The Gospel & Salvation: Salvation Provides God's Presence to Teach Us

Salvation Provides God’s Spirit

Verses in John 14, 15, 16

 It is good to be back. We had a great trip. A visit to Washington D.C. was on our bucket list. We were not disappointed. If you ever want to go and have a great tour guide, go with Caleb and Katy. They were great. I also want to take this opportunity to thank Josh Silver for coming and filling the pulpit. I also want to thank Jay. God has blessed us with a man who is willing to do whatever needs to be done. Jay is faithful to use his time and spiritual gifts whenever there is a need. He never complains. He just steps up to the plate. Jay, I want to say thank you. You are a blessing to me and to this church.

 We are continuing our series on the gospel and the work of salvation. By way of reminder, we are looking now at what the work of salvation accomplishes in the lives of the genuine Christian. There have been several aspects to the work of salvation. We have seen that the work of salvation makes us worshipers. It makes us those who are doers of the word. It makes us obedient as slaves of Christ and those who will present our bodies as living and holy sacrifices, acceptable to God. Salvation makes us humble. 

All these things produced are not produced because we decide they must become realities in our lives. These things are true because salvation involves a radical transformation whereby we become new creatures in Christ. We are born again by the Spirit of God. This includes the reality of the presence of God living within each of us. Two weeks ago we looked at the work of salvation by which God provides His Spirit to live in every true Christian. 

In that message two weeks ago we looked at John 14. Let’s turn back there again this morning. We focused on verses 16-18. Let’s stand together and read verses 15-26. In those verses Jesus promised that He would ask the Father and the Father would give the disciples another Helper who would be with them forever. This is the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him or know Him. Jesus said that the disciples did know the Holy Spirit because He abides with you and will be in you.

This is the promise of another Helper of the same kind as Jesus. The Holy Spirit is another Helper like Jesus because He is a member of the holy Trinity. He is God the Spirit. We sometimes do too much to separate the Godhead into three members. They are three separate members of the Trinity, but it is one God. The unity of the Godhead can be seen in the names given to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. He is the Spirit of God (Gen. 1:2, Matt. 3:16); Spirit of the Lord (Luke 4:18); Spirit of Our God (1 Cor. 6:11); His Spirit (Num. 11:29); Spirit of Jehovah (Jud. 3:10); Thy Spirit (Ps. 139:7); Spirit of the Lord God (Is. 61:1); Spirit of Your Father (Mt. 10:20); Spirit of the living God (2 Cor. 3:3); My Spirit (Gen.6:3); Spirit of Him (Rom. 8:11).

 Five titles relate the Holy Spirit directly to the Son: Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9, 1 Pet. 1:11); Spirit of Jesus Christ (Phil 1:19); Spirit of Jesus (Acts 16:7); Spirit of His Son (Gal. 4:6); Spirit of the Lord (Acts 5:9, 8:39).

 Other names include: The Lord the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18); Eternal Spirit (Heb. 9:14); Spirit of Glory (1 Pet. 4:14); Spirit of Life (Rom. 8:2); Spirit of Holiness (Rom. 1:4); Holy Spirit (Matt. 1:20); Holy One (1 Jn. 2:20); Spirit of Wisdom (Eph. 1:17); Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding (Isa. 11:2); Spirit of Truth (Jn. 14:17).

What I hope you took away from the message two weeks ago is that when the other Helper came who was sent by the Father to be in the disciples, God came to dwell in them. The Holy Spirit abides in us and none other than God is our indwelling Helper. If you are a Christian, you have everything you need to live a life that glorifies God because God abides in you to empower you to live the kind of life that pleases Him. This was clear from verses 16-18 and reinforced in verse 23 where Jesus said, “We (My Father and I) will come to him and make Our abode with him.” This was the promise of God’s indwelling presence to all who love Jesus and keep His commandments. This was Jesus’ way of describing His true disciples. Those who love Jesus and keep His commandments are His true disciples and these are those in whom God dwells.

It is helpful knowing that God abides in us through His Spirit who is given to us as both a seal and a pledge of our inheritance. It is great to understand, as revealed by Paul in Romans 8, that “you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you (notice that Paul says “the Spirit of God dwells in you). But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:9-11)

But it is not enough to simply know that God dwells with us. We also need to understand what the Spirit of God does as our Helper. Today we are going to focus on the first of the things revealed by the Lord Jesus to His disciples. We find this in verses 24-26. “He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to remembrance all that I said to you.”

The Holy Spirit has been given to us to teach us the truth of God. We need to inspect closely this reality. The Holy Spirit is the very presence of the triune God dwelling with us. The body of the believer is a temple of God. God’s indwelling presence does for us the very things we need the most. One of the primary ministries of the indwelling presence of God is to teach us God’s truth. We saw last time that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. (John 14:17) God is the source of truth. Jesus said, “I am the truth…” The Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of Christ, dwells in us to teach us God’s truth.

