By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 10.45am Svc, 2010-07-18

Text: John 17:1-5

One of the things we do regularly in our morning worship services is to recite the Lord's Prayer together at the end of the opening prayer. But although it is called the Lord's Prayer, it was not a prayer that the Lord Jesus Himself prayed. It was only taught by Him in the Sermon on the Mount, and was meant for His disciples to use. Hence, some commentators propose that it should be called 'The Disciples' Prayer' rather than the Lord's Prayer. 

This morning we are going to look at a prayer which really is the Lord's Prayer, because it was prayed by the Lord Jesus Himself. This prayer is recorded in John 17 and it takes up the whole chapter. It is 26 verses long and we will study it in two sermons. Today we will consider the first 5 verses. This passage highlights an important aspect of our Lord Jesus - His prayer life. Our Lord had a very consistent and vibrant prayer life. We have already seen glimpses of it in our series of sermons on John's Gospel. When we studied chapter 6 we saw Jesus giving thanks in prayer just before He multiplied the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes to feed 5000 men. After that He withdrew Himself to a mountain to spend time alone with God. When we came to chapter 11 we saw Jesus praying again when He raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:41-42). Then in John chapter 14 He assured His disciples that He would pray for them, so that they may be filled with the Holy Spirit. The other Gospels - Matthew, Mark and Luke - record many more instances of His prayer life. But what is so intriguing in all this is who Jesus is - that He is One we do not expect to have any need to pray at all.

It should really amaze us that of all people, it is Jesus Christ, God's only begotten Son, the second Person of the Trinity, who needed to pray so much. Doesn't this put many of us to shame? If He needed prayer how much more do we. How foolish it is for us mortals to give so little priority and time to prayer or even to neglect prayer, seeing how much the Lord prayed when He lived on earth. And He did that despite the huge demands on His time from His ministry of teaching, preaching, healing and ministering to people all over Israel. And here in John 17, despite the very short time that was left before His arrest, trial and crucifixion, He still made it a point to pray. In fact after making this prayer, Jesus went on to pray some more - agonising in personal prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. He really was a man of prayer.

Dearly beloved, let us follow the Lord's example of unceasing prayer: You should pray not only at times when you feel like praying, but also at times when you don't feel like praying and when your mind is pre-occupied with important matters at hand. There is a lot for us to learn from our Lord's example of prayer. And there is also a lot that we can learn from what Jesus prayed for that can make a tremendous difference in our prayer life. 

Have you ever felt that there is something lacking in your prayer life? Why is there no power in your praying? Perhaps you pray quite often, but your prayers don't seem to be answered at all. Well, if that is your experience of prayer, here in the first 5 verses of John 17 you will discover 3 things that can absolutely revolutionise your prayer life. Firstly, what Jesus prayed for in these verses revealed His intense commitment to glorify the Father. Secondly, it revealed His indomitable compulsion to accomplish the Father's work. And thirdly, it revealed His intimate communion with the Father. We shall begin by looking at the first one:

I. An Intense Commitment to Glorify the Father

This commitment is evident in the first verse, where Jesus prayed, 'Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.' This commitment to glorify God should be the very heartbeat of all praying. It aligns us fully with God. You may have memorized that the chief end of man is 'to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever' from the Shorter Catechism. But do you know what the chief end of God is? This is not from the Shorter Catechism, but someone put it this way: The chief end of God in everything He does is to glorify Himself and to enjoy His own glory forever. Jonathan Edwards puts it like this: 'All that is ever spoken of in the Scripture as an ultimate end of God's works is included in that one phrase: the glory of God.' If we can only grasp this truth well, we will be able to see that our greatest fulfillment in living is to live for His glory! Dearly beloved, real joy is found not in living for self as the world claims, but in living for the glory of God. That's what we were made for.

This morning, I would like us all to check our own commitment to glorify God. Do we have the same kind of attitude as John the Baptist who said, 'He must increase and I must decrease?' (John 3:30) 1 Peter 4:11 tells us that God must be glorified in all things. He must be glorified in our worship - everything we do here in our worship service must be directed to bring glory to Him and not to the preacher, the worship chairman, the choir or anyone else. God must be glorified in our service - in whatever area of church service we are serving, whether in the music ministry, children's ministry, children's ark, Sunday school, missions or the preparations for our church's 60th anniversary - we must not allow any thought of self-glory or pride to come in and rob God of His glory.

