Albert D. Mosley - "The Work of the Holy Spirit" (June 10, 2001)
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| - | But now I am going to Him who sent me, | 0:11 |
| yet none of you ask me where are you going. | 0:15 | |
| But because I have said these things to you, | 0:20 | |
| sorrow has filled your hearts. | 0:23 | |
| Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. | 0:27 | |
| It is to your advantage that I go away, | 0:30 | |
| for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you. | 0:34 | |
| But if I go, I will send Him to you. | 0:41 | |
| And when He comes, He will convince the world concerning sin | 0:44 | |
| and righteousness and judgment. | 0:49 | |
| Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. | 0:52 | |
| Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, | 0:57 | |
| and you will see me no more. | 1:00 | |
| Concerning judgment, | 1:04 | |
| because the Ruler of this world is judged. | 1:05 | |
| I have yet many things to say to you, | 1:09 | |
| but you cannot bear them now. | 1:13 | |
| When the Spirit of Truth comes, | 1:16 | |
| He will guide you into all the truth, | 1:17 | |
| for He will not speak on His own authority, | 1:20 | |
| but whatever He hears He will speak, | 1:24 | |
| and He will declare to you the things that are to come. | 1:26 | |
| He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine | 1:30 | |
| and declare it to you. | 1:35 | |
| All that the Father has is mine, | 1:37 | |
| therefore I said that He will take what is mine | 1:40 | |
| and declare it to you. | 1:44 | |
| This is the word of the Lord. | 1:46 | |
| Congregation | Thanks be to God. | 1:49 |
| - | When the Advocate comes, | 1:53 |
| He will convince the world of its sin, | 1:56 | |
| and of God's righteousness, and of the coming judgment. | 2:00 | |
| Sin, righteousness, and judgment. | 2:08 | |
| These are all words that, at least for me, | 2:15 | |
| produce a feeling of queasiness. | 2:16 | |
| It's quite similar to the feeling | 2:20 | |
| one has just before walking into an interview | 2:22 | |
| that you know will determine the direction of your career | 2:25 | |
| and your life. | 2:28 | |
| There is a lot at stake. | 2:31 | |
| Our lives are literally hanging in the balance. | 2:34 | |
| Things can go one way or the other, | 2:38 | |
| and the worst part of it all is that it seems | 2:42 | |
| that we have little or no control over what happens. | 2:43 | |
| The gospel lesson tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes, | 2:50 | |
| He will convince the world of its sin, | 2:54 | |
| convince the world of God's righteousness, | 2:59 | |
| and convince the world of the coming judgment. | 3:02 | |
| I think this is enough to make anyone a tad bit nervous, | 3:07 | |
| but especially those who are in the world. | 3:11 | |
| A relatively young parson received his assignment | 3:16 | |
| to rather small parish in a very rural community | 3:20 | |
| in the Mississippi delta. | 3:23 | |
| While out making calls on his members one day, | 3:26 | |
| the parson had an encounter with a farmer | 3:28 | |
| in this new community. | 3:31 | |
| The parson asked the farmer, | 3:34 | |
| do you belong to the Christian family? | 3:36 | |
| No, replied the farmer, they live two farms down. | 3:39 | |
| I mean are you lost, said the young minister. | 3:45 | |
| Lost, why I've lived here for over 30 years. | 3:48 | |
| I mean, are you ready for the coming judgment? | 3:52 | |
| When is it, asked the farmer. | 3:57 | |
| Well it could be today, or it could be tomorrow. | 3:59 | |
| Well, said the farmer, when you find out for sure when it is | 4:02 | |
| let me know, my wife will probably want to go both days. | 4:06 | |
| (laughing) | 4:10 | |
| Imagine what sort of response the young preacher | 4:14 | |
| would have gotten had he asked the farmer | 4:15 | |
| about sin and righteousness. | 4:17 | |
| Sin, righteousness, and judgment. | 4:21 | |
| These three words cover almost | 4:25 | |
| the entire gamut of human experience. | 4:27 | |
| We enter the world in and through sin. | 4:30 | |
| We spend the interim of our lives, at least some of us, | 4:34 | |
| striving to mimic God's righteousness. | 4:37 | |
| And finally, as we near the end, | 4:40 | |
| we begin to think of the judgment that awaits each of us. | 4:43 | |
| We are told in today's gospel lesson | 4:48 | |
| that these three entities are linked by God's spirit, | 4:49 | |
| the Holy Spirit, | 4:53 | |
| and that it is this Ppirit that will literally uncover, | 4:55 | |
| or make plain to us, our sin. | 4:57 | |
| This Spirit will uncover, or make plain to us, | 5:02 | |
