[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the preaching ministry of the Agopic Baptist Church in George South Africa.
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, good morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd see each of you here today and be able to join together and worship in the Lord.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to find your place in John chapter sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to read the first fifteen verses from John sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, our text this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: John sixteen, beginning in verse one.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.
[SPEAKER_00]: They will put you out of the synagogues.
[SPEAKER_00]: Indeed, the hours coming, whenever it kills you, thinks he is offering service to God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they will do these things because they have not known the Father nor Me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I have said these things to you that when the hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now I am going to him who sent me and none of you asked me where are you going.
[SPEAKER_00]: But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
[SPEAKER_00]: Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is to your advantage that I go away.
[SPEAKER_00]: For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if I go, I will send him to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: In when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Concerning sin because they do not believe in me and concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer.
[SPEAKER_00]: In concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak and He will declare to you the things that are to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And will glorify Me for He will take what His mind and declare to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All that the Father has is mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, I say that He will take what is mine and declare it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: We think about these first disciples and they're having traveled with the Lord Jesus Christ and been with Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We sometimes think that they're way different than we are.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the reality is that we're very much like them in many ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see how that in these last chapters, the Lord is encouraging them.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've become fearful and troubled about the things that He's saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's saying some very disturbing things about Him going away and about how
[SPEAKER_00]: persecution is coming and how the world will hate them and there will be opposition and Jesus has been saying to them that they're not to be troubled.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter fourteen verse twenty seven for example he says, do not let your hearts be troubled nor let it be fearful.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we're just like them.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one thing to hear these administrations.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's another thing to obey them, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's another thing to make them part of our life in chapter, the Fourteen or Sixteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see another statement like this where Jesus is reassuring them that he's not going to abandon them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going away, but
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate, another helper that he may be with you forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that word there, another indicates another of the same kind.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's another Greek word you could use if you wanted to talk about another that's different.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here he's
[SPEAKER_00]: He's telling them that this advocate that's coming is like me.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's another like me to be at your side to help you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever thought that it would be better if we could be like the disciples and have Jesus with us in the flesh to just be able to talk to him
[SPEAKER_00]: and ask questions and just hear his answers and his advice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Surely that would be better.
[SPEAKER_00]: But as we see, Jesus is telling them that it's not better.
[SPEAKER_00]: That it's actually better for them if he goes away because the advocate, the Holy Spirit will come and be with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our text in the verse seven we read but I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away or if I do not go away the advocate will not come to you but if I go I will send him to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes we're like the little boy who was afraid at night and his dad says to him and reassures him that Jesus is with him
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says, yes, I know, but I want somebody with skin on.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I've told you that before in that little situation, but we're like that, aren't we?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just a little kids that don't want to be able to see somebody and touch them and to hear their audible voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like that as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes the promise that the Spirit of God is with us, it leaves us feeling like, well, I would really like somebody with skin on right now to come and tell me and talk to me and be with me.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus is telling his disciples and he's telling us that the presence of the Spirit of God
[SPEAKER_00]: is much better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And especially considering that the disciples and those followers of Christ would grow from just a few in a handful to hundreds and thousands in all over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that the Spirit of God is with each one personally, individually and welling them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it is much better
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Jesus says that He's going away, all those disciples at that time were struggling to understand He's going away by means of the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that He would die and pay the price for our sins as part of why Jesus says it is better for you.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because without that death,
[SPEAKER_00]: In return to the Father, they would not be able to have their sins forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: They would not have a future with the Lord in heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when Jesus says that it's better that to have the Holy Spirit with them, He's already been talking about that from chapter fourteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: Number sixteen, He says that the Spirit will be with you forever.
[SPEAKER_00]: and also in four chapter fourteen verse seventeen he says it will not not only be with them but in them and he said and referred to a couple of times the spirit as the spirit of truth and chapter fourteen verse twenty six he says that he will teach you
[SPEAKER_00]: and it will teach them the disciples and help them to remember what Jesus had taught them when he was with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the end of chapter fifteen he says that he will bear witness about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's already introducing to them this ministry of the Spirit and he's been talking about how that the Spirit God will help them.
[SPEAKER_00]: In chapter sixteen he expands upon that
[SPEAKER_00]: And he tells them about this advantage that they would have because he is leaving and going to the Father and that the Spirit of God is coming, the advocate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he says in this text that I read this morning that he's going to convict the world and that he's going to guide the disciples into all truth
[SPEAKER_00]: And that he's going to glorify Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so those three areas we're going to look at this morning.