And God must be glorified even in our mundane daily activities. As 1 Corinthians 10:31 tells us 'Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' Therefore if we are intensely committed to glorify God, everything we do in life would be subordinated for His glory.

And God must also be glorified in our praying. The ending of the Lord's Prayer captures this very well: 'For thine in the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.' Do we really seek for God's glory when we pray? What are our real motives for praying? Some years ago Bruce Wilkinson wrote a book called The Prayer of Jabez which sold over 9 million copies. It was so popular because it claims that if you repeatedly pray the prayer of Jabez recorded in 1 Chronicles 4:10 ('Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!') then you will certainly receive bountiful blessings from God for the rest of your life. This obviously promotes selfish praying.

Actually Jabez made such a prayer only because of the awful circumstances that had led to his birth and also to his being named 'Jabez,' which means sorrow. His prayer wasn't meant to be a formula for blessing. And the answer God gave him merely demonstrates God's grace to him and God's awesome ability to bring blessing out of a very sad situation. God was therefore glorified through that prayer. That is what we ought to seek in all our praying. We should be asking only for things that will bring glory to God.

And what you ask for in prayer should ultimately seek for God's glory even though that glory may not come in the way you expect. When God doesn't answer our prayer the way we expect Him to, it is only because His way brings much greater glory to Him. For instance, the apostle Paul prayed 3 times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed. If God had simply removed that thorn in Paul's flesh, God would be glorified through Paul's health. But God did not remove it. Instead He left the thorn in Paul's flesh and gave Paul His sufficient grace to bear the suffering so that the power of Christ would be manifested through Paul's weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9). Doesn't it bring more glory to God to be glorified through a person's weakness than through his health? 

God's ways are always so much higher than our ways. He knows best how to derive greater glory for Himself out of every situation! He knows how to derive more glory for Himself through pain than through deliverance. He even knows how to derive more glory for Himself by death than by life. 

Here in John 17:1 Jesus prayed that God would glorify Him. But how? Not by effecting a glorious rescue of Jesus from going to the cross (In Matthew 26:53 He said that He could pray for such rescue and the Father would send more thatn 12 legions of angels to rescue Him.) Jesus pray that God would glorify him by enabling Him to endure the worst trials and gruesome suffering as He went to the cross, and by accepting His personal blood sacrifice as an atonement for the sins of the world so that His death would not be in vain. How would all this bring greater glory to God than if He had rescued His beloved Son from going through all that? By displaying the love of God in a glorious way that had never ever been seen before. Romans 5:8 brings out the awesome majesty of God's love that could only be shown at the cross: 'But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.'

A few days before Jesus went to the cross, as He contemplated all the awful pain and suffering that He would have to go through, He said, 'Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.' (John 12:27-28) Dearly beloved, let us follow our Lord's example. Let us resolve to pray sincerely 'May God be glorified in my life and in my death; in my strengths as well as my weaknesses; in my gains as well as my pains; in my gladness and also in my sadness.' Make that your prayer, and see how it transforms your life!

Thus we have seen that the prayer Jesus made in John 17 revealed His intense commitment to glorify the Father. Now we go to so see another thing that this prayer revealed-

II. An Indomitable Compulsion to Accomplish the Work of the Father

This is clearly revealed in vv.2-4. God the Father had given Christ power over all flesh in order that He may accomplish a very important work - the work of giving eternal life to God's people. He is their eternal lifegiver. This was the work that Christ was about to accomplish very soon through His death on the cross. And so intensely driven was He by His indomitable compulsion to accomplish this, that in v.4 He already anticipates its full completion by saying, 'I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.' Actually this was completed only when His full atonement for sin had been made when He cried out aloud, 'It is finished' as He hung on the cross of Calvary. 