| God's righteousness, and the coming judgment. | 5:05 | |
| This particular aspect, or this particular work | 5:10 | |
| of the Holy Spirit, is the fourth of five Paraclete sayings | 5:12 | |
| found in Jesus' farewell discourse in the Gospel of John. | 5:17 | |
| Jesus had, on previous occasions, made several other claims | 5:23 | |
| about the work of the Holy Spirit. | 5:26 | |
| In chapter 14 of this gospel, | 5:29 | |
| He declares to the disciples that He will ask the Father, | 5:31 | |
| and the Father will give them another Counselor | 5:35 | |
| to be with them forever. | 5:37 | |
| This Counselor is the Spirit of Truth. | 5:40 | |
| Also in chapter 14, He announces that the Counselor | 5:43 | |
| will teach the disciples all things, | 5:46 | |
| and remind them of everything that Jesus had said to them. | 5:49 | |
| Chapter 15 reveals to us | 5:54 | |
| yet another role of the Holy Spirit. | 5:56 | |
| Here the Holy Spirit bears witness | 5:58 | |
| to Jesus and to His ministry. | 6:00 | |
| And finally, here in the lesson appointed for today, | 6:04 | |
| we are told the the Holy Spirit | 6:08 | |
| will not only convict the world of guilt | 6:09 | |
| in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment, | 6:11 | |
| but that It will also, in a fifth saying, | 6:15 | |
| guide them into all truth. | 6:18 | |
| It is the role of the Spirit found | 6:22 | |
| in the fourth Paraclete saying | 6:24 | |
| that I would like for us to examine today. | 6:27 | |
| Allow me to paint for you a picture | 6:31 | |
| of trial taking place in a courtroom. | 6:33 | |
| At least the following characters are present, | 6:37 | |
| the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, | 6:40 | |
| has the role of representing of the prosecuting attorney, | 6:42 | |
| and the world is the defendant. | 6:47 | |
| These two, the Paraclete and the world, | 6:51 | |
| are standing before God, and before the believing community. | 6:53 | |
| Against the backdrop of the picture of this trial, | 6:58 | |
| please bear in mind that there was another trial earlier. | 7:01 | |
| In the earlier trial, | 7:06 | |
| the world had declared Jesus to be guilty, | 7:07 | |
| guilty of sedition against Caesar, | 7:10 | |
| and blasphemy against God. | 7:12 | |
| For the more the world had declared earlier | 7:16 | |
| that the same Jesus was a man without righteousness, | 7:17 | |
| and was worthy of death by crucifixion. | 7:21 | |
| The accounts of this trial of Jesus | 7:26 | |
| are written in the synoptic gospels | 7:28 | |
| and in this fourth gospel in such a way | 7:30 | |
| that they readily display to us | 7:33 | |
| the reality of Jesus' innocence and the world's guilt. | 7:35 | |
| Now in this second trial, in the trial | 7:40 | |
| that John alludes to in today's scripture lesson, | 7:44 | |
| the Paraclete is given the task | 7:47 | |
| of exposing the mockery of justice | 7:49 | |
| that took place before the Sanhedrin, | 7:51 | |
| and before Pontius Pilate in trial number one. | 7:53 | |
| Paul Harvey, in his collection titled For What It's Worth, | 7:59 | |
| tells of a story of a great escape from judgment. | 8:02 | |
| Gary Tindle was in a California courtroom | 8:06 | |
| charged with a crime. | 8:08 | |
| He asked and received permission from the Judge | 8:11 | |
| to go to the bathroom. | 8:13 | |
| While in the bathroom, | 8:16 | |
| Mr. Tindle climbed up into the plumbing | 8:17 | |
| and opened a panel in the ceiling. | 8:19 | |
| Sure enough, that was a dropped ceiling with space between. | 8:22 | |
| He climbed up into the crawlspace and headed south. | 8:27 | |
| After about thirty feet, | 8:31 | |
| the ceiling panels broke from under Mr. Tindle | 8:32 | |
| and he fell through the ceiling. | 8:35 | |
| To his dismay, he fell right back into the courtroom | 8:38 | |
| of the Judge who had excused him to go to the bathroom. | 8:41 | |
| So just when the world thought it was off the hook, | 8:46 | |
| it finds itself in the courtroom again. | 8:49 | |
| The tables are turned in trial number two. | 8:54 | |
| In trial number two, the world stands before God, | 8:57 | |
| the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, | 9:01 | |
| convinces the world of its sin. | 9:04 | |
| A more literal translation of the Greek word elegcho, | 9:08 | |
| which is translated in the NRSV as convince, | 9:11 | |
| is expose, or convict. | 9:14 | |
| In trial number two, the Paraclete will expose the world. | 9:17 | |
| The Paraclete will convict the world. | 9:21 | |
| It will convict the world, and it will demonstrate | 9:25 | |
| its error with reference to sin, | 9:27 | |