The value of the truth of God is immeasurable. If you made a list of the greatest gifts of God and you put them in order of importance, the first thing on your list would be the forgiveness of God and the precious gift of salvation. We have been studying this glorious gift for the better part of a year, understanding what it is, how we receive it, and what it accomplishes in us. Included in this gift is the presence of God. Second only to the gift of salvation is the gift of God’s truth. God’s truth is contained in the Holy Bible. In the Bible God reveals Himself. He reveals our sin problem. He reveals the solution, which is Jesus Christ. He reveals how a sinner can obtain the solution, which is through repentance and faith. He reveals the way in which the redeemed are to walk. He reveals the great doctrines of the faith. He reveals the glorious future for every true saint.

God knew how difficult it would be for us to understand the truth. He understands the challenges we face with walking in the truth. He knows that before we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit we are spiritually dead. We are blind. We belong to the realm of God’s sworn enemy, the devil, who is the father of lies and the deceiver. God knows we are incapable of coming to the knowledge of the truth. So desperate was our plight that the only hope we had was for God’s powerful intervention. God, because of the great love with which He loved us, when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, made us alive together with Christ. He regenerated us and gave us His Holy Spirit as a seal of this transaction and a pledge of the completion of His work. He placed His Holy Spirit in us to dwell within us. He takes up residence within us to teach us His truth. For those who are regenerated, and born again, and redeemed, and saved, nothing is more important than knowing and walking in the truth. 

This is how we demonstrate that we are the true children of God. Look at the words of Jesus back in verse 23. “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” We won’t love Christ unless we are born again. God’s Spirit is the agent of regeneration and the result is love for Christ and obedience to His word. Jesus then reinforces this reality by stating it in the negative in verse 24. “He who does not love Me does not keep My word…” In other words, if we are born of the Spirit we will love Jesus and keep His word. If we are not born of the Spirit of God through salvation, we will not love Jesus or keep His word.

There is no passage that makes this clearer than John 8. Turn there with me. Let’s begin reading in verse 31. Read through verse 47. The whole world, apart from Christ, is deceived.  They do not know the truth.  They cannot hear the truth with comprehension and understanding.  Jesus is there to teach the truth.  And here in the verses that I read to you, He says, “I’ve been speaking the truth to you,” in verse 25.  “These things.”  What things?  “The word which you heard from Me that is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.  These things,” these words, “I have spoken to you while abiding with you.”  Now I’m leaving.  “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”  

The disciples would not be without another Helper of the same kind as Jesus. Jesus was their teacher and when He left He sent another Helper. This Helper is given to us as well. We will not be void of the truth.  We will not be without the truth.  You will not be without comfort.  You will not be without the hope of heaven.  You will not be without the promise of My return to bring you there. All the promises of John 14-17 are valid for us.  You will not be without heavenly resources.  You will not be without the Trinity’s presence.  And you will not be without the truth.  I will not leave you without hope.  I will not leave you without comfort.  I will not leave you without resources.  I will not leave you without help, or power.  I will not leave you without My presence.  I will not leave you without truth.

This is an incredibly marvelous gift.  This is the gift of all gifts, is it not?  I mean, where are we if we don’t know the truth?  We’re trapped in Satan’s kingdom.  Because the only out, the only exit, the only escape is to know the truth.  You shall know the truth and the truth shall what?  Set you free.  Free from sin’s curse and penalty, and free from the kingdom of darkness.  Free from deception. 

It should be clear from the reading of the Gospels that God has to open blind eyes to the truth of His word. There was so much Old Testament truth fulfilled in the death of Jesus and His resurrection. Did the disciples understand that truth? They did not. They were devastated by the death of Jesus. He came back to them after the resurrection and what did He do? He taught them. He opened their eyes to understand the truth. The best example of this is found in Luke’s gospel when Jesus walked with the two men on the road to Emmaus. This is an example of how Jesus spoke things to them while He was with them. And when Jesus is saying what He says in John 14:25, “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you…” Jesus was speaking the things of God to them, but they did not understand the things Jesus was telling them.

Remember the context of these words recorded in John 14. The disciples needed encouragement and comfort. Jesus has told them He is leaving. He tells them that after He is gone the Father is going to send the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, to be with them and to be in them. Jesus was with them, but not in them. What could be better than having Jesus with them? Better than Jesus with them is the Holy Spirit in them. Jesus says, “I can speak the things of God to you while I am with you, but when I am gone, the Holy Spirit, the other Helper, who is the same kind of Helper as I have been, He will teach you all things.”

Let’s look at a wonderful promise from 1 John 2:18-27. Read these verses. And this is a promise given to all believers.  There are superficial false believers. These are described in verse 19.  They’re not really of us, because “they went out from us, but you,” meaning you true believers, “you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know.  I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth.”  How do we know the truth?  We have an anointing from God.  What does it mean to have an anointing from God?  This is something that comes down from God into our lives, verse 27.  “As for the anointing, which you received from Him abides in you.”  Who is this?  This is the Holy Spirit.  The One who has come down from the Holy One to abide in us is none other than the Holy Spirit, and it is His presence then that results in the fact that we don’t need human teachers.  That’s what he means by that.  But we have an anointing that “teaches you about all things.”  That’s almost a direct quote from John 14.  “He will come and teach you all things.”  And then in 1 John, he says, and He has come and He will “teach you all things, and is true, and not a lie, and just as that anointing taught you, you abide in Him.”  This anointing is none other than the Holy Spirit.