Let's turn in our scriptures to John, chapter 14, John, chapter 14. Continuing to work through the scriptures teaching on the Holy Spirit, the only thing that makes a study of the Holy Spirit complicated is that we don't talk about it very much. And so it seems that whenever we do want to discuss the Holy Spirit, it's all new to us. Oh, it's not that we don't mention the Holy Spirit. We'll talk about the Spirit in the sense of oftentimes a feeling that we might have in worship, or we'll mention the Spirit sometimes in prayer, particularly in being empowered for work in the kingdom. And those are not necessarily wrong concepts of the Spirit, but they are those extras that are added to the foundational knowledge of the Spirit. They are works of the Spirit, but it would be like going to the supermarket and as you purchase vegetables in the supermarket, or as you purchase fruit in the supermarket, you never consider the vine or the tree from which the fruit came. You simply believe that grapes just simply are, that they don't come as part of the growth of anything else. Or as if you ask a child where a pineapple grows, they might even say it grows in a tree. And those of us who have asked the question in the past learned, usually to our embarrassment, that they actually grow in the ground, much like a potato wood with just the top being visible on the surface. And so we go about our lives, often speaking of what we might observe about the Holy Spirit, but yet never really focusing on the person of the Holy Spirit. Much to our chagrin and much to our own deficit and understanding. The work of the Holy Spirit, as we will look at it today, is one particularly of teaching, teaching, but teaching what and to whom and to what end. That's what we will be left to explore today. Let's look together. John 14, beginning at verse 25 and reading through 26. Listen for our Lord speaks to us this morning. These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. The Lord bless the reading of his word this morning and the hearing of his people. There isn't a one single aspect to the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit. We can't summarize the person of the Holy Spirit or the work of the Holy Spirit in a single sentence. To do so would be to rob ourselves of a wonderful understanding and it would be to rob the Spirit of the glory which the Spirit of God is due. When we speak of the Holy Spirit, in the New Testament, we're speaking of that same Holy Spirit that hovered over the deep at the beginning as God created the heavens and the earth. It's the same Spirit that was present at all of God's great works and with all of those works accomplished with his people. It's the same Spirit that was with the judges and the prophets, the same Spirit that was with the kings that led Israel, the same Spirit that inspired the New Testament writers which was the same Spirit that descended on Jesus as a dove at his baptism. It's the same Spirit that our theology and our doctrine teaches us that regenerates a dead man and makes him alive, that sanctifies us in Christ and it is the same Spirit that now we are told teaches us. As Jesus had been speaking to the disciples, I hope that you've noticed the shift in the way he's describing his activity and his work to the disciples. He was talking about his own leaving them, departing from them, going to heaven to prepare a place for them and that they would follow, that they knew the way, that he was the way in the truth and the life and now there seems to be a shift almost in the same flow of the conversation where now he is not talking about his going from them but of his coming to them, of his coming to them and joining them in the work whereas before he was leaving and they would be going to join him, now he is coming to join them where they are. In the context of his announcing their departure, we might be able to empathize a bit with the disciples but they were being given a mission that depended on Jesus himself. Imagine that you're the disciples or that you're the apostles that are gathered near Christ and you've been going out, as Jesus has sent you out, to do great and marvelous works in the name of Christ, establishing the kingdom among the people and so you have come to understand that your success and your ministry is only effective as you are tethered to Christ that independently you have nothing to offer. It's only as you were empowered by the Lord that you were able to do great and wonderful things and only as you were empowered by the Lord that you have anything to say at all. Everything else would be worthless if it wasn't for Christ but now Jesus has just said he's leaving. Well it would naturally follow then that it's all over. The work is completed or the work has come to an end but Jesus says no you will continue that work and so you would naturally then begin to think but Lord I can't do that work without you. The work depends upon you. I can't accomplish the work if you're gone and now Jesus is telling them but don't you see I'm not going to be gone. I'm going to come to you in the person of the Holy Spirit. I think we could sympathize with their anxieties about the departure of Jesus and then we might also come to understand the comfort that these words are intended to bring. One thing is clear that their future communion with Christ depends on their keeping His word and all of that is here in this chapter we have been studying together. Look at verse 15. Let's survey just a couple of these verses that we need to keep in mind. If you love me Jesus says you'll keep my commandments on down to verse 21. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Here all of these rewards seem to be based upon the keeping of commandments and verse 23 and 24. Jesus answered him if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him but there's a condition if you keep my word then I will come to him and the Father will come to him and make our abode and our home with him again if you keep my word. Verse 24 he continues, whoever does not love me does not keep my words and the word that you hear is not mine but the Father is who sent me. So there are some conditions to there being able to be in reception of the Holy Spirit and that is that they love the Lord and that love would be manifest in there keeping His word, keeping His word, remaining true to what Jesus had taught them. Now again put yourself in the Apostle shoes. That means you have to remember all of that. That means you have to have understood what Jesus has commanded. If you're to keep them you have to know what it is that you are to keep. Have you ever given instructions to a child and you thought you were perfectly clear and then they went off to do the task only to come back frustrated because they couldn't understand the concept which you were trying to communicate to them. Here our Lord has said, I'll come to you if you keep my word. Now you as an apostle would be wondering what exactly was that word? All of it. How are we going to keep all of that that you told us over these three years of teaching? We have to keep all of that in order to have continued communion with you. Even if they had applied all of their energies to understanding the concepts Jesus had introduced to them are so vast and so foreign to them as he talks about going and preparing a place for them. These are concepts that they have trouble understanding. When Jesus said, I will destroy this temple and in three days I'll rebuild it. How are they to understand these things? And yet Jesus says that they must understand them if they are to commune with him. These concepts vast and foreign to them are not easily grasped and what's more their future success depends on them receiving and remembering what they had been taught. They must receive. They must remember. They must abide by the word of Christ. If they are going to continue the work which Jesus has been accomplishing. You see that was their calling to take this ministry that Jesus was now handing to them and say, what I have been doing, this proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand, you were to continue to do. You were not to abandon the work or to take off in a different direction. You were to continue in the same stream of ministry that I have established you in. They were to remember what they had been taught. I was pondering this, the sheer amount of teaching Jesus had given to them and all of the parables and all of the miracles and that doesn't even count off the dialogue as he simply was teaching them about himself, about the Father, about prayer, about the kingdom, about spiritual healing, about rebirth. And these are only what we have recorded. The Scriptures tell us there were many more things that he said to them more than could possibly be contained in all the pages of all the Scriptures and yet we have these and even what we have is so vast that we struggle to comprehend it all and pondering the sheer scope of the teaching of Christ. I remembered back when I was first married with Beverly and we were of course broke like most folks when they first get married and so we sat around twiddling our thumbs most of the time hoping that the paycheck arrived before the food ran out and what are you to do for entertainment? Well we saved our pennies a little while and we went and we bought a jigsaw puzzle and so we decided we would sit and do that but we didn't want it to be very quick so our first jigsaw puzzle was of bagels, a lot of bagels and we spent a lot of time putting the jigsaw puzzle together. So proud of it that we framed it and hung it on the wall. Well after that one we thought we were pretty good at puzzles and so we wanted something more challenging. We went, we found another puzzle that was nothing but nails. I barely even remember this so horrific was the experience. It was nothing but nails that had apparently been poured out and they were all the same. Somebody took a picture and thought this would make a nice puzzle. I don't know what sort of madness comes into people's minds. We spent long long hours on that puzzle and I'll be honest with you I have no recollection it was ever complete. It may have been I don't know. Why was it so hard? Because there was no way to distinguish between the pieces and a regular puzzle you have blue skies and green grass and borders. There was nothing really to give any guidance here. It was all the same. All the pieces were the same. You had to just take each individual piece but again to put it together. I'm sure it was 20,000 pieces or something ridiculous. It took us forever to work on that puzzle and why was it so complicated because there was so much there and we couldn't distinguish between the parts. We couldn't put it together and I believe that it was much like this in the mind of the apostles. They had all of this teaching before them but we know that there was confusion because Peter himself and talking with Jesus when Jesus was talking about the cross. The very