| righteousness, and judgment. | 9:29 | |
| This exposure is not related to specific acts of sin, | 9:32 | |
| specific acts of righteousness, | 9:36 | |
| or specific acts of judgment. | 9:38 | |
| But it is related to what sin, | 9:41 | |
| righteousness, and judgment are. | 9:42 | |
| In the first count brought against the world, | 9:47 | |
| the Holy Spirit, or the Paraclete, | 9:48 | |
| brings out into the open the true meaning of sin, | 9:50 | |
| and it then holds the world accountable | 9:55 | |
| to the standards derived from this meaning. | 9:57 | |
| The sin that the world stands accused of | 10:01 | |
| is unbelief in Jesus, | 10:03 | |
| an unbelief that manifests itself in a variety of actions | 10:05 | |
| that are inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus. | 10:09 | |
| The world did not believe that Jesus | 10:13 | |
| was the incarnate logos of God. | 10:15 | |
| John writes in the present tense to indicate to us | 10:19 | |
| that the world still does not believe | 10:22 | |
| that Jesus is incarnate word of God. | 10:24 | |
| There's is an ongoing rejection | 10:28 | |
| of the revelation of God in Jesus. | 10:29 | |
| This rejection, and thus this sin, | 10:32 | |
| did not stop with the Jewish power structure. | 10:34 | |
| It is very present and real in our world today. | 10:38 | |
| Today this rejection of Jesus presents itself | 10:43 | |
| in the form of racism. | 10:45 | |
| It presents itself in the form of sexism. | 10:47 | |
| It presents itself in the form of classism. | 10:50 | |
| It presents itself in the form of anyway of life | 10:54 | |
| that does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord. | 10:56 | |
| The ongoing rejection, and the continued unbelief in Jesus, | 11:00 | |
| is the sin that the Holy Spirit exposes. | 11:05 | |
| The Holy Spirit will expose decisions | 11:08 | |
| made behind closed doors, | 11:10 | |
| decisions that benefit only a few, | 11:13 | |
| and bring distress to the masses. | 11:15 | |
| The Holy Spirit will expose our well-meaning, | 11:18 | |
| yet sinful actions that lead | 11:20 | |
| to a large percentage of God's children | 11:23 | |
| being excluded from decisions about their own fate. | 11:25 | |
| This sin, this unbelief that the Paraclete will expose | 11:30 | |
| and uncover, entails rejection, not ignorance, | 11:35 | |
| of the proclamation of Christ and the gospel. | 11:40 | |
| The world knows what Jesus has proclaimed. | 11:43 | |
| The world knows what Jesus has said about the poor. | 11:47 | |
| The world knows what Jesus has said about the outcasts. | 11:50 | |
| The world knows what Jesus has said | 11:54 | |
| about those who are despised, those who are downtrodden. | 11:55 | |
| The world knows all of this, but it has chosen to ignore it. | 12:00 | |
| It has turned its head the other way. | 12:05 | |
| Sadly, so has the Church in many instances. | 12:08 | |
| It is this sin that the Holy Spirit will expose. | 12:12 | |
| In count two, after the Holy Spirit exposes | 12:18 | |
| the sin of the world, It will then, | 12:20 | |
| according to John, expose God's righteousness. | 12:23 | |
| In the context of the world's trial by the Paraclete, | 12:27 | |
| righteousness is to be understood | 12:30 | |
| as synonymous with vindication. | 12:32 | |
| In this instance, it is not referring | 12:35 | |
| to the believers justification by faith. | 12:37 | |
| The nature of righteousness in this passage | 12:40 | |
| is brought to light in that Jesus goes away to the Father, | 12:42 | |
| and his disciples see Him no more. | 12:46 | |
| Jesus is lifted up on the cross, which in the world's eyes, | 12:50 | |
| was the demonstration of Jesus on righteousness. | 12:54 | |
| The Holy Spirit, however, exposes the world, | 12:58 | |
| and exposes to the world that this was none other | 13:00 | |
| than the means of Jesus exhalation to Heaven by the Father. | 13:04 | |
| The world assumed that Jesus' death was His defeat. | 13:09 | |
| In actuality, His death shows forth | 13:13 | |
| the righteousness of God, | 13:15 | |
| because in death, Jesus goes to God and completes His work. | 13:17 | |
| What to the world was the end of Jesus, | 13:22 | |
| His disappearance from the earth scene, | 13:25 | |
| the disciples came to know as none other | 13:28 | |
| than the reception of Jesus by the Father into glory. | 13:29 | |
| It is this righteousness, this vindication | 13:34 | |
| that the Paraclete will expose to the world, | 13:36 | |
| a righteousness that is definitely out of sync | 13:40 | |
| with what the world had in mind. | 13:42 | |
| The world thought that they had gotten rid of Jesus, | 13:46 | |