Every prayer that Jesus made reflected this same compulsion to finish the Father's work. Even when He agonized in prayer at Gethsemane His prayer was, 'Not my will but Thine be done.' (Luke 22:42) And this ought to be true of our prayers - they should reflect a strong compulsion not for our wills to be done, but for God's will to be done. This is why Jesus taught His disciples to pray 'Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.' And we are reminded of this whenever we recite the Lord's prayer together.

The accomplishment of God's will must always be the central motive for all our praying, just as it should be the central motive for all our living. In Matthew 7:21 Jesus said, 'Not every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven.' In Matthew 12:50 Jesus said, 'For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother.' And in John 4:34 Jesus said, 'My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.'

This compulsion for God's will to be done can also be seen in John Bunyan's definition of prayer: 'Prayer is a sincere, sensible, affectionate pouring out of the heart or soul to God, through Christ, in the strength and assistance of the Holy Spirit, for such things as God has promised, or according to his Word, for the good of the church, with submission in faith to the will of God.'

If our prayers are not made with submission to the will of God, they may not even be answered at all. This is what James wrote in James 4:3 'Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.' If your prayers are made for entirely selfish reasons such as satisfying your own lusts and desires God will not answer them. It only shows that what you want is more important to you than what God wants. The next time you pray, do make it a point to listen to yourself pray. Think through and analyze your prayers, to examine precisely what you are asking God for and why you want them. You might be convinced that most of your praying is not for the things you should be asking for.

When Solomon became the king of Israel the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, 'Ask what I shall give thee.' (1 Kings 3:5) It was like giving him a blank cheque - He could ask for the anything at all, and the Lord would give it to him. He could have asked the Lord to give him great riches or a long life, or victory over all who would oppose him. But all these selfish requests would only reveal that he is really unfit to rule the Kingdom of Israel. What did Solomon ask God for? He asked God for wisdom to know how to rule the Kingdom well, so that God's people would get to enjoy all the blessings that God wanted them to have - such as justice, peace, and prosperity. And that's exactly what the Lord Himself wanted for His people. Here was a king whose prayer was driven by an indomitable compulsion to accomplish the work of God's kingdom. And because of this, God gave him not only the wisdom that he asked for, but also all the other things he had not asked for. He was clearly pleased with Solomon's prayer. This is vastly different from the prosperity gospel preached in many megachurches today.

And God will surely be pleased with your prayer if it gives the highest prority to the work of His kingdom. As Matthew 6:33 says, 'seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.' Dearly beloved God has a great work to accomplish in this world, and He wants to do it through you and through your prayers. Will you let your prayers be used to accomplish God's work? Thus far we have seen two things revealed in the prayer of Jesus in John 17 - His intense commitment to glorify, and His indomitable compulsion to accomplish the Father's work. The third thing is:

III. An Intimate Communion with the Father

This intimate communion that Jesus had with the Father is revealed in His prayer in at least two ways. Firstly, it is revealed in the way that He addressed God as His Father. In v.1 Jesus said, 'Father, the hour is come' and in v.5 He said, 'O Father, glorify Thou Me' In the rest of the chapter Jesus addressed God as the Father another 4 times, making a total of 6 times in this prayer. And the actual term that Jesus used is the Aramaic word 'Abba' This is a term of endearment, that a little child normally used to speak to his father. The Talmud says that 'Abba' was one of the first words that a Jewish child learned to speak. The Arabs today still use the term abba to refer to daddy or papa. The fact that Jesus used this to address God in His praying shows how close His communion with the Father was. 

And we too can enjoy such close communion with God because when Jesus taught His disciples to pray He told them to say, 'Our Father which art in heaven' And Jesus also encouraged them to regard God as their Father in Luke 11:11-13 'If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?'

These verses present to us the most heart-warming picture of prayer: A picture of a loving father who desires his children to gather themselves to him to ask him for their needs, and he is happy to grant what they ask of him if it is for their good. Those of us here who are parents can understand this a little better. How do you feel when your little child comes to ask you for help to do things that he cannot do on his own?