[SPEAKER_00]: And first of all, verse eight to eleven, he says that the Holy Spirit is going to convict the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse eight, and when he comes, we'll convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what does he mean by that phrase that he's going to convict the world?
[SPEAKER_00]: He's called the Holy Spirit, the Pericles, and that means someone who's called to your side.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a word that was used in court as an advocate.
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone that would come
[SPEAKER_00]: and represent you someone that would speak for you, some that would help you in that process.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've been accused of some serious crime, you're going to want a good lawyer and the best that you can possibly get.
[SPEAKER_00]: Especially if it's a serious crime like murder or something that's like that, you're out of your debt.
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot
[SPEAKER_00]: represent yourself very well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And to have someone that would come and be with you and help you and speak for you would be very reassuring in such a context.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Holy Spirit of God is
[SPEAKER_00]: is like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's more than that, but he's like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: He comes to our side to our aid.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's why some of the translations you see, the word helper, it's literally advocate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it incorporates that truth that we see in the courtroom, but it goes beyond that to speak of all the things that the Spirit of God is to us and to help us
[SPEAKER_00]: Someone said, it's like the person in the court of law who comes to be at your side to help you and those proceedings.
[SPEAKER_00]: We see this word used to refer to Jesus as well and John, or one John chapter two, verse one,
[SPEAKER_00]: We read there, my little children, I am writing these things to you that you may not see.
[SPEAKER_00]: But if anyone does see and we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, Jesus is interceding on our behalf because we belong to Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are but advocate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And here he's saying that
[SPEAKER_00]: Another advocate is coming to be with us, to be with them, and to help them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Holy Spirit is our advocate, but to the world, we'll see in these verses he is the prosecuting attorney.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to convict the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And his work is to really bring to their hearts a verdict of guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that he's convincing the judge that they're guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now he's convincing the world that they are guilty.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's bringing evidence to their heart and to their mind to show these truths
[SPEAKER_00]: The A. Carson is commentary says when the, when the pair of elite comes, he will extend the ministry of Jesus in ways that disciples could not foresee.
[SPEAKER_00]: In particular, he convicts the world of its sin, its righteousness, and its judgment in the quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when the Spirit God convicts the world, it's not just to make them feel bad, or even to feel guilty,
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to show them that they are indeed guilty before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that they have no righteousness before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that they're wrong in their judgments, especially their judgments about Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he shows us three areas here.
[SPEAKER_00]: First of all,
[SPEAKER_00]: The Spirit of God convicts the world of sin, verse nine, concerning sin because they do not believe in me.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the world is, as we are part of the world, before we were saved, we were all guilty of many sins.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's no greater sin than the rejection of Jesus Christ as a son of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the claims that Jesus made concerning Himself of who He is is the revelation of the Father, as we've seen repeatedly in John, the IAM, the self-existent eternal God who came to earth and gave His life a ransom for many.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to John eight verse twenty four Jesus says to them those that we're hearing but not believing He says therefore I said to you you will die in your sins for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins and then earlier in chapter three verse thirty six he says are John writes of him he who believes in the Son has eternal life
[SPEAKER_00]: He who does not obey the Son, will not see life but the wrath of God abides on Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: You notice in our text in verse nine that the word sin is singular.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although the world has many sins, he's focusing on this sin of disbelief, of not trusting, not believing in Jesus.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the really the focal point of the Spirit's work.
[SPEAKER_00]: of conviction.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we should ask this morning, have you believed in Jesus?
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't mean just believing the facts about who Jesus is, but have you trusted Him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you entrusted yourself to Him?
[SPEAKER_00]: Turning from any hope in your own goodness or righteousness?
[SPEAKER_00]: and turning to Him as the righteous one who paid the price for your sins to satisfy the righteous demands of a Holy God.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really the question.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the focal point of the Spirit's work in conviction, the unsaved, that they would recognize who they are as a sinner, having rejected
[SPEAKER_00]: and not believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, until the Spirit of God brings this conviction to your heart, you will not and cannot be saved.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where it begins with that conviction that we are sinners and guilty before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You also convicts the world of righteousness, verse ten, and he says and explains and concerning of righteousness,
[SPEAKER_00]: because I go to the Father in you no longer see me.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not completely clear, even though he's explained it here with his phrase or this verse ten, it's still not completely clear what the connection is between the conviction of righteousness and the resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, whose righteousness is in view
[SPEAKER_00]: that he's convicting about, is it the righteousness of the world or the righteousness of Christ?
[SPEAKER_00]: And in many ways, I think both are because when a person sees the righteousness of Christ, they recognize that they don't have it, but they don't have this righteousness, and they need something they don't have.
