SPIRIT OF POWER

[John 14:1-17]

          Introduction to the Scriptures: Turn with me to the gospel of John as we explore who Jesus is and what He has revealed to us about the essence and nature and character of God. John’s gospel is central to all those questions. We looked at the opening chapter, John 1, last week and what it told us about the incarnate Son – astounding things which we need to review regularly to know who this Jesus is whose name we have taken upon ourselves.

          But I invite you to turn to the 14^th chapter today, because here Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit, which we will be exploring. Remember that the gospel of John was written last of the four gospels. The first three were simply eye-witness accounts. John was also an eye-witness, but the first three just share the excitement of this astonishing thing that had happened in the world’s history, this astonishing man who had come along. John, Jesus’ closest companion, had the opportunity to reflect on this for some time, to consider its meaning and reflect on it with others who had been a part of this remarkable event in history. And he goes deeper to tell us the meaning behind all of this. Today he shares with us extensively about Jesus’ final conversation with His disciples. So this is Jesus’ conversation with us, beginning in verse 1 of John 14.

          There had been difficult things at the last supper they had shared, and they were obviously anxious. So He begins, “I want you to trust me.”

[Continue reading John 14:1-17]

Prayer for Illumination - Lord, in the remainder of this worship hour, first of all draw our hearts to you. Draw our minds to understand what we are reading here, illumine those minds with your truth, and then, Father, both here as we listen to your word and then as we gather at your table, feed us on that word, be powerfully present with us through your Spirit. May my words reflect only your truth. We all are here to hear your voice alone. We pray this in Jesus’ name, AMEN.

Message

          Christianity is about the trinity, or it is about nothing at all. Without the trinity we are groping in the dark to grasp the wind – like every other world religion in the world’s history. We really don’t have a clue who God is. Without the material image of God in Jesus Christ, and without the power of God unleashed into the world through the Holy Spirit, the God whom we may suspect lies behind the universe remains hidden, aloof, distant, terrifying, unknowable. Everything we pretend to know is a guess. And this is far too important a topic to be guessing about. Basing our life, both now and eternally, on such a gamble is more reckless and dangerous than attempting to walk the rail on the observation deck of a sky-scraper at night in a storm. (That’s dangerous!)

          Nor is this necessary, for as we learned last week from the first chapter of John’s gospel, while it is true that no one had ever seen God (He’s much larger than and much different from our material world) the only-begotten Son of the Father, the Word which had participated with the Father from the beginning in bringing all things into being – namely Jesus Christ – had taken on flesh and blood like our own and entered the material world to reveal the heart and essence of God the Father. Now we could know God surely.

          But never forget that without Jesus Christ, the “exact representation of [God’s] being” in bodily form, according to the Scriptures, we simply cannot know who God is or what He is up to. In Luke 10:22, Jesus says, “No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” In other words, without the revelation of Jesus Christ, we cannot know the Father. But according to Jesus’ words in John 10:30, “I and the Father are one.” So to know Jesus Christ is to know God the Father.

          That is what we have learned so far. Far too many even within the church have just not taken this seriously, however, even though it was Jesus’ central teaching. But today we want to venture even further into unknown territory to learn what the Bible, and more specifically Jesus himself, says about this mysterious third person of the trinity – the Holy Spirit. Most of us have only a vague understanding of the Holy Spirit and His relationship to the Father and the Son. But this is to our detriment. The centrality of trinitarian teaching to our Christian faith could not be more vivid and unmistakable than it is in Jesus’ final conversation with His disciples before His crucifixion, the conversation from which we’ve just been reading in John 14. This is Jesus’ last opportunity to make sure His followers understand the truth about God which He had come to reveal.

          Listen as we return to that conversation. In the first part of that chapter, Jesus is reflecting on the crucial relationship between the Father and the Son, of which He was the central illustration. It is worth noting that the only reason we have come up with the doctrine of the trinity is because Jesus taught it. Absolutely no one would ever have thought of it, and if some schizophrenic person did, no one would have believed them.

          But here the disciples are admitting their confusion about all that Jesus is teaching about the Father and about himself and about how all this fits together. So Jesus gets directly to the point in verse 6.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

          One would think you could not make it any clearer than that. But Philip says, I don’t know if I’ve gotten this: “Lord, show us the Father and [maybe] that will be enough for us.” And Jesus answers,

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”? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 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 miracles themselves [the power of God that you see evident in my life].