As our heavenly Father, the Lord longs for His children to come to Him. Some may wander away for a time, like the prodigal son. And like the loving father in the parable, when the Lord sees any signs of them turning back to Him, He is filled with joy to welcome them back into His presence (Luke 15:20-24). As our Father, God wants His children to look up to Him and depend upon Him fully. He takes great delight in hearing our prayers and our cries for help. He wants us to come to Him often with child-like faith, to express our full trust and confidence in Him. And we can come to our heavenly Father at anytime, knowing that He is always ready to receive us. Thus we have seen how Jesus sets an example for us of the intimate communion He enjoyed with God, when He called God, 'Father' in His prayer.

Another indication of the intimate communion that Jesus had with the Father is found in v.5. Here He asked the Father to glorify Him with Himself with the glory He enjoyed with the Father before the world existed. The preposition 'with' which is found twice in this verse speaks of intimacy. Before He came into the world, Jesus had been with the Father from all eternity. As God the Son, He was equal with the Father in power and glory. Then He laid aside His glory and was sent into the world to accomplish the Father's work. And now, as that work was soon to be completed, He longed to return back to heaven to be with the Father and to share once more the glory that He had with Him. 

This ought to be our greatest desire as well. God made us for Himself and we can never be fully satisfied until we enjoy intimate communion with Him. In fact, eternal life is all about enjoying intimate communtion with God forever and ever. This is brought out very well by what Jesus said in v.3 'And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' The word 'know' in this verse speaks of the close personal relationship with God that man was made for in the beginning. 

And it would really take an eternity to really know God completely because He is infinite - there is no end to the knowledge of God. Thus, we should not think of eternal life merely as endless existence. Everyone will exist somewhere forever but the question is - in what condition or relationship will we spend it?

If anyone here is not saved yet, let me ask you: In what condition or relationship will you be spending your eternity? Without Christ, your eternity will be spent in complete isolation from God and from all life, and in complete desolation because of the extreme pain and the fires of hell. What a terrible and hopeless way this is to spend eternity! But if you have Christ in your life, your eternity will be spent in the very presence of God, the giver of all life, and in the permanent bliss of heaven. And there you will enjoy the most intimate communion with God that any mortal being can ever have. 

If this is how you want to spend eternity, then you must come to Jesus to receive it from Him right now. Jesus Himself said in v.2 that He has been given power over all flesh to give eternal life to as many as the Father has given him. But how can you tell if you are really one of those whom the Father has given to Him? The answer is, By coming to Jesus. Jesus has said this in John 6:37 'All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.' Please don't delay to come to Jesus for eternal life. Ask Him now to save you from your sins and from eternal death.

For those of us who are already saved, there is a very important thing to learn from v.3 of our text: What eternal life is all about. If your concept of eternal life is not like this, then you need to correct it. Some may think that eternal life is simply enjoying a better life 'up there'. A life free from all the pains and inconveniences we now experience, and that the way to obtain eternal life is to know God. But if you read v.3 carefully you will see that knowing God is not merely a means to an end. Knowing God is actually the end itself. V.3 says, 'And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.' Eternal life is therefore a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

This means that if you are saved you should have already started to enjoy eternal life with God. You should be having daily intimate communion with God through prayer and reading His Word. You should be cherishing every moment you can spend with your heavenly Father in your daily devotions, in your prayers and also in corporate worship together with other Christians. 

But if you have hardly any desire for these things, and you allow them to be crowded out of your life by your work, study or play, then you have missed the whole point of being a Christian. Christianity is not just about getting saved, attending church every Sunday and following a set of rules and regulations. It is about experiencing God in a personal way every day of your life, and growing in your knowledge of Him. It is about spending the rest of your life and eternity with the One who loves you more than anyone else ever can. And you will no longer be afraid of death when it comes, because you know that death is only a passage way to the glory of being forever with the Lord.

As Jesus came nearer and nearer to the hour of His death, His thoughts were filled with anticipation of being back with the Father in heaven. His heart was set on enjoying the fellowship and glory that He used to enjoy with the Father, as He prayed in v.5, 'And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.'

May we all learn to follow the example of Christ by looking forward to every opportunity that we have to commune with the Father in prayer. And may your prayer life from now on be characterized by an intense commitment to glorify Him, an indomitable compulsion to accomplish His work, and an intimate communion with Him.