purpose for which he had been sent. Peter said, Lord, let's just avoid it. Let's don't go to Jerusalem. Let's not go to the cross and Jesus rebuked him with get the behind me Satan and so we know that even in the most essential part of Christ's ministry, the most basic understanding of Christ's ministry the apostles struggled to put it together. We also know that at the time of the resurrection they should have anticipated three days in the resurrection and yet they're all shocked and even when all the other disciples believed, Thomas himself wouldn't believe till he saw it with his own eyes. And so we know that these truths which we take for granted is being so evident and so basic were still a jumble in the apostles' minds. They were struggling to put it all together. They didn't have a formula. They didn't have an outline. They didn't have parameters. They didn't have the church. They didn't have tradition. They had none of the things which we enjoy and they didn't have the Holy Spirit which teaches and brings things to remembrance. Many of us stand just like the disciples. Many of us stand just like the disciples wondering about these teachings of Jesus but no new words are needed. No new teaching is needed. Nothing needs to be added. There's nothing in the epistles which is not already in the gospels but something is needed to bring these truths to the human heart. Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones in his little book titled Authority says we can study the authority of the Lord and of the scriptures in a purely intellectual manner. We may have intellectual convictions even but they do not have necessity affect our lives and our work. Only when the authority of the Holy Spirit comes to bear upon us do all these things become real and living and powerful to us. God names it as punishment to his people when he shuts up the book and makes it incomprehensible in Isaiah 29-11 and the vision of all this has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed. For his people God desires to open up the book and to give them understanding when Isaiah prophesied about the book being sealed there wasn't a physical seal on it it meant that they would not understand what the prophecies were speaking of them. So how is it that we'll know? How is it that we are to understand the teaching of Scripture? Jesus promises the disciples a teacher, a teacher. And the first thing that he says about this teacher is that he is holy. He calls him the Holy Spirit. He's holy because he shares a nature with the Father. He is sinless and he possesses all of the divine attributes. If you have your scriptures it's worth turning very quickly over to the book of Romans chapter 8 verses 9 through 10. Allow me to begin to read even as I know a couple of you were turning there. And Romans chapter 8 verses 9 and through 11. You however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit. If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, the first point here. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God. Let me repeat that because these will build one upon another. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of God. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ. Now the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Christ. So the Holy Spirit unique in his own personhood is also the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. Verse 10. But if Christ is in you, now more deliberately still. When we are indwelling by the Holy Spirit it can be said that it is Christ who dwells in you. Although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Now we're backing off again and we're referring to the Spirit of Christ. Christ who dwells in us as the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Verse 11. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. Who is the one who raised Jesus from the dead but God the Father and the Spirit of God the Father is where it is attributed as raising Christ from the dead and then that same Spirit of God the Father said to dwell in us. What's the purpose of all of this? The Holy Spirit is divine. Just as the Father is divine. Just as the Son is divine and yet the uniqueness of the Holy Spirit is in his work. By our association with the Spirit we're also called holy. Verse 17 and verse 24 of the chapter we've been in. Mark a deep separation between the world and the Spirit and the disciples and the world. Look at verse 17. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him but you know him for a dwells with you and will be in you, the promise of the Holy Spirit but making a separation between the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of this world down in verse 24 whoever does not love me does not keep my words and the word you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me. That is absolutely not the verse I was looking for as wonderful as that verse is so I'll have to suffice with verse 17. Verse 17 marking that distinction between the world and the Spirit and the disciples and the world. Actually it is whoever does not love me does not keep my word and the word you hear is not mine but the fathers calling the disciples to keep his word which does in fact separate them from the world. It's good to know that the ministry of remembrance by the Holy Spirit can come upon you at any moment. It's because of their association with the Holy Spirit that the disciples are separated here we're going to take advantage of an opportunity for reflection. In