          And then He goes way beyond this fundamental concept to suggest that His followers will one day be able to exercise miraculous powers as well. So what is He talking about here? How could we get there? Well, in verse 15 He says, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” (That makes sense if all of His words come from the Father.) But then listen to this, verses 16, 17, “[If you do this] I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [I’ve been your counselor for a few years, but he will give you another Counselor] to be with you forever – 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.” There is a great blessing in this, by the way, because Jesus, being flesh and blood, could only be in one place at one time in history. The Holy Spirit is not restricted in that way. He says, this is a counselor you will want to have around.

          Now this is a stunning statement as we hear it from the lips of Jesus! Up until now, one might have been forgiven for thinking that any references to the Spirit of God were simply references to whatever God was thinking or doing. It was immeasurably revolutionary to introduce a physical person, Jesus, and set to work to prove that He was God in the flesh. But now they are being told that God not only includes the person of the Father and the person of the Son, but that the references to the Spirit of God were references to an entirely distinct third person within the Godhead, who was one with God as well. This is not just the “spirit of God” like we might talk about the “spirit of Martin Luther King” in our culture today, or perhaps the “spirit of Karl Marx” in communist countries. No, it is perfectly clear that Jesus is talking about a unique and identifiable person.

          There is really no mistaking it. It is clear on the face of things. All kinds of people today reject it. They say, you’re talking about three different Gods. Where does this thinking come from? It came from Jesus, and He made it very clear! And as the conversation continues, any questions they might have had simply had to be dismissed. A little further along in verses 25-26 of John 14 He tells them, “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, 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.” Ah, I don’t know about you, but I need reminders regularly, of all the things I think I learned. The Holy Spirit will be here to do that for you.

          One can only imagine the conversation which followed and the questions they might have raised as they continued to walk that night. It was following their last supper. They are heading out to the Garden of Gethsemane, and Jesus talked about the vine and the branches and the essential relationship that He had to have with His disciples. Then in John 15:26 he reaffirms, “When the Counselor 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.”

          Then again in John 16: 7 and 8 He tells them,

I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him [not it] to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment.

And in verse 13 of that chapter,

When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; [just like me] he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

I am sorry folks, this cannot be interpreted in any way except as a reference to a separate person, intimately and inseparably connected with God the Father, expressing His will and purpose, His essence. To deny the trinity is to deny the fundamental teaching of Jesus Christ.

          But what can we know of this mysterious third person of the trinity? The word used for the Spirit of God in both the Old and the New Testament is tremendously important. The word is ruach in the Hebrew and pneuma in the Greek. Both words have three separate but related and powerful meanings. The word can mean “wind” or “breath” or “spirit.” Ruach in particular cannot be pronounced without expelling a burst of air. The Spirit of God, the ruach adonai as the Scriptures make clear, is His breath which goes out from Him and brings His creation to life. Breath is a vivid image of life for us. We can live months with little or no food, we can live weeks with little or no water, but only about 3 minutes with no oxygen. We can even share some precious minutes of life with another person by sharing our breath with them. So it is God’s breath, His Spirit, His Ruach which brings the dust of the earth to life.

          The image is entirely appropriate. Wind, breath, air forcefully in motion, expresses the fundamental nature of the Spirit of God. The Spirit carries the power, the energy, the life of God the Father into His creation. That is what God’s Spirit does. We need to pay attention to this. It makes sense, but it may be a new image for most of us. Our primary thought about “spirit” is that it expresses immateriality – we talk about the material and the spiritual. But a closer look at the Scriptures reveals that spirit expresses power, more than immateriality. In some way, of course, it does express immateriality because the spirit exists beyond the material. But what we learn in God’s revelation of the Spirit is that this Spirit’s power is essential to materiality. The material cannot even exist without it, let alone come to life.

          More of that in a moment, but first I want to explore this junction between the material and the immaterial – between creation and the Spirit of God. Canon Michael Green of Oxford says, “Perhaps the first thing that strikes us as we come to the Old Testament is the tremendous emphasis on the Spirit of God as a violent, invading force. It is like the wind that hurtled across the desert or whistled through the cedars or rushed down the wadis.” Isaiah writes, “The grass withers, the flower fades when the ruach adonai [the Spirit of God] blows upon it. Surely the people is grass.” [Isa.40:7]

          In attempting to describe the Spirit of God, you might recall Jesus told Nicodemus,

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with . . . the Spirit.