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul Peter does this in Acts three, the first sermon after Pentecost in Acts three, verse fourteen and fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says, but you denied the Holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the author of life whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see, the resurrection of Christ proves that He is the righteous one and that the righteousness of the world is not righteous before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can think especially of the religious people in the world, the people who and from their own
[SPEAKER_00]: view and the view of others are righteous people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're good people.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're religious people.
[SPEAKER_00]: But without Christ, they are their righteousness is not counted before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's of no value.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's something that is repulsive to God as the prophet Isaiah wrote about.
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the righteousness as filthy rags.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, you might as well take a vile something and hold it up and hope that God would accept it as to offer your righteousness that you can muster before God.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus says this
[SPEAKER_00]: the Beatitudes and Matthew five and verse twenty in that message that follows the Beatitudes he says for us say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses the righteous or that of the scribes and Pharisees you will not enter the kingdom of heaven and the people must have been really shocked by such a statement because the scribes and Pharisees were you know the most righteous people in their eyes they were
[SPEAKER_00]: doing all these things, keeping the law or trying to, according to the way they had interpreted the law.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were, in the eyes of the people, righteous.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus said, if your righteousness is not greater, if it doesn't surpass the righteousness, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they must have been thinking, well, that's impossible.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It is impossible, according to their ability, according to the flesh.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to be right with God, we need a alien righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: In other words, a righteousness that does not come from us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not our own.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that we produce.
[SPEAKER_00]: To be right with God, we need the righteousness of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: that is put to our account.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's exactly what God does when we trust in Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: He puts to our account the very righteousness of Christ so that when we stand before God, He sees His righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: That we are clothed in His righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we're forgiven.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because we're deserving, but because
[SPEAKER_00]: we are in Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: As long as the person thinks that their righteousness is acceptable before God, they will never turn to Christ and saving faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the spirit of God is working to bring this conviction to the hearts of men.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thirdly, he says that he will convict the world of judgment, verse eleven, and concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, it's somewhat difficult to determine the judgment that's in view here.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we hear the word judge about, we normally think of judgment to come or condemnation to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And certainly, the Spirit of God does convict men concerning future judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all over the Scriptures.
[SPEAKER_00]: Jesus talked about future judgment to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the apostles and the writing and the Scripture used that truth
[SPEAKER_00]: to convict me in of their need.
[SPEAKER_00]: But here in the context in the flow of the argument that he's making concerning the world, in verse eight through eleven, it seems that he's talking about the thinking of the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's talking about their judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Or he's going to convict them concerning their judgment, their wrong judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: the wrong thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is especially as it relates to Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: As you think about John and how John has revealed to us the interactions with the unsaved, especially the religious unsaved, of that day, we see that they were constantly misjudging him.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're thinking and their judgments were wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: we see in John chapter seven of verse twenty four on one of those occasions where they were arguing with him about the circumcision and and also about the Sabbath and things like that and Jesus says do not judge according to appearance but judge with righteous judgment
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that seems to be what John has in view here, as the Lord speaks about this judgment to come.
[SPEAKER_00]: D.A.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carson is coming to you again, writes, Jesus, judgment is righteous and true.
[SPEAKER_00]: The words judgment is profoundly wrong and morally perverse.
[SPEAKER_00]: And now the periclet comes, convicts the world of its false judgment, because in the impending triumph of Christ, the Prince of this world stands condemned."
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse eleven, it makes that statement because the ruler of this world has been judged.
[SPEAKER_00]: The ruler of this world is a reference to Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when Christ
[SPEAKER_00]: died or is at this point he's going to die very near the point where he's going to be taken and he will die in his death he enacted that judgment he won that victory and so many times you look at the cross and you think well that was terrible and it would seem you know to the onlookers like a defeat of this
[SPEAKER_00]: this new message about Christ and these Christ followers.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in reality, it was the triumph of God's plan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Through the death of Christ, He won the victory and He triumphed over Satan, the ruler of this world.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all that are in the world, and all of the world,
[SPEAKER_00]: stand condemned with Satan.
[SPEAKER_00]: They stand under the condemnation.
[SPEAKER_00]: And their judgments are tainted by the ruler of this world and the world's system and everything that's in it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Spirit of God is with us and he comes and he convicts the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: concerning their wrong judgments, their wrong thinking.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think about these disciples in their fear, in their confusion, they must be feeling very inadequate about what Jesus is saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: They could never hope to be able to do a better job
[SPEAKER_00]: of changing the wrong thinking of the world and what Jesus did.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a master teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he knew the Word of God better than anyone could.
