The Promise of Pentecost – Sunday May 20, 2018
John 16 (NLT)
The Work of the Holy Spirit
5 “But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. 6 Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. 7 But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me.
The Gospel of John Chapter 16 finds the apostles in a state of confusion that is all too familiar to us. Jesus was with God before the world began, he left and came to earth in human form and now he is going back to the One who sent him?
It all so hard to connect that the apostles like us can’t even come up with a good question. They are sad because they don’t want Jesus, their friend, to leave and they don’t really know where he is going? Fortunately for them and for us God’s plan is far ahead of and far better for us than we can grasp. Jesus is clear in this text if He does not fulfill God’s plan then the Holy Spirit ( Advocate / Comforter ) will not come. Jesus says in “Verse 8” that when the Holy Spirit comes he will convict the world of its “sin, God’s righteousness and judgement” . With the Holy Spirit as the navigator and the Bible as a compass the Church can go out from its foundation of Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ ( Matt 16:13-20 ) and fulfill the purpose God has for the Church in the book of Acts and the purpose to which we are called today. Pentecost will bring to us the reminder of God’s enabling power thru the Holy Spirit in our lives.