TRISTAN SHERWIN

Here’s my longer sermon notes from this morning’s, Metro Christian Centre, Bury & Whitefield service (dated 10th October 2021).

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ETHOS

We’re continuing our ETHOS series this morning, looking at the things that matter to us at MCC as we seek to express the centrality of Jesus. We have already looked at Scripture, last week we looked at being Seekers, and this morning we are going to look at the Spirit, the Holy Spirit [You can catch up with the previous weeks via our blogs and YouTube channel].

There is no way that we will cover everything, this morning, regarding the Holy Spirit. Hopefully, next year, we’ll do a series focussed on the Holy Spirit. All I want to do, this morning, is touch on the necessity of the Holy Spirit to the church.

As always, we are going to open up the Scriptures. There’s many places we could turn to, this morning, in both the Old and the New Testaments, but we are going to huddle around some of Jesus’ words, in John 14:15-31.

PARTING WORDS

As a bit of context to these words: Jesus has just washed his disciples’ feet and shared his final meal with them (at the start of John 13). As the text mentions, at numerous points from John 13 onwards, the ‘hour’ had come for Jesus to enter into his ‘glory’ (e.g. John 13:1, 13:31-32, 17:1). Jesus is just about to face crucifixion. So what we have, within John 13 to John 17, is Jesus’ parting words to his disciples—what some scholars call the ‘Farewell Discourse’.

As part of these parting words, Jesus frequently refers the Holy Spirit. And we are going to turn to the first of those references in John 14.

READ: JOHN 14:15-31 (NLT)

PLASTIC IMITATIONS

I grew up in the 1980’s. As such, I grew up with a host of amazing films and television shows (not only from the eighties; I had a fantastic back catalogue of films and TV shows from previous decades, too).

When I think back on those shows and movies, a number of them shared a common theme: There would be someone regular, normal-ish—maybe even weak and feeble—who would obtain some sort of power source that would change them into something super, something powerful, something more-than what they were.

For example, there was the Star Wars franchise. In those films, in ‘a galaxy far, far away’, on a planet called Tatooine, a young lad called Luke Skywalker—a nobody living in the middle of nowhere—discovers that he can tap into an energy-field known as The Force. By using The Force and manipulating it, Luke Skywalker goes from being a farm boy to powerful Jedi Knight, a weak no one to a powerful someone.

There was also a cartoon called, He-Man: And the Masters of the Universe. He-Man was set on a planet called Eternia (Cartoons really did mess up my ability to remember the planets of our solar system whilst I as growing up). On the planet of Eternia there lived a Prince Adam—again, just a regular person. But when Prince Adam holds a weapon called the Sword of Power above his head, and calls out, ‘By the Power of Grayskull’, he is then transformed into He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe.

There are plenty other examples: There was also ThunderCats, which featured a character called Lion-o, who wielded the transforming power of the Sword of Thundera.  There was also, She-Ra: Princess of Power, Visionaries, Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles and, in the mid 1990’s, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Yes, I was an absolute nerd, and, I am proud to say, I still am.

Again, they all had things in common: People, generally individuals, gaining supernatural power. Power they could possess, or that would possess them. Power that would bypass their “humanity”.

These shows also had something else in common—something I, as a unsuspecting child, was unaware/oblivious of: they were all about selling toys.

Large toy manufacturers, such as Mattel, Bandai, and LJN Toyline, purposely produced these cartoons as large-scale adverts for action figures. For a small, extortionate, fee, you could possess your own miniature replica of He-Man, or a plastic version of The Sword of Thundera.

In my own case, I had Michelangelo from Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles.

We could play with these action figures and re-enact the stories we had seen on TV. Even now, as I stand before you holding my Michelangelo action figure, I’m getting nostalgic. But it is just a plastic imitation and not the “real” thing.

IT

I’m saying this, because there have been many misunderstandings throughout the ages about who or what the Holy Spirit is, and what the Holy Spirit is for. And there are two misunderstandings I want to highlight.

