Title The Holy Spirit Is With You!
The Holy Spirit is with you!
The joint translation we are using for worship has given the subtitle of today's text 'The Promise of the Holy Spirit'. That's kind. If so, it means that the core of today's message is an explanation of the promises of the Holy Spirit. Even if you understand it that way, you have roughly caught up with today's message. Now we just need to ask a few questions here. Reading and studying the Word is the same as learning how to correctly ask questions about the text. What question do you want to ask first? Now that I'm preaching, I'd better ask a question first.
The first question is who made the ‘promise of the Holy Spirit’. This is such an easy question. These are the words and promises of Jesus to his disciples. This text is a passage from Jesus' farewell sermon to his disciples just before the end of Jesus' public life. The farewell sermon falls under John 14-17, so today's text belongs to the relatively early part. The reason Jesus gave his farewell sermon was because the time of Jesus' departure from this world was very near. This is death through crucifixion and ascension after resurrection.
This situation is a great crisis for the disciples. Even while Jesus was alive, the discipleship community did not escape from crises large and small. Oppression from Judaism and division within the community are such things. Even Jesus left them in this field. The disciples are bound to fall into a mental panic. Think about it. What could the disciples do without Jesus? They couldn't help but think that everything that followed Jesus had gone to nothing.
It is at this point that some of you may remember that Jesus was resurrected. Because Jesus was resurrected, the disciples must have come to their senses quickly. It's not like that. Now we know what the resurrection of Jesus is and believe in it, but the early disciples did not at all. The empty tomb they saw, the appearance of Jesus where they were buried, did not solve their difficult situation. Such experiences later became the cornerstones of the Christian faith, and were not clear from the outset. It must be said that in the beginning all their beliefs were mixed up. It was not very clear to them what the reality of what happened to Jesus and what the resurrection was. The situation the disciples were in after Jesus left must be seen as almost hopeless.
Jesus, who is looking forward to this situation, is now preaching the word to his disciples in advance. In John 14:1, “Do not worry. Believe in God and believe in me.” also presupposes the situation that Jesus left the disciples. The disciples are saying that their worries were like a mountain. Now the disciples need Jesus like little children who have lost their mother. But Jesus is no longer of this world. Just as a child who has lost a mother needs a stepmother, the disciples also need that existence. Otherwise, you will not be able to get through the situation.
Jesus promised his disciples the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is like a good stepmother to the disciples. Engrave these words and listen. It is difficult to think of the Holy Spirit as the actual stepmother. It is figuratively speaking. Jesus said to his disciples: “If I ask the Father, he will send another helper to be with you forever. He is the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16,17a).
The event that the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples made Christianity possible. If the Holy Spirit had not been given to them, Christianity might not have sprouted. Today is Pentecost, one of the three great feasts of Christianity along with Christmas and Easter. The reason why Christianity considers Pentecost so important is that Jesus promised His disciples the Holy Spirit as explained above. The book of Acts, which interprets the history of early Christianity, reports that the Holy Spirit came upon the early Christians who gathered in Mark's upper room to pray on the first day of Pentecost after Jesus' crucifixion (Acts 2:1-4). The history of Acts coincides with the work of the Holy Spirit. The history of Christianity for the past 2,000 years is the work of the Holy Spirit. Even now, both the church and the Christian can exist only on the basis of the Holy Spirit.
For those who know a little about Christianity, the above will not be very new. Without stopping here, we should go one step further and ask questions. If the first question was who gave the promise of the Holy Spirit, now the second question is who is the Holy Spirit, the basis of our existence.
First of all, it is important to listen to the Bible's explanation of who the holy spirit is. Verse 17 is expressed as ‘Pneuma thes Aleteas’ (Spirit of Truth), and Verse 26 is expressed as ‘Pneuma to Hagion’ (Holy Spirit). What these two expressions have in common is the pneuma. Ptuma is a Greek word meaning spirit or wind. The ancients seem to have considered the wind, or breath, to be equivalent to the spirit of life. Just as we do not know where the wind comes from or where it is going, the spirit fundamentally transcends our thoughts. But that spirit is not vague, it is the power of truth. In that sense, the Spirit is also a holy spirit, a set apart spirit. What does it mean? In Christianity, the Holy Spirit means the Holy Spirit who reveals the truth in this world.
The writer of the Gospel of John explains the Holy Spirit a little more specifically. The term is collaborator. The Old Testament was translated as Comforter. The Greek Bible calls this ‘parakletos’. The word can also be translated as a comforter or an advocate. The Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, is the Cooperator. He is our helper.
