church

INI
Pentecost
May 23, 2010
Ascension Lutheran Church, Tacoma WA
Paul Naumann, Pastor

THE PROMISE OF A HELPER
John 16:5-15

Grace, mercy, and peace be with you from God the Father and from the Lord
Jesus Christ, Amen. Today we turn our attention to the sixteenth chapter of the
Gospel of John, beginning with the fifth verse, as follows:

“But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are
You going?’ But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your
heart. Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away;
for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will
send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of
righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment,
because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has
come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own
authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to
come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.
All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of
Mine and declare it to you.” Here ends our text.

In Our Risen Lord Jesus, Who has promised to send us the Helper, Dear
Fellow Redeemed,

In 1991, historian Laurel Ulrich received a Pulitzer Prize for her book The
Midwife's Tale. The book was based on the diary of Martha Ballard, who lived
during the time of the American Revolution. Martha was a midwife who
traveled throughout what is now known as the state of Maine. She went by
canoe, horse, or sometimes on foot to assist women in delivering their babies.
At a time when it was common for women to die in childbirth, Martha's track
record was extraordinary – in more than 1,000 deliveries, she never lost a
mother. Many new lives were brought into the world through the skill of this
extraordinary helper.

In a way, you might call the Holy Spirit the midwife of the soul. He’s the One
who brings new spiritual life into the world. Jesus told Nicodemus, “Most
assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot
enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that
which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must
be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it,
but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is
born of the Spirit.” – Jn 3:6-8. In our text for today, Jesus finds His disciples
down and out, and depressed -- and sadly in need of a Helper. They're sad
because He's just told them that He'll be leaving soon to return to His Father in
heaven. How would they manage without Him, they wondered? What would
become of the Kingdom work once He was gone? It seemed like a very dark
future, but Jesus told them not to despair: He would send them a Helper. The
Helper Jesus was referring to is the Holy Ghost, and His arrival is something the
disciples could look forward to with joy. The work of the Helper is something
that had great significance, not only for those disciples, but for us, too. -Let's
find out why. Our theme today is:

THE PROMISE OF A HELPER
Jesus said the Holy Ghost would be --
I. A convincing witness to the world
II. A guiding light to believers

In a lot of ways, the Holy Ghost is the "silent partner" of the Trinity. We
mention Him briefly when we say the Apostles' Creed, we might refer to Him in
our prayers every now and then, and He gets most of the attention of Pentecost
-- but other than that, we really don't think much about the Holy Ghost. And
that's a shame, because His work is so important in our lives. It's true that Jesus
died to redeem you from your sins. But did you know that, without the Holy
Spirit, you could never be a Christian? That redemption Jesus earned for you
could never be yours. That's because the Holy Ghost is the One who works
faith in people’s hearts so that they can believe in Jesus as their Savior.

Even beside that, though, the Helper's work can be seen going on all around
us. In what ways? Well in the first place, the work of the Holy Spirit serves as a
convincing witness to the world, believers and unbelievers alike. Jesus said to
His disciples, And when He [the Helper] has come, He will convict the world of
sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe
in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of
judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

Did Jesus' prediction come true? You tell me. Today we celebrate the festival
of Pentecost, the birthday of the New Testament Christian Church. It was on
this day twenty centuries ago that the promised Helper arrived in force. On the
first Pentecost the disciples - those rude, uneducated laborers - were
transformed by the Spirit's power. They became eloquent preachers of the
Gospel, instant polyglots who could proclaim the Good News about Jesus in a
multitude of foreign languages. They were also transformed into powerful
writers, through whose pens the Holy Ghost gave God’s Word to the world.
And ever since that day, the Holy Ghost has proven to be a convincing witness
to the world - a very convincing witness, indeed!

I remember attending a lunch after a funeral service in another Lutheran
church. I had thought the sermon was pretty good, but I overheard a woman
who felt the opposite. In fact she was livid with anger. Though clenched teeth I
heard her say, “I did not come to this church to be told that I’m a sinner!” That
woman wouldn’t have liked Peter's Pentecost sermon, either! With the Holy
Spirit speaking through his lips, Peter addressed the people of Jerusalem. What
did he tell them? That they were sinners! Sinners who, in their case, had
committed the terrible crime of crucifying the innocent Son of God. "Know
assuredly," Peter said, "that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both
Lord and Christ." Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and
said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we
do?" Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Acts 2:36-38.

Those men were convinced. In their hearts, the Holy Spirit had convicted them
of their sin. And that powerful Word of God continues to convict the world to
this day. Look around you! Talk to people! You’ll find out that the world is full
of people who know they're sinners, but don't know what to do about it.
Psychiatrists make a terrific living attempting to treat people whose main
problem is guilt. But even they themselves admit that they don't have much
success. There's only one sure cure for guilt, and that's forgiveness. The only
way to get rid of guilt is to put your trust in the blood and righteousness of Jesus
Christ.

And the Holy Spirit, working through the Word of God, testifies to the world
that that righteousness is available to everybody. It's there, free for the taking.
Jesus' death on the cross, says the Spirit, through the Apostle John, "...is the
payment for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world." I Jn
2:2. His rising from the tomb, and His ascension to the right hand of God is
proof positive that Jesus' life was a "mission accomplished." This the Spirit
proclaims through the Apostle Paul in the book of Romans: "Jesus our
Lord...was delivered for our offenses, and was raised again for our justification."
Rom 4:25. He did what He came to do; that is, He provided poor sinners like us
with a way out from under the punishment of our sin.