In some quarters, some have thought of the Holy Spirit as being akin to a power source, and have thought that the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to overpower or supercharge our humanity.

Like Luke Skywalker with The Force, or He-Man ‘by the power of Grayskull’, we think that, by taking hold of this power, we become more than human.

In other words, there’s been a tendency to think of the Spirit just in terms of power and a neglect of the personhood of the Spirit. As such, the Spirit becomes a thing, an it, something we take possession of and use, or wield, in order to bypass our humanity, and our perceived weaknesses.

In Acts 8, there is a person known as Simon the Sorcerer, who witnesses the Apostles laying their hands on some new Christians so they could receive the Holy Spirit. As he watches, Simon the Sorcerer assumes that the Holy Spirit is just a power source, a commodity, and so he attempts to buy this power from the Apostles.

The Holy Spirit is not an it, a thing, or a power source. It is not something we possess. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is someone we are to know, not a something that we use.

The Holy Spirit is someone we are to know, not a something that we use.

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I’m also going to suggest that the Holy Spirit is not about making us more than human or about bypassing our humanity, either. We’ll come back to this in a moment.

GOD IN US

But if the Holy Spirit is a person, then who is the Holy Spirit?

Well, that brings me to the other misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit, because, stretching from the past right into the present, there have been people who have been happy to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is someone, but they have not been willing to acknowledge that this someone is God. So, some people have thought of the Spirit as being other and less than God.

These voices would acknowledge that the Spirit comes from God, it’s source is God. They may even be willing to consider the Spirit as “God’s breath”. However, they would not have acknowledged that the Spirit is actually God’s real living presence abiding with us, that it’s the same essence as God. And so they talk of the Spirit being more akin to a messenger boy, travelling between God and us.[i] You could say that they thought of the Spirit as being a plastic imitation of the real thing: it carries something of God’s likeness, but it’s not God.

But, this isn’t how Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit.

In the passage we’ve just read, Jesus says some really important things about the person of the Holy Spirit. In John 14, Jesus, who is leaving his disciples, says the following words:

‘I will ask the father, and he will give you another Advocate (Counsellor, Comforter, Helper), who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The World at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognise him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.’ (John 14:16-17).

There’s two words I want to focus in on here: another and Advocate (Counsellor, Comforter, Helper).

Another is a word most of us understand. When we say the word another we know it’s meant in reference to something we have or have had. But, depending on the context, another can mean something that is the same or something that is different.

I’ll give an example, in a moment.

When Jesus says another, he’s not saying another of a different kind. The Greek word that used in John 14 (Allos), specifically means, another of the same kind. The Greek for another of a different kind, is the word Heteros.

For example—and it’s not a great example—if you had a Labrador dog, and said to me that you were getting another dog, using the word allos, I would know that you were getting another Labrador. However, if you were to use the word heteros, I would then ask what kind of dog you were getting.

Jesus, in John 14, is saying that the Holy Spirit is another of the same kind. In other words, Jesus is saying, ‘when I go, then someone who is the same as me, will come to you’.

Jesus then backs this sameness up, saying, ‘The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognise him.’

For those who are familiar with John’s gospel, we’ve heard these words before. In the introduction of John’s gospel, John used those words when talking about Jesus—John writes about God dwelling with us, God becoming flesh and moving into the neighbourhood, coming to the world he made, but the ‘world didn’t recognise him.’ (John 1: 10).

Following this, Jesus then says that the reason the disciples will recognise the Holy Spirit, is because ‘he lives with you now, and later will be in you.’ Who is it that lives with them now? Jesus.

I’m not going to go into a deep conversation about the Trinity, this morning. But, when Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit, he is not talking about someone who is lesser or other than his self, and he is certainly not describing a messenger boy. This Holy Spirit is the same. Just as Jesus talks about himself and the Father being one (e.g. John 14:9-11), Jesus is saying that he and the Holy Spirit are also one and the same.