first John 5.19 we read we know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one as we consider the holiness of the Holy Spirit, the separateness of the Spirit of Christ from the Spirit that is the world and we are reminded that the world lies in the power of the evil one. Our point of reflection is this what is your view of the world and what is your view of your own place in the world? How do you see yourself in the world as one living in the world yet not belonging to the world are you a participant more in the world than you are in the kingdom of God? If you have to weigh the bulk of your work are you working for the world? Are you working for Christ? There is a distinct separation between the two. It's easy to work for the world because the world frankly has ownership of our time and of our physical body for six days. We praise God for the Lord's day as a time of refreshment and remembrance when we rejoice in the Lord on the Lord's day. And so it is a struggle and it is a fight for God's people to make sure that our lives are not so invested in the world that we have little to show for our walk in the kingdom. Secondly, firstly we want to focus on the holiness of the Holy Spirit. The second one would be related to the holiness of the Spirit because we confess that in our creeds that we love the Holy Spirit and the Holy Catholic Church. We're saying that the Catholic, that is the universal church, is holy. What makes it holy? Because the Spirit dwells in it. We're affirming our belief in the presence and work of the Spirit in the church. And what is the function of the Spirit in the church to unify men with Christ and women with Christ? A work of the Spirit in the church is to simply connect men with Christ through the gospel. To connect men with Christ through the gospel, that union with Christ is what makes men holy. And how specifically is that work accomplished? How is it that men are made holy by the work of the Spirit in the Holy Catholic Church by faith through the hearing of God's Word and through the observation of the sacraments, the means of grace established by God, not magically, not by some mystic formula, not by the power of a priest or of a minister, but by faith and by hearing and by participating in Christ. Ephesians 5 calls this union a great mystery and indeed it is, but it is a mystery that is revealed to us and that we receive by faith. In monastic times of the medieval age, monks sought to make themselves holy by rigorous disciplines, by attending and by becoming members of monasteries, but they were not made holy through this. They were not found to be in Christ despite their great excess in practice and despite their great efforts. And so this brings us another opportunity for reflection. Do you use your church membership? Do you consider church membership in the same way that the monks would have used their monastic orders? Is your membership basically where you feel that you are becoming holy by association? That is, that just as they found their acceptance in the Lord by there being a Franciscan or by there being an Augustinian monk and by that they felt they were considered holy. Do you rely on official membership and the visible church to make you acceptable before God? Membership is important. I would never disqualify that because that marks our public profession of faith that we in fact are following after Christ, but if the public profession of faith doesn't call us also to rely on the means of grace which God has appointed for our continued sanctification and spiritual growth, if in fact we have come to feel that because we're members, we are somehow accepted by God even though we would neglect obedience to his commandments and obedience to his word which Jesus said was required, then if what value is our membership at all, we are to be counted just as the Franciscans and just as the Augustinians because our name is on the rollbook in an office rather than in the Lamb's book of life. Then Jesus calls the spirit of teacher. He says he will teach and remind. One important linguistic point here, it's a pronoun and it's not new to her. He, it doesn't say it, it says he will teach and remind. An individual person of the Trinity, not a power, not a force of God. We find this further attested in scripture when we hear the benediction and the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit for example which is the baptism formula as well, the Spirit is listed separately as one person in the Trinity. The specific reference here by Jesus is clearly to the apostles however, all things, what things, all that Jesus had taught them, all of it, all of it. Now we get a sense of their panic. All things that I have spoken while still with you. We know there that it was the apostles he was speaking to directly. Clearly that's who he's speaking with because that's who he was presently with. He meant that the Holy Spirit would reveal to them the fullness of understanding associated with Jesus is incarnation with his life, with his teaching, with his death, with his resurrection. This is the idea behind inspiration. Where we get the rest of our New Testament epistles. The inspiration of the scriptures came because the Holy Spirit brought remembrance and taught the disciples what Jesus had intended them to know. The specific instruction to the apostles who were contemporary to Jesus made all of their memories and all of their reflections of their time with Christ align with the truth of God. The Bible