By Rev Charles Seet

Preached at / Published Life BPC 10.45am Svc, 2010-06-27

Text: John 16:5-15

We ought to be very thankful for the Holy Spirit. Someone has said, 'Of all the gifts given to mankind by God, there is none greater than the presence of the Holy Spirit.' However there is much confusion today about the work of the Holy Spirit. In some churches there is hardly any mention about Him, giving the impression that the Holy Spirit is not important at all. On the other end of the scale, there are churches where such great emphasis and attention is given to the Holy Spirit that He is even more important than Christ! And there are many who think that the Holy Spirit works only when they have some special sensation or ecstatic experience like speaking in tongues or falling backwards. To them, the Holy Spirit cannot be at work unless there is some supernatural or miraculous manifestation. 

This morning we will learn that the most important works of the Holy Spirit are not in things like these, but in what He does in the hearts and minds of sinners to bring them to faith in Christ, and in what He does to provide guidance for us and to promote the glory of Christ. Let us turn our Bibles to John 16:5-15 and read it (Read).

The passage begins with the response of the disciples to the news that Jesus was about to leave them. They were filled with sorrow (v.6). This was despite the many assurances they had received from Him - e.g. that He was going to prepare mansions for them in His Father's house, and would return to take them there one day (14:2,3). Why were they so sorrowful? Because they kept focusing on themselves and their own loss. For 3 years they had been with Him , serving Him, and learning from Him that they could not accept his departure. The answer Jesus gave them in v.7 addressed this point well 'It is expedient for you that I go away.' It will not be your loss but your gain.

He encouraged them to look forward to the coming of the Comforter who is the Holy Spirit - one who never leave them, and one who can only come if Jesus left them. Then Jesus informs them of 3 important works that the Holy Spirit will do when He comes.

I. He Proves the Guilt of the World (vv.8-11)

In v.8 Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will reprove or convince the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. This prophecy began to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. After the disciples were empowered by the Holy Spirit and a huge crowd had gathered to see what had happened, Peter stood up all filled with the Spirit and began to preach to them, beginning in v.14 of Acts chapter 2. Let us see what happened at the end of his preaching in Acts 2:36-37 'Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?'

You will notice that Peter addressed the crowd as 'the house of Israel' and that he charged them for having crucified their own Messiah. Perhaps some of them had been among the unbelieving Jews who vociferously shouted, 'Crucify Him! Crucify Him!' when Pontius Pilate brought Jesus out to them 50 days earlier (Luke 23:21). And perhaps most of them had not been there when all this took place, but when they heard about the actions taken against Jesus they had approved of it because of their own unbelief. But now as the Holy Spirit convicted them of their sin, they were all pricked in their heart. They felt the tremendous weight of their guilt and could not bear it. They were so convicted of sin that they exclaimed in great desperation, 'Men and brethren, What shall we do? What shall we do?'

Since then, many more unbelievers have come under the same kind of conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit. Paul the apostle was one of them. At first he was the greatest persecutor of all Christians, and his sole aim was to annihilate the church. But after Christ met him on the road to Damascus, Paul realized that he was guilty of such great sins that he even called himself the 'chief of sinners' (1 Timothy 1:15). And after he was saved he went on to become the chief of soulwinners for Christ. There are countless testimonies of people who went through a radical 180 degree change like this. 

Some of them, like St Augustine and John Newton, were living in gross immorality before they were saved. Others like the Hmar tribe in northeast India and the Auca Indians in Ecuador were depraved headhunters and bloodthirsty cannibals before their conversion. 

In most of these examples, the lives of those who were converted were just like the rest of the world. They were wallowing in sin, unbelief and selfish rebellion against God just like the rest of the world. They wouldn't listen to anyone who tried to tell them their faults. They were under Satan's influence and were spiritually blind to their hopeless condition. It was impossible for them to see the sad state they were in. How could they ever change? How could they be convinced to see how sinful they really are? 

