Message

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Thank God for Jesus who is the way. We remember his promises. His promise of no anxiety attack through trusting in God is necessary to us. His promise of the kingdom of God is truly great and the promise of prayer is essential to us. In today’s passage Jesus gives the promise of the Holy Spirit, whom the world does not know at all. But Jesus’ people know him. May we open our eyes to see the reality of the Holy Spirit and learn the life with him. First, love and obedience. Look at verse 15. “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Here we see the relation between love and obedience. This is written again and again in this chapter (15,21, 23,24,31). Why? It is because Jesus wants from his disciples true love that produces obedience. Jesus wants a true and firm love relationship with each of his people that is expressed by obedience. There are many people love in words, but not in action; they say they love but do not obey. God wants obedience from the ones he loved. God made the first man Adam in his image. The LORD God poured out his love upon Adam until God could make the Garden of Eden and establish a family for him. God thought Adam would love and obey him. So God gave him a command not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The command would establish the order of love between God and man so that their love relationship would be true and grow. But against God’s great expectation Adam disobeyed God. When he disobeyed God, the whole world seemed shaken and God’s heart was broken. Afterward God called one man Abraham and raised Abraham in his love and hope for 25 years. God laboured for him until he could pass God’s test of obedience. Abraham was willing to sacrifice even his one and only son and showed that he loved God more than his beloved son Isaac. God was so moved by Abraham’s obedience that he swore himself to make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, and bless the descendants. There was a man named Saul. God chose him to be the first king of Israel, though he was a Benjamite, from the smallest tribe of Israel, and from the least clan of all the clans of the tribe of Benjamin. God’s love and blessing upon him was great. Once, God sent him on a mission to destroy the enemies and their belongings completely. But he did not obey God’s command. He carried it out on his way, sparing the best of the sheep and cattle. Then God’s message came to him through the prophet Samuel, “…To obey is better than sacrifice…Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has rejected you as king” (1 Sa 15:23). David was the second king of Israel. He received a lot of training from God, being chased by king Saul who was jealous of him. David was close to death many times. He himself had chances to kill Saul, two really opportune times. But he did not kill king Saul, knowing Saul was God’s anointed. Thus he loved God and respected God. He obeyed God and went out so many battles risking his life until he could establish the theocratic united kingdom of Israel. God was pleased with David and he was known as a man after God’s own heart. Jesus came as the second Adam and loved God and obeyed him unto death, death on the cross. His obedience was not natural and easy, though he was the Son of God. According to Hebrews 5:8, he learned obedience from what he suffered. God wants us to be purified and refined in his love through all life trials and hardships so that we can truly love him and obey him. Our Lord Jesus wants us to be his loving and obedient disciples. Second, Jesus’ promise of the Holy Spirit. If one loves and obeys God, the Holy Spirit comes. If one does not love God and obey him, the evil spirit comes. When Adam disobeyed God, he became a prey for Satan. When Saul disobeyed God, the Holy Spirit left him and he was tormented by evil spirits throughout his life. At that time Jesus’ disciples were young and ignorant of the world of spirits. When Judas took Jesus’ bread and went out, they did not know that Satan entered into him. They did not know the spiritual world. They did not know the Holy Spirit. They were only happy with Jesus, who had been their best Counselor. So in order to introduce the Holy Spirit to them, Jesus first used the word, “another Counselor” so that they might grasp the concept of the Holy Spirit. Look at verses 15,16, “If you love me, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever.” In this way Jesus promised them the Holy Spirit to be with them forever. In history, there are many great saints. However, they never gave any such promise to their followers. For example, Buddha did not promise anything to his multitude of followers, even though they wanted his promise about what the future world would be and what would happen. When the time came to bid his followers farewell, he only said, “You must take suffering for granted. Say repeatedly, ‘Buddha mercy,’ fingering the rosary.” Buddha’s words cannot be a definite promise to his followers about what to do or what to expect. We honour Socrates as the ancestor of philosophy. He was about to take a cup of poison because he taught the truth, against false political principles. One of his followers asked him, “What can we expect or what kind of promise can you give us?” After a few minutes of silence, Socrates said to him, “Well, please pay back for me a hen that I stole from my neighbour’s house.” Here Socrates’ last words to his followers make us respect him for his high moral standard. But we cannot say that he gave his followers a definite promise for the future. But Jesus promised to send them the Holy Spirit to be with them forever. The Holy Spirit is like Jesus, but invisible. Jesus was limited by time and space and had to leave his disciples. But the Holy Spirit would be with them forever. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ Jesus and the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is God. When we study the Bible, we learn that there is God the Father, who made the heavens and the earth. We call him “Elohim” or “El Shaddai.” Second is God the Son. He is called God’s Son due to his incarnation, but he is also God. There was a famous minister whose son had many questions. His son said to him, “If God is the Father and Jesus is the Son, then who is the grandson?” Likewise, there are so many people who do not understand about three persons in one God. God is infinite. In order to save men from their sins, God functions in his divinity in three ways: God the Father as the Sovereign Ruler; God the Son as the Saviour of the world; and the Holy Spirit as the invisible God who dwells in the souls of those who love God and his Son Jesus Christ. We thank God for Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to those who love him. Third, the life with the Holy Spirit. As we studied, the Holy Spirit is another Counselor. The original Greek word for this is parakletos, which also can mean, “Comforter” or “Helper.” Life needs counseling. We need counseling in our daily life and especially at critical times. In the Old Testament Jesus is called, “Wonderful Counselor.” What a grace it is that another Wonderful Counselor is with us and lives in us forever. Christian life is not to be lived alone. No. It is a common life with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not just power or an energy source, but a person. And he is the Counselor. He wants to and can counsel us in every aspect of life. Yet, many Christians ignore him as if he is not there in us. They live as if they are totally alone like orphans. Unwittingly they grieve him, the Holy Spirit. We must be aware of his living in us and be careful to live with him. When we live together with someone in a same house, we cannot live at random. We must be very careful to get along well with the person. We need to be very sensitive in order to live a common life, knowing what the person likes and dislikes. Indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Wonderful Counselor is the mystery of Christian life. The world does not know this mysterious Christian inner common life. But Jesus’ people know it. As a couple needs to polish their married life, we need to polish our life with the Holy Spirit, having an intimate conversation with him and doing what he wants and avoiding what he does not want. We must not be self-centred in living with him. We must know his love language. It is not easy to know that people are different and so are their love languages. There is a book, “The Five Love Languages.” They are “Words of Affirmation”, “Acts of Service”, “Receiving Gift”, “Quality time”, and “Physical Touch”. Then what is the love language of the Holy Spirit? Look at verse 21. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.” The love language of our Lord Jesus and the Holy Spirit is obedience. He wants us to do even a small thing out of obedience to him. Obedience grows; so does disobedience. The more we obey him, the more we understand him, and the better our life with the Holy Spirit will become. He is the Holy Spirit. He does not want us to live like worldly people. He wants us to be different from them. There is a constant battle in the lives of Christians, the battle between the sinful nature and the Holy Spirit in us. St. Paul expressed this well in Romans 8:5-8, “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” We must know that he is the Spirit of holiness (Ro 1:4) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. He wants us to study the truth of the Bible humbly and diligently. Look at verse 26. “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.” The Holy Spirit helps us to understand the words of the Bible. It is important to rely on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when we study the Bible and write our Bible testimonies. When we meditate on the word of God, we are inspired to understand the meaning of God’s word and apply them to our lives. He helps us to delight in the word of God. The Holy Spirit counsels us with the word of God. And since the Holy Spirit reminds us of the words God, it is important to store up God’s word in our hearts through faithful Bible study and regular Bible reading and memorization of the words at usual times. Our enemy Satan does not warn us when he will come to us. He comes and attacks us without warning, any time. When there is no word of God stored up in us, we become blank at his prank. However, when there are words of God stored up in our hearts, the Holy Spirit reminds us of the words we have learned and stored and these words become our weapon to confront and defeat Satan’s jabbing. Once again, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. 1 John 4:4 says, “…the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” We must know that we have a truly great person in us. This is the treasure in the jars of clay (2 Cor 4:7). Even if we are Christians, it is not easy to overcome fatalistic and pre-determined way of thinking. Still we think great people are great from birth and ordinary people are born that way. When we see a certain great work, it is easy to see the visible people only and be surprised and envy them. But we learn newly that one’s greatness does not rely on oneself but the life with the great person in himself or herself. It is how one lives with the great person inside. May God help us to polish and enrich our life with the greatest person, the Holy Spirit living in us. Look at verse 27. “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” How much people need peace in this world! Peace seems to come through favourable human conditions, much money, secure position, etc. To the people of this world, peace is absence of problems and troubles or peace of escape. So the peace the world gives is conditional and temporary pseudo peace. But the peace Jesus promised to give is different. Leaving his disciples, Jesus said, “My peace I leave with you…” What an interesting expression! Even though he was going to leave his disciples, he would leave his peace with them. It was because of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit lives in us, we can have the peace of God regardless of our human conditions. This peace is the peace of conquest. Jesus said continually, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” We thank God for Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit to be with us forever. Our Christian life is not to live alone but to live with him who is in us. He is another Counselor. He is greater than the one who is in the world. May our life with him be enriched and abundant through our obedience so that we overcome the world and fulfill the purpose of his living with us.

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