The Holy Spirit is God, not some plastic imitation of the real thing. And the amazing promise that Jesus gives, here, to his disciples—a promise that still holds for us all these centuries later, is that whereas God dwelt with the disciples, in the person of Jesus, God now dwells in us, as disciples, through the person of the Holy Spirit.

It’s not just God’s breath. God has not just given us some vapour that emanates from God’s proverbial mouth. The Holy Spirit is God.

What an extraordinary, mind-blowing thing to contemplate! We often talk about committing our lives to God—and there is nothing wrong with this. But, in the person of the Holy Spirit, God has committed himself to us.

When we put our trust in Jesus Christ, God—the living God, the eternal God, the maker of Heaven and Earth, the Divine presence—comes and dwells in us. As the Apostle Paul words it, we, as individuals, and more importantly, we together, become a temple for the living God (1 Cor 3:16, 6:19).

But that’s not all that Jesus says about the Holy Spirit, here. Jesus adds that the there’s a purpose to this: the Holy Spirit has come to be our helper.

This brings us to the other word, Advocate.

HELP

The word in Greek is Paraklētos (or Paraclete). Jesus repeats this same term, describing the Holy Spirit, in John 14:26, 15:26, 16:7. It’s a tricky word to translate into English, which is why some translations have advocate, or comforter, or counsellor. All those words, in some sense, capture a facet of what the Greek word can entail.

Literally speaking, though, the Greek means ‘one who comes alongside’, or ‘one who is called to assist’, or ‘one who falls beside. Which is why I prefer the term Helper, because that word involves partnership. The Holy Spirit does not work instead of us, or in spite of us, but in us, with us and through us.

When exploring the Apostle Paul’s words in Romans 8:26 (‘the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness’), the famous preacher D. Martin Lloyd-Jones describes the Holy Spirit’s work being like someone helping you to carry a heavy load.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had to struggle carrying something like a piano, or a sofa… something that you could not move by yourself? You need someone to come and take hold of the other end.

That’s how Martin Lloyd-Jones described the work of the Spirit—the Spirit shares the burden. He writes, ‘We are not told that the Spirit intends to do everything for us, and that we have nothing to do. The Spirit helps us. He does not take the whole of the burden from us. What he does is take up the other end of it.‘[ii]

‘We are not told that the Spirit intends to do everything for us, and that we have nothing to do. The Spirit helps us. He does not take the whole of the burden from us. What he does is take up the other end of it.’ – D. Martin Lloyd-Jones

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This goes back to what I saying earlier. The Holy Spirit is not about overpowering or supercharging our humanity, nor does the Holy Spirit disempower our humanity. The Holy Spirit empowers our humanity, by coming alongside and taking up the other end.

The Holy Spirit does not bypass our humanity. The Holy Spirit calls us to put our humanity, in all its fragility and weakness, to use.

This may come as something of a shock to you, but God has no intention of side lining your humanity, or your weakness.[iii] God does not intend to make you anything other than a human being. Instead, God, through the gift of his Spirit in us, chooses to work with and through our human nature.

It’s about partnership.[iv]

To put it another way, the Holy Spirit does not possess us, as if we were merely objects or puppets. At the same time, we do not possess the Holy Spirit, as if it were an object of power to use. Instead, the person of the Spirit dwells with us, and bids us, leads us, teaches and guides us into participating with itself in the work of expressing the Kingdom rule of God.

‘The Holy Spirit does not possess us, as if we were merely objects or puppets. At the same time, we do not possess the Holy Spirit, as if it were an object of power to use. Instead, the person of the Spirit dwells with us, and bids us, leads us, teaches and guides us into participating with itself in the work of expressing the Kingdom.’

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This has been God’s intent since God breathed into dust-formed Humanity (an act Jesus would later echo, post resurrection, in John 20:22): God desires that we, human beings, would partner with the Divine and bear God’s image in the world.