This is where the Holy Spirit's all-important work of convicting sinners must come in. This work can be understood better from the meaning of the word 'reprove' in v.8. It is a legal term which means 'to pronounce a judicial verdict which is beyond all doubt.' The Holy Spirit does not merely accuse sinners; He brings them to such an inescapable sense of their own guilt and shame that they have no excuse and no choice but to admit their sin. What the Holy Spirit does is just like Nathan the prophet saying to King David, 'Thou art the man!' (2 Samuel 12:7) And that made David confess immediately, 'I have sinned against the Lord' admitting his guilt of adultery with Bathsheba.

In any court of law, the task of proving someone guilty belongs to the public prosecutor. Through the skilful use of questions the prosecutor must be able to obtain responses from the defendant which will convince the court beyond all doubt that the defendant is absolutely guilty as charged. However the prosecutor has one serious limitation - He can only prove the guilt for crimes involving acts that are committed. No prosecutor in the world can prove a person guilty for the thoughts, motives and attitudes of his heart - attitudes such as unbelief. 

The Holy Spirit is the only One who can discern the innermost thoughts and intents of the heart and convict sinners of unbelief. Verse 9 says that He reproves the unsaved of sin because they do not believe in Jesus Christ despite all that Christ had said and done to prove that He is the Son of God. Unbelief is the most basic and fundamental of all sins of the human heart. It is so deeply ingrained in every person that Romans 3:11 and 12 says, 'there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way.' Unbelief causes men to distrust God, and to doubt His Word, His love, and His power. In its worst form unbelief even makes men deny God's existence. That is why Charles Spurgeon called unbelief the king of all sins, the epitome of guilt, the number one sin and the masterpiece of Satan.

That's not all that the Holy Spirit convicts sinners of. Verse 10 says that He also reproves them of righteousness. Before Jesus came into this world, the only standard of righteousness in existence was God's Law. Through this Law the world became aware of how far short it was of God's righteousness. But since no one had ever kept God's Law perfectly, this laid open the excuse for us that God's righteousness is humanly unattainable and much too high for anyone to reach. 

Anyone can then plead at God's bar of justice that no human being can ever attain such righteousness. But now that Christ has come, this excuse no longer holds, because He lived on earth as a human being just like us and yet He kept the Law of God perfectly without any flaw. In v.10 He says, 'I go to my Father.' This implies that He does not fall short of God's righteousness at all since He has complete access to the Father. His righteousness is therefore a proven righteousness which becomes a new standard of righteousness for us which leaves us with no excuse. Therefore whenever Christ is shown to unbelievers in all His righteousness, the Holy Spirit can use this to convict them of their failure to be righteous. 

The next verse (v.11) goes on to say that the Spirit convicts the world of judgment. And the reason given is that the Prince of this world is judged. Who is this Prince of this world? It is the Devil. Ever since He tempted man to sin against God in the Garden of Eden, he has been influencing and leading the world to rebel against God. Everyone who is without Christ is actually under Satan's jurisdiction whether they realise it or not.

And because they are under him, they will ultimately share the awful judgement he receives from God. That judgment began at the Cross where Jesus died, and it will reach its climax when Satan is cast into the Lake of fire and brimstone (Rev 20:10). And all unbelievers will then end up there with him (Rev 20:15). Therefore whenever Satan's judgement is declared to unbelievers, the Holy Spirit can use this truth to convict them that they too will face the most awful judgment and eternal torment because of all their sins.

Thus we have seen that the Holy Spirit reproves sinners of 3 things - of sin, because they have not believed in Christ; of righteousness, because they have not been as righteous as Christ; and of judgment, because they belong to the Devil and will share his awful end.

And now it may be that someone here is being convicted of these 3 things right now. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is speaking to you (just as the prophet Nathan said to David), 'You are the man! You are the one who still refuses to believe in Jesus for your salvation, even though you have learned so much about Him here in church. You are the one who claims to be righteous and doesn't need salvation, but look at the righteousness of Jesus and you will see how untrue that claim is. You are the one who insists on staying under the Devil's jurisdiction - but how sad it will be for you when you share his judgment.'

Dear friends, if the Holy Spirit is working in you now and your heart is pricked by His reproof, please listen to Him and admit that you are guilty of these things. Admit that you are a helpless sinner, that your righteousness is like filthy rags and that you desperately need to be rescued from Satan's grip. That is the very first step you must take to be saved. Only after that can you take the next step, which is to make Jesus Christ your Saviour and Lord. This is done by trusting Him completely and asking Him to save you. 