[SPEAKER_00]: He was able to use the Word of God and bring conviction to hearts.
[SPEAKER_00]: But now he's leaving.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they are feeling very vulnerable.
[SPEAKER_00]: But Jesus reassures them that the Holy Spirit, one like Him, is going to be with them.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's going to come to their side, just like Jesus was with them, the Spirit of God is coming to be with them, and He's going to help them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He's going to speak into the hearts of men
[SPEAKER_00]: to convict them of their sin and their need for true righteousness and for right judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he does that still today for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's with us and he helps us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a second area that he speaks of here from verse thirteen and fourteen
[SPEAKER_00]: is that the Holy Spirit of God will guide the disciples into all the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we must think, ask the question of what is all the truth that He's referring to.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not every possible truth that can be learned in the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's not really what He's concerned about.
[SPEAKER_00]: The focus of His revelation is the completion
[SPEAKER_00]: of the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all the things that the Lord wasn't ready to tell them about.
[SPEAKER_00]: At least not until after He had died and ascended back to the Father and provided salvation for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Lord would be ready to begin revealing these things, and He would teach them things that they had already been told, but they really couldn't understand.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Spirit of God has come and will come to help them, to guide them into all the truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, this what He means when verse twelve, He says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
[SPEAKER_00]: verse thirteen when he comes but when he the spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth for he will not speak for from himself but whatever he hears he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come this revelation or disclose you're from the spirit of God is complete in the last book of the Bible
[SPEAKER_00]: the book which bears the name, the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's what God is doing through the work of the Spirit of God for these apostles, these disciples that would become their apostles.
[SPEAKER_00]: And Jesus has been emphasizing this work of the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the third time now.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's referred to this ministry of teaching that the Spirit will have.
[SPEAKER_00]: chapter fourteen in verse twenty six he says he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you that's a pretty amazing in itself isn't it Jesus for those three and a half years Jesus said a lot of things and we only have a record of some of what Jesus said
[SPEAKER_00]: But he tells the disciples that the Spirit is going to remind him, he's going to help them remember everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he's going to guide them into all the truth concerning Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: In verse chapter fifteen, the end of chapter there, he says, and when the advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,
[SPEAKER_00]: who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me.
[SPEAKER_00]: This, this work, this ministry of revelation of the Spirit is directed specifically to the apostles who recorded for us the New Testament Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We have that revelation through them because the Spirit of God has enabled them
[SPEAKER_00]: to record it, to give it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And even of things to come that we have.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that his teaching and guiding work continues.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not revealing the new truth, but his teaching us to understand what has already been revealed.
[SPEAKER_00]: in the Word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: He guides us and He helps us in understanding the already revealed truth of the Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we refer to this work as illumination.
[SPEAKER_00]: He brings to light that which the Lord has before us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's important to also notice here that He points out that the Spirit of God is not coming
[SPEAKER_00]: to do some independent work or some independent revelation.
[SPEAKER_00]: He has the third person of the Trinity of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a perfect harmony, a perfect unity within the Godhead.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Spirit of God's focus will be to the glory of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not that he doesn't speak about other things and reveal other things, but that is going to be a focal point.
[SPEAKER_00]: of his ministry.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the third area that he highlights in verse fourteen and fifteen.
[SPEAKER_00]: He will glorify me for he will take of mine and will disclose it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: All things that the Father has are mine.
[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You think about Jesus, earthly ministry, His focus was to glorify the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He's repeats that many times how He comes to do the will of the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He doesn't do or say anything except what the Father is sinning to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He keeps repeating that over and over, giving honor and glory to the Father.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the Spirit comes in a similar way.
[SPEAKER_00]: And His focus is glory
[SPEAKER_00]: to the Lord Jesus Christ in His work of salvation and redemption.
[SPEAKER_00]: There is this inherent unity within the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: In each one is fulfilling their function, or their eternal purpose within the one God, there's three persons of this Godhead that are functioning and accomplishing
[SPEAKER_00]: a single purpose, but they are each functioning according to their own ministry, in their own God ordained way.
[SPEAKER_00]: He says that the Spirit will bear witness and He's going to glorify Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this focus was also the focus of the apostles.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you go and look at the scriptures, the New Testament writings, the Old Testament pointed to Christ and the redemption that would come and the New Testament writings look back to that work and it will fill out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You could say what happened at the cross and what the implications are going to be for the future because of the cross.
[SPEAKER_00]: and those that turn to Christ in faith.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the glory of that the Spirit of God glorifies Christ in as this truth concerning who He is and what He has done.