itself is evidence that this happened. It can well be said there's nothing in the epistles which is not also represented in the Gospels. There's no new teaching in the epistles that is the letters of Galatians and Ephesians and Philippians and Hebrews and for Second John for Second Peter and all the rest. There's nothing new there that hasn't been intimated and alluded to or taught directly by Christ. There's some expansion on themes. There's some explanation of themes and explanation of doctrine. There's connection with Old Testament scriptures to New Testament fulfillment. All of that is in there but the priesthood of Christ, the electing power of God, salvation and the gospel itself, the church itself as it is growing out of the nation of Israel. All of these are in the scriptures before the epistles. The inspiration of the apostles was that they would remember all things that Jesus had taught them and that they would be able through the agency of the apostles with each of their unique backgrounds and training and understanding to record those for us as they addressed the church to be established in Christ. We also understand it applying to us as well though. Paul writes about this clearly in 1 Corinthians 2 9 through 13 and we've reflected on these in the past but as it is written what no IS scene nor I heard or ear heard rather nor the heart of man imagined what God has prepared for those who love him, these things God revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything even the depths of God for who knows a person's thoughts except the Spirit of that person which is in him so also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Only by the Spirit of God can the mind of God be known. The same thing is repeated in 1 John 2, 2027 and 1 Peter 112 which I encourage you to reflect on and study as well. These passages, 1 John 2, 1 Corinthians 2 and the others tell us and teach us that the work of the Holy Spirit as our teacher is essential if we are to understand the mind of God. So here's an important principle regarding revelation. The Reformers were adamant about these two principles in particular when Jesus says in my name and what I have said to you, these two principles, the Holy Spirit is sent by the Father in Jesus name and also to bring to their remembrance what he said to them. This disqualifies any continuing revelation or any new revelation from God. The Spirit is to teach us the meaning of what Jesus has taught. What is required of us is the same as what was required of the disciples. We must first hear what Jesus has taught. Dr. John Peter Lang says in performing this, his office, he shall unfetter the word, break down the barriers of individualization, misunderstanding, thus causing it to develop into an ever-living organism of doctrine, the specific soul and character of which does nevertheless remain the word of Christ. We are limited by what the Spirit teaches us concerning what Christ has delivered. The Father sends the Holy Spirit in Jesus name. What's the significance of in Jesus name? Because the Holy Spirit is sent to represent the character of Christ as an ambassador of Christ sent in Jesus name in no other, not sent in his own accord to bring another epic of revelation but sent to represent the teaching of Christ to his people. If we've not heard what Jesus has said, however, that is if we have not been in the scriptures, if we have not been reading and studying the scriptures, then how will an explanation of its meaning mean anything to us at all? How will we have any idea? What God is intending if we have not read the scriptures? Here is a good case for the teaching of children in the doctrines of the scripture. We might make an argument, you know, children do not have the intellectual capacity to grasp these serious doctrines and the teachings of scripture but didn't we just read that the apostles themselves misunderstood the most basic explanations and ideas concerning Christ? Didn't we just read that those who were the founders of our church and of our faith, who were the ones who delivered to us the Word of God, they themselves couldn't understand it even with Jesus himself speaking in their midst until the Holy Spirit came and clarified it in their mind by teaching them and bringing them remembrance. Whether it's a child or whether it's an adult, it is all the Spirit who does the teaching. So we've learned that a ministry of the Holy Spirit is to teach but there is one last one that we would mention this morning, a more intimate ministry if you want to think of it in terms like that. There's an old saying by senior ranking people in most any organization that they love to say to those who are new and that is I've probably forgotten more than you'll ever know about this subject. Well, in their own mind I'm sure that they think that that is true but that would mean of course that they are the maximum of learning in any particular area but nevertheless it is true that they have forgotten a lot just as we forget a lot. We have studied the Scriptures, we've sat through sermons, I've sat through before going into the ministry, how many sermons have I sat through in my lifetime and some of you being older and wiser than I am have sat through two or three times as many as I have and sometimes you might say the right word is endured three or four times as many but nevertheless you've been there as the word of God was opened and read and preached how much have we forgotten? Where would we be if we recalled