And when you are saved, the Bible says that something very wonderful happens: The same Holy Spirit who had convicted you of your sins will stay in you forever and give you that assurance that you are saved (Romans 8:15,16). And whenever you read or hear God's Word with understanding, He will use it to make you more and more righteous and less and less sinful. He does this by convicting you of any sins that you may commit after you are saved. He may convict you even through messages that are preached from this pulpit.

Some of us who heard Professor William Harding's messages came under such conviction when he preached the Word concerning the Lord's harvest last week, and concerning building Christian relationships at our recent church camp at Awana. The many hands that were raised during the prayer time at the end of each message indicate that the Holy Spirit was working in our midst. This ongoing work of the Holy Spirit to deal with the sins of believers is called sanctification. And everyone who has believed in Christ is still undergoing this work. 

None of us are perfect yet because the Holy Spirit is not finished with us yet. He is still working in us. One of the many blessings that we have from His work in us is guidance. The Holy Spirit is the best guide we can have for our journey through life.

II. He Provides Guidance for the Disciples (vv.12-13)

Three weeks ago when my family and I went for a vacation in Japan, we had an excellent tour guide. He was a young Japanese man who spoke good English. As he guided us and 3 other families through each stage of the tour we really learned a lot about each location and even what to do, what to see and what to eat at each of them. He told us everything that we needed to know for a journey that took us through cities and towns, to the countryside and even up to the highest mountain in Hokkaido. He also made sure that we were all safe by reminding us to put on our seatbelts when travelling in the coach and to put on additional clothing when the weather was cold. He was a really good tour guide who was with us for 8 days.

But no human guide can ever be better than the spiritual Guide that every believer has - the Holy Spirit who is with us forever! He dwells in us and guides us right through our journey of life (cf. Romans 8:14). And if we are sensitive to His leading we will learn many precious lessons in every stage of our journey of life, and we will be kept safe from harm and danger in the most difficult parts of our journey. So we must depend closely on the Holy Spirit's guidance every day.

But what does the Holy Spirit use to guide us? He uses His written Word, the Bible. And interestingly, the Bible is itself a product of the Spirit's guidance. We see this in v.13 'Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth' This particular promise was meant specifically for those first disciples of Christ. What Jesus said to them in the preceding verse (v.12) makes this clear 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.' Jesus was referring to all the spiritual truths He had been giving His disciples throughout the 3 years He had spent with them. Now Jesus says that there were still a lot more spiritual truths for them to learn, but they were not ready to receive them yet. Why? Because these truths could only be understood under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. 

It was only after Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out on them that they could understand all things and teach them to the church. Why did these disciples need to be specially guided into all truth? Because they were to write the books of the New Testament. They would be inspired by the Holy Spirit to write not only what they had personally seen and heard from Jesus Christ, but also the full meaning and application of His work, His life and His mission. 

The four gospels and the book of Acts were the disciples' factual accounts of what they had seen and heard both during and after the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. But the explanation of what all these means is contained in the epistles or letters they wrote - beginning with the book of Romans and ending with book of Jude. These epistles contain all the spiritual truths that the Holy Spirit guided them into, as Jesus had said in v.13. 

What about the very last book of the New Testament - the book of Revelation? Its 22 chapters are mostly about things to come. They are prophecies about events that will take place when Jesus comes again. And this is probably what Jesus was referring to when He said at the end of v.13, 'and He [i.e. the Holy Spirit] will shew you things to come.'

Therefore here in these two verses, John 16:12-13, Jesus had actually foretold the writing of all 27 books of the New Testament. And from this we know that the New Testament was written by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit teaching and guiding the writers of these books, none of them could ever have been written. The same thing is true of the rest of the Bible. All 39 books of the Old Testament were also written by inspiration of the Holy Spirit. This is mentioned in 2 Peter 1:21 'For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.'