| that they had finally quieted Him. | 13:48 | |
| His crucifixion, the world thought, would be the end | 13:51 | |
| of heretical teaching that encourages | 13:54 | |
| the mixing of Jews and Samaritans. | 13:56 | |
| It would be the end of heretical teaching | 14:00 | |
| that encourages ignoring the Sabbath to heal the sick, | 14:02 | |
| that encourages a new system of justice | 14:06 | |
| not based on an eye for an eye, | 14:08 | |
| but rather on love and the ability to forgive. | 14:11 | |
| This is what the world thought to be the case, | 14:15 | |
| but the Paraclete exposes something entirely different. | 14:18 | |
| The Paraclete exposes God's righteousness | 14:22 | |
| because through death, Jesus returns to the Father, | 14:24 | |
| and is glorified with the Father | 14:28 | |
| by a special place at his right hand. | 14:30 | |
| Finally, in count three, | 14:34 | |
| we're told that the Paraclete will expose the world | 14:36 | |
| concerning the coming judgment. | 14:38 | |
| The Paraclete will show that this world's Prince | 14:41 | |
| had been decidedly put in the wrong. | 14:43 | |
| In this third count that is brought against the world, | 14:47 | |
| we see the cosmic, | 14:50 | |
| and the eschatological dimensions of this trial. | 14:51 | |
| The reality of judgment, | 14:55 | |
| and the world's entanglement in judgment | 14:57 | |
| is exposed by the Holy Spirit in John's gospel. | 14:59 | |
| The judgment of the world took place | 15:04 | |
| as the son of men was lifted up on the cross, | 15:05 | |
| and as the Prince of the World was thrown out. | 15:09 | |
| As the son of man was installed by God | 15:12 | |
| as Lord of Creation and Mediator | 15:14 | |
| of the sovereignty of God to the world, | 15:16 | |
| the Prince of the World was ejected. | 15:19 | |
| The Paraclete exposes, or brings to light, | 15:22 | |
| that the world is judged because it's admitted | 15:26 | |
| to the Prince of this world, | 15:28 | |
| and the rejection of the Son of God. | 15:30 | |
| And it became the tool of the Prince of this world | 15:33 | |
| in his murder. | 15:36 | |
| The Paraclete continues God's eschatological judgment | 15:38 | |
| beyond the time of the life and death of Jesus, | 15:41 | |
| until the life of the faith community. | 15:44 | |
| Many of us continue to fail to acknowledge Jesus | 15:49 | |
| as rightful Lord of the world. | 15:51 | |
| Our actions reveal just how much we continue | 15:54 | |
| to ignore the Lordship of Jesus Christ. | 15:57 | |
| We often live as people who do not have | 16:00 | |
| to give a final account for their actions. | 16:02 | |
| For some of us, it appears that the Prince of this world | 16:07 | |
| has not been dethroned in our lives, | 16:10 | |
| but that He is stronger and surer of his standing | 16:13 | |
| than ever before. | 16:16 | |
| But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Counselor, | 16:19 | |
| the Advocate, will prove the world wrong. | 16:24 | |
| The Holy Spirit will expose | 16:28 | |
| the world's distorted sense of judgment, | 16:29 | |
| a sense of judgment that is based | 16:32 | |
| upon a belief in things opposed to God, | 16:33 | |
| a belief in the ruler and things of this world. | 16:37 | |
| On all three counts, the world's cause was lost. | 16:41 | |
| The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate | 16:47 | |
| exposes the world's faulty and perjurious arguments | 16:50 | |
| against God and against His Son. | 16:54 | |
| When the Advocate comes, | 16:58 | |
| He will convince the world of its sin, | 16:59 | |
| of God's righteousness, and of the coming judgment. | 17:01 | |
| No wonder we want to dismiss | 17:06 | |
| this third person of the Trinity. | 17:08 | |
| No wonder we spend so little time discussing | 17:10 | |
| the Holy Spirit in our churches. | 17:13 | |
| There's a story told of a children's catechism class | 17:17 | |
| that was learning the Apostle's Creed. | 17:20 | |
| Each child was assigned a sentence to repeat. | 17:23 | |
| The first child said I believe in God, the Father Almighty, | 17:26 | |
| maker of heaven and earth. | 17:29 | |
| The second child said I believe in Jesus, | 17:32 | |
| His only begotten Son. | 17:34 | |
| After this, there was a few moments of embarrassing silence. | 17:37 | |
| Finally, one of the other children piped up and said, | 17:41 | |
| teacher, the boy who believes in the Holy Spirit | 17:44 | |
| isn't here today. | 17:47 | |
| (scattered laughter) | 17:48 | |
| Do you believe in the Holy Spirit? | 17:51 | |
| And more importantly, do you believe in its work, | 17:54 | |
| amen. | 17:59 |