we need physical mentors, but if you don’t have THE mentor in the Holy Spirit, then you aren’t a Christian.
3. Applies (Therapist)
But the Holy Spirit has a 3rd role as well. He is a counselor that convicts, a mentor that guides, and a therapist that applies. The 3rd role of the Holy Spirit is that He applies truth to our hearts like a therapist. v14, “He (the Holy Spirit) will bring glory to me (Jesus) by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” My glory, my truth—Jesus says the Holy Spirit will take these things from me in heaven where I am going and make heaven known to you on earth in your heart so that you will be better off then than you are now when I am with you.
The Holy Spirit applying heaven to their hearts is what changed the disciples. Jesus was right when he said it is for your good that I am leaving. Before they receive the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the disciples are a group of fearful, falling asleep when they should be praying, deserters who ditch Jesus when the going gets tough. After Pentecost, the Holy Spirit takes what they knew to be true and applies it to their heart and gave them a new spiritual conviction, a new spiritual guide, and they finally had the truth of Jesus applied to their hearts. They become fearless and joyful world-changers that to a man all refuse to recant or abandon him even to the point of martyrdom. The difference—the Holy Spirit took intellectual head knowledge about Jesus and applied it to their heart.
If we are honest, most of us are like the disciples. We say, “If only I had been alive in the first century to see the miracles of Jesus—then I would live fearlessly and courageously and joyfully.” NO! You wouldn’t. The miracles didn’t do it for the disciples. The miracles weren’t enough for pharaoh. Miracles, facts, knowledge don’t create courage/joy/peace—the Holy Spirit does. Truth on the heart.
Jonathan Edwards reflected on this problem as a pastor in Northhampton. He saw two totally different groups of people in his church and town. On the one hand, you had a group of growing, joyful, vibrant Christians. On the other hand, you had a number of weak and immature Christians who were just barely making it. They lacked joy & were riddled with anxiety. Edwards said the diff between nominal Christians and real Christian, between weak and immature limping Christian and mature, vital Christian was one thing: spiritual reality.
He said the knowledge level in his town was very similar. Everyone believed intellectually in heaven in Northhampton. That was a truth they professed to know, but it had no spiritual reality in their life. Heaven wasn’t true in their hears.
Think with me now. The same is true of San Diego. According to an ABC News poll done recently, 90% of San Diegans currently believe in heaven. But the truth of heaven is having very little to no impact on the hearts of San Diegans. We are more stressed out, more fearful, more secular than ever.
Same problem the disciples faced, same problem that Edwards faced. What is problem—the truth that San Diegans profess about heaven isn’t real to them. No spiritual reality—no sense on the heart. Edwards say if you believed in heaven and in the glory of Jesus, you would be incredibly generous, you would live fearless, joyful lives. If you believed in heaven, you wouldn’t be afraid of death.
Jesus and Edwards are saying the same thing. The difference is the Holy Spirit. Look at v14 again. “He (the Holy Spirit) will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.” So here is another way to say it—the Holy Spirit applies heaven on earth in our hearts. If you’re life feels like hell, then it is because you have no sense of the Holy Spirit applying heaven. If you’re life feels like hell, then it is because you have no sense of the Holy Spirit applying the glory and riches of heaven
Ex: I have a friend who is a follower of Jesus and every time something goes wrong, she gets emotionally distraught and says to me, “ I know all the right answers from the Bible, BUT” and then she will rattle off a list of reasons why her life is so bad and feels like hell. Think about it. She is acting like the disciples pre-Pentecost. She professes to know truth, but her truth has no spiritual reality in her life. She needs the Holy Spirit to make
Heaven overwhelm hell in her heart so that heaven is more spiritually operative.
Ex for those of you who are not followers of Jesus. We actually just discussed this on Tuesday night in our Curious Discussion Forum. A couple of people were saying, “You want me to believe in someone that I can’t see and touch. You’re telling me that I am supposed to have a relationship with someone that I can’t see and touch and that my relationship with him will actually be more foundational than my relationship with my wife who I can see and touch.”
Precisely. CS Lewis answered this objection in a great little essay called Weight of Glory. He said, “We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it…. [But] At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of the morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see.” So the very fact that you have a relationship with your wife that is life-giving and foundational, Lewis says, is evidence that your heart is yearning for a relationship with Jesus. Why? B/c in your wife you see beauty. In her you have experienced romance and joy and delight, but you know that at any second she could be snatched from you. I have been through 3 funerals in the past few weeks—and in all 3 cases the marriage was one of great strength and life-giving presence. Those 3 cases alone testify to what Lewis says--we can’t ultimately mingle with the splendours we see and experience. You want to, your heart yearns to pass into that beauty and become inextricably linked with her or him forever. But we know that partners and spouses die, that the glorious sunset always sets. You’re on the wrong side of the door.
“But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.” Friends, The Holy Spirit gives you access NOW to what you will have some day. A sneak preview. He takes the glory of being fully united to Christ in heaven and makes it partially known or real in your hearts today.
So let me close by making this practical? Lots of you have the Holy Spirit and you want Holy Spirit to do all these things I am talking about: convict you, guide you, apply heaven to your heart. But how? Well, Jesus says keep showing up in worship b/c you need worship and the gospel and the community and baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Keep taking the sacraments bring together the physical and spiritual. This is why Jesus says keep doing these things in remembrance of Him.
Beyond Sunday, get in a community group. I Pet. 2—living stone. Your heart will grow hard and the things you know won’t be real unless you have people who are in your life and community groups are just the start for that. Beyond church and community group, start serving the city through mercy and justice ministry. Get involved with what Jesus is involved in and His Spirit will be there.
But the foundation for all of the above comes from a personal counseling and mentoring and therapy session with Jesus every morning where he pours out His Holy Spirit upon you. Get in the WORD. Daily.
See here is the pattern. We go to the Word, the word (if we are reading it correctly) takes us to Jesus—the hero of the story, and the hero plants himself in us through the Holy Spirit.
Think about how we see Jesus as the hero of our passage. Why did Jesus say, “It is for your good that I am going away.” Because if Jesus had never left the disciples, if he had never gone to the cross, then His Spirit wouldn’t be bringing spiritual life to our hearts but rather spiritual death. We get his glory because he became a gory mess on our behalf.
As you meditate on the hero of each passage and put your trust in Jesus, then Jesus takes as he says his glory and righteousness and truth and the things that are his in heaven and makes them real in your heart by giving you the Holy Spirit. And what you’ll find is that the things that are really real and true about the word are becoming real in your heart.
You are no longer shrinking back with your old spirit of timidity, b/c Jesus has made real to you a Spirit of power, of love, and a sound mind. Heaven is taking over. The old fearful spirit—I John 4:18 says it is being driven out by Jesus’ perfect love that is becoming more real to you than anything else. See it all begins with trusting Jesus and receiving the Holy Spirit. Have you?