All of us will recall that description of the sudden invasion of God’s Spirit at Pentecost as a “rushing, mighty wind.” Perhaps I have some small advantage over the rest of you here. I grew up with the wind on the South Dakota prairie. It can be terrifying, unpredictable, unbelievably powerful, persistent, sometimes destructive, and always beyond our control. And the Spirit of God is like that too. Life cannot exist on this planet without the winds which distribute heat and govern the weather, which affect the ocean’s currents circulating its life, which disperse seeds to spread vegetation across the planet, among other things. But wind can destroy as easily as it creates. The wind of God’s Spirit invading our universe must always be recognized as powerful and unpredictable. It “blows wherever it pleases,” as Jesus told Nicodemus. To paraphrase from Lewis’ description of Aslan, “He’s not a tame wind.” We shall never domesticate him.

          The first appearance of ruach, the wind, or breath, or Spirit of God, in scripture comes almost immediately in the account of creation in Genesis 1:1-2. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the [ruach elohim], the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

          Now here is a very interesting thing. Remember that the Father initiates everything, as here the Father initiates creation out of nothing. But the Spirit, like the Son, carries out the will of the Father. If the Spirit, as we are beginning to see, is primarily the agent of God’s power within the material creation, then we will expect the Spirit to begin organizing what was chaotic in the explosion which began the universe.

          And here modern physics has discovered some fascinating things. In Genesis, the first thing God said was, “Let there be light,” and, we are told, there was light. Now in physics, a photon (root: – photo, light) is an elementary particle, the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the basic unit of light and of all other forms of electromagnetic radiation. So when God said, “Let there be light,” He brought into being the most basic component of structured energy, the photon, which eventually becomes matter. The things that are seen made out of what is unseen, as the scripture says. What is it? It is what it is. It is a photon. It is an infinitesimal speck of energy which in relation to other specks of energy can be constructed into force fields which become matter.

          Now if the Spirit of God is primarily the agent of God’s power within the material creation, then it is the Spirit’s job to take what the Father has brought into being, the photon, and, as the Spirit carries God’s power into the material universe, to shape it as God the Father desires. Keep in mind that there is more to wind than the movement of air molecules on the surface of our planet. There are also cosmic winds which move charged particles and distribute them throughout the universe. Black holes and quasars have to follow the same rules of motion that govern us all, the same cosmic wind, the same spirits. And what we are learning about the Spirit of God in the opening chapters of scripture is that the Spirit is God’s wind. It is the power of God shaping and managing His material creation.

          What is more, God’s Word is clear that this wind or breath is not only the means by which all things exist, but it is the source of this mystery of life within the material creation. In Psalm 104, which we used as a call to worship this morning, the Psalmist is considering the manifold works of God’s creation and he points out in verse 30, “When you send your Spirit [your ruach], they are created.” By contrast, verse 29 says, “when you take away their breath [and the word for breath here is also ruach] they die and return to the dust.” Remember what we said earlier about the Spirit [ruach] of God being His life-giving breath without which we must remain spiritually inert, or lifeless.

          Job uses the same word for God’s spirit, ruach, when he says in 33:4, “The Spirit [ruach] of God has made me; the breath of the almighty gives me life.” And in that second phrase he uses a second word for breath – ruach can be a word for breath, but another word is, neshamah, which he uses here. If we go back to the account of the creation of human beings in God’s image in Genesis 2:7, we find an interesting and illuminating description. “The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a [nephesh, a] living being [a soul].” Here is the power of God carrying life into His creation. The Hebrew word for “breathed” into his nostrils is actually a stronger word, this time another Hebrew word that is best translated “blew” or “puffed.” It is the word for inflating something. And then he uses the same word Job uses, neshamah, the breath, of life [chaim], as in the familiar Hebrew phrase, l’chaim, to life.

          We need to move on, but I love these images. When Ezekiel is led out into a valley filled with dry bones and asked whether these bones can live, it is the ruach of God which stirs them to life so they may get up and dance! Dead, dry bones can dance before the Lord because of His Spirit.

          Well, this is what the ruach, the Spirit of God does. Coming into the creation from the outside with incredible and indeed irresistible power, it does not technically “create”, the Father did that, but it is the power which organizes energy into matter and animates it with life.

          Of course it does even more, which we do not have time this morning to explore. The Spirit also invades our material universe to communicate the truths of God. Again and again in both the Old and the New Testaments, the prophets and writers tell of their experience of being compelled by the Spirit of God to say things which sometimes they didn’t even want to say. The Spirit also guides, counsels, and bears fruit in our lives. He is the agent of life who makes our lives fruitful. The Spirit equips us for any task to which God calls us. Fundamentally the Spirit is the agent who directs and applies the astounding power of God in our lives and in our world.

