Dial In with Jonny Ardavanis - Dial In - John 16:1-15 (Ep. 41)

Episode Date: May 28, 2020

Dial In is a devotional series with the intention of helping followers of Christ understand God’s word and love Him more. Jonny seeks to communicate the profound depth of scripture in a digestible and condensed format each weekday. The goal of the podcast is that our “minds would be renewed” as we behold who God is in His word. In this series, Jonny is walking sequentially through the Gospel of John.In this episode, Jonny covers John 16:1-16 where Jesus, in the midst of their anxiety and fear regarding the persecution promised, tells his disciples that it is to their advantage that He departs, so that the Holy Spirit will come.In this episode we talk briefly about the Spirit’s role: convict the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment, lead them to the truth, and glorify Jesus Christ. Watch VideosVisit the Website Follow on InstagramFollow on Twitter

Hey guys, my name is Johnny Artavanis, and this is Dial In. We continue in our study of John's Gospel as we look at John chapter 16, verses 1 through 15. These are the words of God. Let's view them as such in Dial In. John chapter 16, verses 1 through 15. I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. John chapter 16 verses 1 through 15. But I have said these things to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told them to you. I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I was with you, but now I am going 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 go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in him, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer, concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, 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 declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Okay, so let's recap. In John chapter 13, Jesus had taken his disciples to the upper room on that Thursday night. This is the final night before his crucifixion,

and he starts the evening out by proclaiming his love towards his disciples and by encouraging them to love one another. At the end of chapter 14, Jesus says, Let's go and leaves from the upper room and they head towards the garden of Gethsemane. And in chapter 15, there is a shift when he begins to prepare the disciples for the persecution that they will face as his followers. In chapter 15, verse 18, Jesus tells them that the world is going to hate them because it has hated Jesus. And here in verse one of chapter 16, Jesus tells them that he is telling them of the coming hatred from the world so that when they are persecuted and when they are hated, they will not be caught off guard. He's saying, don't be surprised when this happens.

Don't be alarmed. Expect this persecution. It's coming. And in verse two, he says, they will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. This is crazy. The disciples are going to be murdered and the men who do so will congratulate themselves as if they were ridding the world of a disease and doing something

for God himself. We talked generally in the previous episode about the persecution that Christians have faced since the beginning of the church. But here's the fate of the disciples who are listening to the words of Jesus in this passage. Matthew was slain with the sword. John was put in oil and escaped, and then he died in exile. Peter was crucified upside down. James, the son of Zebedee, was beheaded. James, the son of Alphaeus, was thrown off of a temple

and then beaten to death with a club. Bartholomew was flayed open. Andrew was crucified. Thomas was run through with a lance. This is their future. All of them, with the exception of John, would be murdered. And it's in the middle of this conversation where the disciples are assuredly anxious, depressed, fearful, and bewildered that Jesus tells them in verse 7,

guys, it's to your advantage that I leave because if I don't leave you, the helper will not come to you. What? Imagine the response of the disciples. Imagine if you had spent every single day with Jesus for three years and then he tells you that it is to your advantage, to my advantage if I'm in Christ, that he leaves. I would have said, come on, Jesus. You can't be serious. How about you just stay, Jesus? You are God. You're the creator of the universe. I want you to stay with me. But that's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, no, it's better that I leave. He is telling the disciples and he's telling you today, if you're in Christ, your situation is better now than when Jesus was on the earth. A couple questions arise

from this passage. Number one, why does Jesus have to leave in order for the Holy Spirit to come? Jesus says, it is to your advantage that I go because if I don't go, the Holy Spirit won't come. So why does Jesus have to leave? Well, the Holy Spirit is the seal of Christ's completed work. The Spirit of God cannot come until the work of Jesus is done. This is what Peter refers to in Acts 2, verse 33. He says, Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,

he has poured forth this, which you both see and hear. Once Jesus was exalted to the Father, then the Father and the Son sent the Spirit to believers on the day of Pentecost. And through the Spirit's power, followers of Jesus Christ would be able to reach the world with the gospel. Here we see the Trinity at work. The Father sends the Son. The Son acquires redemption through his life and death. This is what Jesus did. He lived a perfect life and fully satisfied God's wrath on the cross. But the question is, how does what Christ accomplished for us get to us? How does that get applied to me and to you? And the answer is by the spirit of God. The spirit of God applies

the redemption that Jesus Christ acquired. Okay, so that's why Jesus had to leave. But another question is how could it possibly be better for Jesus to leave and have the Holy Spirit than to have Jesus physically with his disciples? The answer is because when Jesus was on earth, he was confined to a human body. He was not omnipresent as a man, but the Holy Spirit comes and he is not merely with us like Jesus. He is in us. As Christians, Paul tells us in Corinthians, we are temples of the Holy Spirit. God is always with us now because he dwells inside of us. Can we possibly comprehend how amazing this is? Now let's move on.

What is the Holy Spirit going to do? We see the answer in verse 8. He will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit is not a force. He's a person. And what he, the Holy Spirit, is going to do is reveal to lost sinners their condition apart from Jesus Christ. Verse 8 says he will convict them of sin.

Now listen, a person will never receive Jesus Christ as their savior unless they realize they need saving. And if they don't see their need, they won't cry out for a savior. So the first work of the Holy Spirit is to convict those that God the Father has called of their need for a Savior. The power of the gospel does not lie in the power of the preacher. It is in the power of God's Spirit. And this is what we see in the book of Acts. The people that heard the message of the gospel were cut to the heart by the conviction of the Holy Spirit. And once they realize their sin, it says that the Holy Spirit

will teach them about righteousness. They will realize that the righteousness they need can only come from Jesus Christ, that they can never earn their way to God and that their best deeds are filthy rags to Christ and that left to themselves, they will face judgment. Real conversion always involves repentance and being brought to our knees by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit shows the world what true righteousness is. The Holy Spirit strips us of our self-righteousness and shows us our inadequacy to ever earn our way to God. So this is what the Holy Spirit is going to do. He's going to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment, but there's more than that in this passage. And we'll touch on it briefly in verse 13.

He, the Holy Spirit is going to lead them into all the truth. Jesus had said in chapter 14 that the spirit was the spirit of truth. And what he is going to do is testify about Jesus Christ. And he is going to bring to the remembrance of the disciples, all the things that Jesus had said and done so that they might record them in the gospel. He is going to inspire the scriptures. And Jesus is telling the disciples, just like I have been with you, now he, the Holy Spirit, will be in you. And he is going to inspire the scripture so that you might always have the truth of God. He is going to bring you and give you the truth. Throughout history, people would run to the ends of the earth to hear the voice of God. There would be pilgrimages to find relics or the bones of the dead that were

believed to possess the power of God. But Jesus tells his disciples here, you don't have to climb a mountain to hear the voice of God. You don't have to search to the ends of the earth to find the power of God. The power of God and the voice of God will be brought to you by the Spirit of God, and you will record that in the Word of God. And what will be the substance of that truth that the Holy Spirit brings to you? Well, he tells us in verse 14 the holy spirit he will glorify me he will glorify me the holy spirit glorifies jesus christ he points back to the son the holy spirit is like the stage director and he makes sure that the spotlight shines boldly on

Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit stays in the background. Do you want to know if someone is filled with the Holy Spirit? See how much they make of Jesus Christ. Any person or any ministry that doesn't make much of Jesus Christ is not filled with the Holy Spirit because that's what he does make much of Jesus stay dialed in