From all this, we can better understand how immensely important the work of the Holy Spirit is to us. He not only convicts sinners to bring them to salvation in Christ. He also guides and nourishes them after that with the written Word that He Himself inspired. Isn't it wonderful to see what great work the Holy Spirit does in our lives? But how are we responding to His work? Since we know that the Holy Spirit guides us through the Bible, do we spend sufficient time to read it, hear it, study it, meditate on it and apply it in our daily life?

Do we really 'desire the sincere milk of the Word, that we may grow thereby' as 1 Peter 2:2 says? Dearly beloved, if you really want to experience more of the Spirit's work in your life, you have to spend more time in His Word. You have seen that you need this if you want to be guided by Him safely through your journey of life. But you also need this if you want to receive His comfort in your moments of grief and pain. Verse 7 tells us that He is the divine Comforter who is sent to us from Heaven, but what does He use to give us His comfort? His written Word (cf. 1 Thess 4:18). 

You also need to spend time in His Word if you want to be fully equipped by Him to witness for Christ effectively. In last week's message we learned from Professor Harding about the need of the harvest of souls. In today's message we learned that the Holy Spirit's work of convicting sinners is necessary for that harvest. He alone can make sinners feel the weight of their guilt so greatly that they turn to Jesus for salvation. But what does He use to do this to them? His Word. And someone has to do the work of bringing that Word to them.

You will notice that v.8 of our text says 'when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.' But who does the Holy Spirit come to? Is it the world of sinners? No, because the preceding verse makes it very clear that Jesus will send the Holy Spirit to His disciples, and not to the world. This means that the Holy Spirit will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment through His disciples on earth. The Word which we bring to the world is the means by which He reproves the world.

Wherever the Gospel message is proclaimed faithfully, the Holy Spirit works through it to bring sinners under conviction. And our responsibility in witnessing is simply this: To be equipped with the Word to share the Gospel with others in the Spirit's power. The Holy Spirit will then do His work of convicting them in His own good time and according to His own sovereign will. We are not responsible for the results (how many people got saved), but only for bringing the Word to sinners. And as we do that, Christ will be glorified by the Holy Spirit working in and through us. This brings us to the last and most important work of the Holy Spirit.

III. He Promotes the Glory of Christ (vv.14-15)

Verses 14-15 reads, 'He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you. All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.'

The Holy Spirit did not come to glorify Himself, but Christ. And the way that He glorifies Christ is by showing or revealing everything that belongs to Christ - everything about His person, His life, His work, His character His love and His power. In our study of John's Gospel over the past 3 years we have been discovering so many amazing truths about our Lord Jesus Christ. We had seen Him as the eternal Word of God, as the Light of the world, and as the Lamb of God. We had seen that He is the Living Bread, the great 'I AM', the Good Shepherd, the True Vine, the Way, the Truth and the Life. All these speak to us of the glory of Christ. And I trust that the Holy Spirit is using all these wonderful truths to glorify Christ in our life. 

We can think of at least 4 ways that He does this. Firstly He glorifies Christ by making Him real to us. We need that in order to abide in Christ. Secondly, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by making us see how lovely Christ is to us, so that we will desire Him and love Him above all things. Thirdly, He glorifies Christ by revealing to us how highly exalted He is - that He is now the ascended and glorified Lord of all. That makes us obey Christ and surrender all that we have to Him. And fourthly, the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ by changing us into the image of Christ, so that Christ can be seen in us. The more we read His Word and walk in the Spirit the more we will bear the fruit of the Spirit which makes us like our Lord Jesus Christ.

There are many more ways that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ in our lives, but these should be sufficient to make us appreciate the importance of the Holy Spirit's work in us. We who are the Lord's disciples today can now understand why Jesus had said in v.7 that it was expedient for us that He went away. Now that we know about the work of the Holy Spirit, we should be most thankful that Christ left the disciples and ascended up to Heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to us.

We have seen 3 important works that the Spirit does - Firstly, He proves the guilt of the world (vv.8-11). Secondly, He provides guidance for the disciples of Christ (vv.12-13). And thirdly, we have seen that the Holy Spirit promotes the glory of Christ (vv.14-15). May the Holy Spirit do a mighty work in our midst today.a