Finally, the Spirit is a convincing witness "...of judgment, because the prince of
this world is judged." Just as the Lord predicted in the Garden of Eden, Jesus
crushed the power of Satan with His triumphant death and resurrection. Yes,
the devil is powerful; yes, he's dangerous, and stalks about like a ferocious lion,
searching for his prey. He still bends all his efforts on dragging the souls of
sinners to hell. He's condemned to spend eternity in torment there -- and he'd
like to take you and me with him. But Satan is no longer has absolute control.
Because of Christ, he can be beaten!

The myth of the vampire is an ancient fable about a creature who sustains
himself by consuming his victim’s blood. But in most versions of the myth, the
creature can’t enter his victim's house until he had been invited in. Well, that's
just make-believe, of course. But I'll tell you what isn't make-believe: the power
of our adversary the devil. He is more cunning, more sinister and evil than
anything any Hollywood screenwriter could ever dream up. But since Jesus won
His great victory on the cross, the only way Satan can reign in your heart -- is if
you invite him in.

Sadly, that's exactly what a lot people do. They reject the forgiveness that the
Lord offers through Christ. They dedicate their lives to getting money, and
power, and pleasure, and things, and toys. They refuse to let Jesus be the King
of their heart and have, by default, allowed Satan to reign there instead. In his
letter to the Ephesians, Paul says that these people have "...their understanding
darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is
in them, because of the hardening of their heart; who, being past feeling, have
given themselves over to licentiousness, to work all uncleanness with
greediness."

"But," he goes on, "you have not so learned Christ." Eph 4:18-20. You have
learned about Jesus, and the freedom from sin that is offered in His blood. You
have acknowledged Jesus as your King, and have vowed to struggle against the
devil and his temptations all your life long. But again - who is it who taught you
about Jesus in the first place? Who is it who enlightened you? Who is it who
sustains you in our Christian faith, and has promised to preserve you in that
faith until the last day of your life and beyond? The Holy Ghost! To the world
at large, the Helper is a convincing witness of sin, and of righteousness, and of
judgment. To us believers He is something more: the Helper is our guiding light.

Jesus said, When He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all
truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He
will speak; and He will tell you things to come. These apostles Jesus was talking
to had a important assignment to fulfill - many of them would serve as penmen
for the Holy Spirit. They would later write down the very thoughts and the very
words that the Holy Spirit breathed into them. These inspired words from God
would eventually be gathered into the sacred book we know as the New
Testament. And through those apostles and evangelists - through this Book -
the Holy Ghost is still guiding us in all truth, right down to this very day.

The Holy Spirit is the best Guide and Helper you could ever have. Why?
Because He knows you so thoroughly. I recently read a story from the early
1900’s about a man whose car had broken on the side of the road. He was out
working on the motor, unsuccessfully trying to get it started, when another man
stopped to help. The second gentleman took one look at the engine, tinkered
with it for a minute and told the first man to try the starter. The car immediately
roared to life. "How in the world did you do that?" asked the amazed owner. “I
know how the car works,” replied the stranger, “because I built it. My name is
Henry Ford.” The Holy Spirit knows how you work, too, because He built you.
He put the faith in your heart that made you a Christian, and He knows more
about you than you know about yourself. Paul says, The Spirit searches all
things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man
except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things
of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the
world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have
been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which
man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches. I Cor 2:10-13.

The Psalmist once said, "Your Word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto
my path." As a Christian, you can say that, too! You don't have to share in the
aimless, frantic lifestyle of those we see rushing about us today. Because Jesus
promised you a Helper. In the Holy Spirit's inspired Word, you can find the
answer for every problem that confronts you in life. Here is a guidebook on
raising children -- a manual on how to have a successful marriage -- a clear,
step-by-step blueprint about just what kind of life will make you a satisfied,
fulfilled, and happy person, no matter what your station in life, and no matter
what adversities the Lord may call on you to face. But don't take it from me -
check it out for yourself! Use the guidance that the Holy Spirit offers in His
Word. Get on a regular schedule of Bible reading in your home, if you're not on
one already. See if it doesn't make a world of difference in your attitude and
outlook.

And you know, of course, that the Bible can do even more for you than that. It
is not only a guide for this life, it's also the light which guides our steps to
eternal life. The Helper, Jesus said, …will glorify Me, for He will take of what is
Mine and declare it to you. The most important thing the Holy Ghost does for
us is teach us about Jesus. He leads us along the narrow path to everlasting life -
and there's no "self-help" book in the world that can claim to do that!

At the dawn of the Reformation era in England, when the Bible had just been
translated into English, the great Book was chained to a pillar in a huge
cathedral in London. It's said that the people would come every day from miles
around to listen to the pastor read from it the Words of God - Words that they
could finally understand in their own language. Crowds of ordinary people
would stand there on the cold stone floor, hour after hour, listening with rapt
attention. And if the reader ever paused, they'd shout, "Read on! Read on!"
-The situation has changed since then, hasn't it? Now each of us has a copy of
this precious Book in our very own homes. I beg you: don't take it for granted!
See it for what it really is: it's the Holy Spirit speaking to you. It's the guiding
light that brightens your dark way in life. And it's the fulfillment of a promise
your Lord Jesus made to you long ago -- the promise of a Helper! In His name,
AMEN.