[SPEAKER_00]: The end of chapter fifteen says when the advocate comes whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me
[SPEAKER_00]: And you will bear witness also because you have been with me from the beginning.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you see that that focus, that bearing witness concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We call that the gospel, the good news, the good news about Jesus Christ and what He came to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the first year we were in South Africa, we began focusing on learning offer counts, being able to minister in offer counts.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's hard enough, and it's enough itself to make that change in that switch.
[SPEAKER_00]: But ministry is also hard by itself.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a young pastor,
[SPEAKER_00]: There would be many times that you would need to go and talk to people about difficult situations.
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it would be merit a trouble or some other issue that required the ability to just trust God.
[SPEAKER_00]: You felt extremely inadequate, not knowing exactly what to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that compounded with the inability and offer cons in the filling of being inadequate to use it language like you really wanted to.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was very helpful to have a co-worker.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were blessed to have a co-worker Mark Blackwell.
[SPEAKER_00]: in those early days, his offercons really wasn't much better than mine, but it was very encouraging to have somebody to be with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the Lord has given us someone that's greater than any human coworker could be, the Holy Spirit of God who comes as our advocate, someone
[SPEAKER_00]: an advocate like Jesus is of the same, not just the same kind, but he's of the same God.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he comes in the same way to be with us and he helps us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we, in our feeble way, speak God's word, the Holy Spirit takes God's word and convicts the heart of the unbeliever.
[SPEAKER_00]: Convicts the heart of the believer as well and uses it as only God can do.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that should be reassuring to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It should be very encouraging to us as believers, as we seek to speak to truth.
[SPEAKER_00]: We give our testimony, or we talk to someone about the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to be aware that it's not depended upon us to convict or to convince, because the Spirit of God is with us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And He's invisibly, inevitably, but very real in the heart of the person speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: the Word of God and bringing conviction.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's convincing and convicting concerning the truth of God's Word.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we should be encouraged by that as we think about many times we don't know what to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't know if we'll know how to answer a question that someone might have.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we don't always know what to say.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we can't always answer the questions.
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can tell people about what God has done for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's an amazing thing how that when we begin to talk about what God has done, the Spirit helps us to remember, helps us to remember scripture, helps us to think about the answer that we did not plan for.
[SPEAKER_00]: And we did not know that we were going to say that, but God is with us, and He enables us, and He helps us.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the focus in ministry of the Spirit, and it should be our focus as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when we are in step with the Spirit of God, it will be the focus of the revelation of Jesus Christ, who He is, what He did.
[SPEAKER_00]: and what it means for us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just close with reading Hebrews chapter one, verse one to three.
[SPEAKER_00]: This introduction, the writer of Hebrews gives, because this congregation of Jews early church, some had were turning away
[SPEAKER_00]: from Christ, going back to Judaism.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was a danger.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the writer is focusing here at very beginning on the Lord Jesus Christ and reminding them of who he is.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the reason I want to read it is because this is what the Spirit of God wants to do in the heart of the unsaved.
[SPEAKER_00]: Verse one, Hebrews one, verse one, God, have been spoken long ago to the fathers and the prophets and many portions and in many ways.
[SPEAKER_00]: And in these last days, he spoke to us in his son, whom he imported air of all things.
[SPEAKER_00]: And through whom also he made the worlds, who is the radiance of his glory in the exact representation of his nature.
[SPEAKER_00]: And upholds all things of other word of his power
[SPEAKER_00]: You have an accomplished cleansing for sin sat down at the right hand on the majesty on eye.
[SPEAKER_00]: In this truth, the Spirit of God will take and He will convict the world concerning their sin, concerning their righteousness or you could say the lack of righteousness and concerning judgment.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because
[SPEAKER_00]: They do not think rightly about themselves, about their need, or about their little Lord Jesus Christ and what He did for them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the Spirit of God is at work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe we'd be even more aware of His presence and His work so that we can follow Him.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can submit to Him and depend upon Him and yield to His work and our lives
[SPEAKER_00]: today tomorrow in the week ahead may it be so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Father, thank you for your goodness to us.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your grace that you've given us, for the Lord Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: We want to thank you for the Spirit of God who's come to dwell in us, God in us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's beyond our ability to fully comprehend what I pray that we might
[SPEAKER_00]: walk in step with the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: We might yield to the Spirit.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that as we speak for you, we speak of Christ.
[SPEAKER_00]: May we be aware, Father, that you're using that word, that truth concerning Christ and bringing conviction to the heart of those that need to hear it.
[SPEAKER_00]: We thank you in praise and Jesus name.
[SPEAKER_00]: Amen.