Even though I have explained it this far, I don't know if there are people who say they don't know what I'm talking about. They are very honest people. Again, the question is important here too. This farewell sermon of Jesus was also basically an answer to the disciples' questions. In John 13:36, Peter said, “Lord, where are you going?” In 14:5, Thomas said, “Lord, we do not know where you are going, but how can we know the way?” I asked. In verse 22, Judas, who was not a Cariotite, said, “Lord, why do you want to appear only to us and not to the world?” I asked.
This question from Judas is important. It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Christianity depends on this question. This question from Judas is about why the world did not recognize the true nature of Jesus, but only the disciples. That's weird. The Jewish leaders did not recognize Jesus, while the lesser disciples did. Especially in the resurrection case, this contradiction reaches its extreme. The resurrected Jesus did not reveal himself before the priests and Roman governor Pilate, but only to his disciples.
This question of Judas is also directly related to the promise of the Holy Spirit. Giving the Holy Spirit means that Jesus is with them spiritually, or that He will come again. This very Holy Spirit is not known to the world but only to the disciples. The events of Pentecost clearly took place within a small number of Christian communities. Judas asks why the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus was given to a few people.
Jesus' answer is 'love'. It is not a general love, but a concrete love for Jesus. In other words, it is a close relationship with Jesus. According to verses 23 and 24, those who love Jesus keep His words, and therefore God, the Father of Jesus, loves him. Those who do not love Jesus, of course, do not listen to Jesus. According to these biblical teachings, the question of whether we love Jesus is far more fundamentally important than whether we have received the Holy Spirit. Those who specifically love Jesus will of course keep His words. Just as children who love their fathers and mothers listen to their parents before anyone speaks.
Keeping the words of Jesus is directly related to the question of who the Holy Spirit is. The reason can be found in the role of the Holy Spirit stated in verse 26. “Now the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, the Cooperator, will not only teach you all things, but will remind you of all the words I have spoken to you.” The Holy Spirit, the Paracletos and the Holy Spirit, teaches and remembers all that Jesus said during his public life to the disciples who loved him. Those who learn and remember it, of course, have no choice but to keep the words of Jesus. In this respect, those who keep the words of Jesus are those who are with the Holy Spirit.
In many cases the Holy Spirit is misunderstood. There are people who exercise the Holy Spirit, and there are people who agree with the activity of the Holy Spirit to heal incurable diseases through prayer. Even “Receive the Holy Spirit!” And there are people who cry out. Like Aladdin's magic lamp, the Holy Spirit is regarded as some kind of power capable of miraculously accomplishing the impossible to man. He also fasted and prayed all night to receive the Holy Spirit. In that way, your heart may be warmed or you may be cured of a difficult illness. Such stories often occur in the book of Acts. But those are the ancient ways of expressing the fact that the Holy Spirit is active. According to Paul, the Holy Spirit is a different spirit of life. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, good deeds, truth, gentleness, and self-control (Galatians 5:22,23).
In particular, according to today's text, the role of the Holy Spirit is centrally in teaching and recalling the words of Jesus. Have you ever learned the words of Jesus? Have you ever remembered those words? Have you ever experienced it while listening to a sermon, studying the Bible, or reading the Bible by yourself? Everyone gathered here must have had that experience. Then you are people with the Holy Spirit and disciples who love Jesus. More precisely, in that way the Holy Spirit is with you.
But the problem is that we don't have that often. People who fall in love for the first time make every effort to get to know the other person, but as the relationship of faith deepens, many Christians lose their affection for the words of Jesus. They are bound by a one-size-fits-all belief. Even if you listen to the sermon, it is the same every day, and even if you read the Word, there is nothing new to realize. If our deep communion with the Word weakens, we will be separated from the Holy Spirit again.
Some people have a passion for the Word, but they don't go deep. Just like a person who carries the Bible in his arms every day but does not actually open his heart to read it. We enter the depths of the Word because the Holy Spirit leads us from the depths of our soul into the Word. Just as students go into the depth of mathematics while solving a mathematical problem they did not know, we enter into a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit by knowing the depth of the Word that we did not know.
Just like the disciples who are listening to the farewell sermon in today's text, we must live in a reality where Jesus is not present. Our lives are uncertain, and our future is uncertain. But don't worry. The Holy Spirit promised by Jesus is with us. He is Paracletus helping you. Trust him really. Those of you who specifically love Jesus are already people with the Holy Spirit, and you will go into the depths of the Word that the Holy Spirit teaches and reminds you.