In the words of one theologian, ‘The Spirit was given so that individual believers, and still more the believers when joined together for corporate worship, would take up their responsibilities as God’s eyes and ears, his hands and his feet, to do what needed to be done in the world.’[v]

KINGDOM POWER

God is with us, in us. God has not abandoned us, but has come to help us, and enable us to express God’s dream and intent for humanity, through our humanity.

I want to stress; this is not an individual thing. When Jesus speaks these words, he is speaking to his disciples—it’s a plural you. The Holy Spirit is desiring and working to bring us together, so that we function as the body of Christ.

The Holy Spirit is not working to create Lone Rangers, or Jedi Knights.

The Holy Spirit is not about making us powerful, like He-Man or Luke Skywalker. As Helen reminded us, last week, when she looked at Paul’s words in Philippians, this life, this Kingdom life, looks like Jesus, it looks like emptying ourselves. It’s empowerment for service, which we’ll look at in a couple of weeks.[vi]

To repeat what I said at the beginning, there is much more we could explore about the Holy Spirit.

I’ve said what I’ve said, this morning, because I want us to understand that without the Holy Spirit, the church, as God intends it, just cannot exist. I’m not talking solely about MCC, here. I mean all churches, of all flavours, around the world and throughout the centuries.

If God isn’t with us, if God has not given us himself through the person of the Holy Spirit, then in a way, we are no different than those who play with action figures. We are just gathering to be nostalgic.

The best way I can put it, and I’ll close with this, is to borrow the words of an Orthodox Priest from 1968: ‘Without the Holy Spirit, God is distant, Christ is merely a historical figure, the Gospel is a dead letter, the Church is just an organization, authority is domination, mission is propaganda, liturgy is only nostalgia, and the work of Christians is slave labor. But with the Holy Spirit, Christ is risen and present, the Gospel is a living force, the Church is a communion in the life of the Trinity, authority is a service that sets the people free, mission is Pentecost, the liturgy is memory and anticipation, and the labor of Christians is [participation with God].’[vii]

 ‘If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.’

Galatians 5:25 (NRSV)

‘By this we know that we reside in God and he is in us: in that he has given us of the Spirit.’

1 John 4:13 (NET)

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[i] It was this line of thinking that caused St Basil the Great, in the 4th Century, to write a famous text called On the Holy Spirit (aka, De Spiritu Sancto), in which he defends the place of the Holy Spirit in the Godhead, building on the Trinitarian work previously carried out by St Athanasius and others.

[ii] Martin Lloyd-Jones, Romans: Exposition of Chapter 8.17-39, The Final Perseverance of the Saints (The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1975), pp. 132-134. Later on from this, Lloyd-Jones emphasises his point, stating that, ‘The Apostle Paul is not teaching a doctrine of passivity.’

[iii] Cf. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10 and 2 Corinthians 4:7.

[iv] On this note, we could, here, have a great conversation about what faith is and isn’t. For brevity’s sake, I’ll just quote Martin Luther King Jr.: ‘We must learn that to expect God to do everything while we do nothing is not faith, but superstition.’ (Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., from his sermon The Answer to a Perplexing Question, contained within A Gift of Love (Penguin Modern Classics), p. 134).

[v] Tom Wright, God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and its Aftermath. St Teresa of Avila, apparently said something similar: ‘Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.’

[vi] Yes, Jesus does talk about empowerment in Luke 24:49, Acts 1:5, 7-8, and yes, Paul highlights the Spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. But the nature of the power, this empowering, always has to take its cue from Jesus. As Jesus stated, quoting from Isaiah 61, in Luke 4:18-19, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to…’ preach Good News to the poor, proclaim captives released, freeing the oppressed, giving sight to the blind. I.e. This power is not about domination, or egotistical showmanship.

[vii] Ignatius of Laodicea, Orthodox Metropolitan, at the third assembly of the World Council of Churches, Uppsala, 1968.