          Now all that is about the power of God. If you are following the outlines in your bulletins, you may be getting worried about our time, but we have already covered the second point about the Person of the Spirit in our extended introduction. Suffice to say here that we might have been forgiven for assuming from the Old Testament revelation that the Spirit was simply a mode of God’s power and not a separate person. But the revelation of Jesus will not let us get away with that. He insists that we see the Holy Spirit as a separate person, yet vitally and integrally related to the Father and to Himself. This is important, or we may be tempted to experience only terror at the irresistible and impersonal power of God unleashed within our creation. But Jesus insists that this Spirit which empowers the universe is intimate and personal and compassionate, and can be depended upon to reveal the truth and to guide us along the pathway of the truth from God’s character.

          So I want to go to our all-important final point about the presence and the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In our text from John 14, Jesus concludes by telling His disciples that this Spirit of Power will not only accompany them, it will actually dwell within them, accomplishing astounding things. It is worth saying that the clearest illustration of everything I am about to say can be seen in the person of Jesus himself. As the Spirit is the agent of God’s power within the material universe, the Spirit was at work within the life of Jesus all along the way. From the very first moment when, as the angel Gabriel revealed to his mother Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God,” so also was the power of the Most High evident in everything Jesus ever said or did. Everything: His teachings, His miracles, right up to His death and His resurrection.

          When the apostle Paul prays for the believers in Ephesians 1, he says, “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.” Then listen to this:

I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand.

That is the power available to every single believer.

          What we are being told here, and what is the most exciting thing about this entire study, is that the Spirit of God which has molded and empowered and sustained the universe and given it life – this “incomparably great power” – is also intended for us who believe! And it is indeed incomparably great power, the very power which raised Jesus from the dead, healing and restoring His body and making it eternally immune to death!

          In a similar prayer for the Colossian Christians, Paul prayed that the filling of God’s Spirit would enable us to live in a way pleasing to God, “bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance.”

          Back in the Old Testament, the Spirit of God occasionally came upon particular persons, you will recall, giving awesome power and insight and courage. The extraordinary things done by God’s judges, like Gideon and Samson, and most notably the inimitable Samuel, were done when God’s Spirit seized them and took them far beyond their natural abilities. My favorite verse in this regard is the description of David after Samuel anointed him for the Lord’s work. God’s Word tells us that “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon David from that day forward.” That is the promise to us.

          The great news for us then, predicted by the Old Testament prophets like Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Joel, was that this same irresistible Spirit, the Spirit that stirred those dry bones to life, was going to be available to all believers. And when that rushing, violent wind invaded the place where the believers were praying on Pentecost, God’s Spirit was unleashed to accomplish stunning things through all those who, as Jesus had explained to His disciples that last night, all those who would surrender to the will of the Father as He himself had done. That is the key for us to experience the power of God’s Spirit.

          Friends, this is our heritage. This is our destiny! It is important for us to know, from a theological standpoint, who the Holy Spirit is. But most important of all is to know what He has come to do. The apostle Peter says in his second letter, “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness . . . so that through them you may participate in the divine nature . . .” Did you hear that? You may participate in the divine nature! The Spirit of God reaching out into His material creation! “. . . and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

          Then he urges us to discipline ourselves to grow toward godliness so that, to the extent we surrender to the will of God, we might know, indeed we might experience the very power which formed the universe and brought life out of death! That is what God intends for us who desire Him. The person of God’s Spirit has come to empower us as He empowered the universe, sharing with us the power which stunned those who first saw it in the life of Jesus Christ, who is our Lord, the first born of the Spirit.

Closing prayer - Father, we have begun to explore something about your Spirit, who you are, and what you have set about to do. We have begun to recognize that we are a part of it as well. We have begun to recognize our own inadequacy in ourselves, the dust of the earth, entirely inert, spiritually inert unless your Spirit comes to stir these dry bones to life. I cannot speak for anyone else here, but there are many days when spiritually I feel like a pile of dry bones, not equipped for any good work. But your Spirit promises to fill me, to fill each of us who desire you, and to empower us as the universe has been empowered, to grant us life as the universe has been given life. That power is available to each of us, and I pray that as we gather now at your table – at this remarkable junction of the material and the spiritual – that here in these material elements that represent our Lord Jesus Christ to us, we might take into our own lives the power of your Living Spirit. This we pray in the name of Jesus, laying claim to the promises of your Holy Word, AMEN.