every single word that was preached and our life at every single point was changed and conformed and we were made more holy at every point how much peace of Christ would we have? What ranker and tension would there be in Christ's church? If we were able to retain and be shaped by every word of Christ that has ever been preached to us if we could only remember it that the emphasis on remembrance and the ministry of the Spirit we learn that Christianity the gospel doesn't depend on novelty it doesn't depend on us coming up with something new it doesn't depend on us being reinventing Christ to present him to a new generation theology and doctrine are not something that evolves for people who are always evolving themselves to a greater maturity and understanding we do grow in our knowledge we do certainly do that as we study but we are not having to reinvent or become novel in our presentation the Spirit is not building on these new revelations or novelties in a sense there really isn't any new sermon at all is there hasn't it all been preached before? Haven't and most of our lifetimes as I look out most of you have been in the church of Christ I know for many years haven't you heard most of the cardinal doctrines of Christianity preached in your own hearing haven't you studied many of them and Bible studies yourself in fact even what I'm speaking on the Holy Spirit today you should have heard before maybe not all together maybe in pieces and fragments and I know this seems to be a volume of information but I determined that it was better to keep it together for today so that we might have some better idea of the Holy Spirit rather than breaking it up into so many parts the Spirit ensures that every one of Christ's words lives on in the fullness of their purpose not one word of the Lord Jesus Christ is lost how is it that they're not lost? He brings to us remembrance none of them are lost but will together form a coherent whole here's the great objective testimony to the skeptic Jesus's words continue to teach shape and transform men they continue to have that effect the skeptic would say dead words of a dead prophet and we would say words that by the power of the Holy Spirit are still today shaping and changing and transforming men so we learned this in addition that by an emphasis on remembrance we do in fact forget important truths and doctrines over time and we must revisit them that's one reason we value our creeds and confessions so much because they are summaries of the Spirit's ministry of remembrance in a season in the life of the church they stand as testimonies to a time when men were taught and reminded of great truths of scripture and they set these down that they might be passed along because in the finiteness and the carelessness of our own minds we forget these great truths we know that because heresies are being reinvented each and every day it seems then when we think we have defeated one another one comes along these creeds in these confessions or aids for a church to teach the truths of the scripture to the world so what are we to make of this ministry of the Holy Spirit let me summarize in these three short concluding points first of all the Spirit is holy we are made holy by our association and union with Christ and the Spirit and through his church and we are to be separated out from a profane world we learn that the Spirit is divine he's personal and he's distinct from the Father and the Son and yet he is equal to the Father and the Son secondly we also know that we are to study the words in life of Christ with confidence because the Spirit will teach us the meaning of the words of Christ and the meaning must be accompanied with our actually reading the words of Christ just as the apostles had to hear Christ speak and the teacher that is the Holy Spirit instructed them to the meaning of the words much like if I walked into a math lab and I found an incredible math equation on the board that would mean nothing to me until the teacher came and instructed me but could the teacher instruct me with a blank board so we must also be in the word of God if the Holy Spirit is to teach us its meaning and then finally that we are to trust the Spirit of Christ that it will cause us to remember those truths that we might have an assurance that becomes our testimony in Christ we are a people just as the apostles given the great commission given the command to be obedient to the word of God and we just like the apostles if we are stand alone and separated from Christ or ill-equipped to the task and we struggle with even what to say how many times do we say oh I would share my testimony I just don't know what to say I just don't know how to put it but the Spirit teaches us when we've been in the word of God how we are to share the good news of the kingdom of God Jesus didn't leave his disciples ill-equipped for the task and he doesn't leave us ill-equipped for the task either he comes to us in his Spirit relevance for them they since the immediate departure the one they love relevance for us the same promise that they received that they would continue their work through the empowering of the Spirit the self-same Spirit is given to you and to me this very day we are equipped as the disciples to go and to be obedient to Christ to take the words of Christ and to preach them we are not inspired writers of scripture but we are inspired servants of God that we are able to give by testimony and the power of the Spirit the gospel of Jesus Christ