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If I depart, I will send [the Helper] to you.
᛭ INI ᛭
Alleluia! Jesus Christ is risen!
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
We’re at the point in the Easter Season where we start prepping for Pentecost. We hear Christ preach about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Today, Christ tells us that He sends us the Spirit. That’s how you and I have the Holy Spirit. It’s only because Christ has sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts.
The Holy Spirit first comes hovering over the face of the waters. He is given as a gift through the watery Word of Holy Baptism. There you were given the down payment, the Holy Spirit, who seals our hearts by faith. The Spirit works in and through the Word heard and preached and taught and read. The Spirit works through the Word of Christ creating and strengthen faith in those who hear Christ’s Words so that they receive Christ’s body and blood with true faith.
But there’s more we can talk about when it comes to the work of the Spirit. The foundation and source of the Spirit’s work is in the Word and Sacraments. But He’s not static. He living and moving, constantly giving strength and life and vitality to believers. The World hates such things, but that also has to do with the work of the Spirit, which the world hates and rejects, as do all who are unbelievers.
So what can we say of the Spirit’s work from Christ’s Words in John 16, today? Simply this:
THE SPIRIT DOES HIS WORK IN YOU AND THROUGH US.
(I. The Spirit’s work in you is faith and fruit.)
First, the Spirit does His Work in you, within each of you. The Spirit Works faith in Christ within you, and He also bears His fruit through you. Apart from the Spirit working on you, you are fruitless, faithless, doing nothing good and separated from God. “Whatever doesn’t flow from faith is sin.” (Rom 14) He convicts you concerning your sin. He proclaims that Christ’s your only righteousness before God. That you are judged innocent on account of Christ. THE SPIRIT DOES HIS WORK IN YOU.
[15] 1. [You’re] truly redeemed and reconciled with God through Christ. By His faultless obedience, suffering, and death, Christ merited for [you] the righteousness that helps [you] before God and also merits eternal life.
[16] 2. [That] merit and benefits of Christ are presented, offered, and distributed to [you] through His Word and Sacraments.
[17] 3. By His Holy Spirit, through the Word, when it is preached, heard, and pondered, Christ will be effective and active in [you], will convert hearts to true repentance and preserve them in the true faith.
[18] 4. The Spirit will justify all those who in true repentance receive Christ by a true faith. He will receive them into grace, the adoption of sons, and the inheritance of eternal life [Galatians 3:19].
[19] 5. He will also sanctify in love those who are justified, as St. Paul says (Ephesians 1:4).
[20] 6. He also will protect them in their great weakness against the devil, the world, and the flesh. He will rule and lead them in His ways [Deuteronomy 8:6], raise them again when they stumble [Proverbs 4:11–12], comfort them under the cross and in temptation [2 Corinthians 1:3–5], and preserve them for life eternal [John 12:25].
[21] 7. He will also strengthen, increase, and support to the end the good work that He has begun in them [Philippians 1:6], if they cling to God’s Word, pray diligently, abide in God’s goodness, and faithfully use the gifts they received [Matthew 25:14–30].
[22] 8. Finally, He will eternally save and glorify in life eternal those whom He has elected, called, and justified. (SD XI, alt.)
(Transition)
All of that is the work that the Spirit does for you and within you. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t just do work in each of you. He also does His Work through us. The Spirit working through us has to do with what Christ says in the middle of our reading today. Christ says that the Spirit “will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” The Spirit does that work through us. Either through one of us individually or through all of us collectively. What does I mean by that, well, let’s dive into it, to see how THE SPIRIT DOES HIS WORK not only IN YOU but also THROUGH US.
(II. The Spirit works through us by using us to speak to the world.)
The world isn’t convicted of “sin, righteousness, and judgment” as an idea. It’s not just a nice idea. When a criminal is convicted in court, it doesn’t just happen, and a lot of times, the criminal wouldn’t even be there, let alone convicted, if weren’t for the criminal justice system doing it. He was arrested, tried in a court before a judge, and convicted by a jury of his peers. It’s the same way when it comes to spiritual matters, not just what’s good behavior for society, but what’s good and pleasing before God when it comes to faith in Christ and love for your neighbor.
Through living how the Scriptures say to live, Christians confess that the way the society says to live is sinful. The worlds standards are the opposite of God’s good gifts and plan for our lives. This why the world hates Christians who stand up for what God says is good when it comes to many things, but in our day the rubber meats the road with marriage, the intimate relationship between a husband and wife—one man, one woman—for life. But when Christians say that divorce, promiscuity, and cohabitation are sinful, it’s not only because it’s contrary to God’s law. No, the world is sinful, according to our proclamation, due to a lack of faith in Christ. Christians have all sorts of sins, even lust in our hearts, but we are forgiven of our weaknesses because of Christ’s death. And the power of Christ’s resurrection, given us in Baptism, causes us to live new lives that don’t want to engage in sinful behavior. The world refuses to believe in Christ, so its sin abounds!
Christ is also what Christians proclaim to the world. The world hates us for that, too. Christian faith isn’t just living as a good person. Many unbelievers do that according to human standards. No, we proclaim that there is only righteousness in Christ alone. We proclaim that there is no one righteous on earth, save Christ. There is no righteousness outside of Christ. We say that whatever the world says is meet, right, salutary, and righteous isn’t. Only Christ is those things. This is why the world hates us. It’s not because we believe there’s a god. It’s because we believe Christ is God who died for us to reconcile us to God the Father, and that this same Christ, risen from the dead, gives us the Holy Spirit, as I said before.
We also proclaim that the devil is real, that he’s at work in the world, but that his time is short. Christ defeated the devil at Calvary. Christ’s death undid the devil’s power, dominion, and kingdom. The world and devil hates this, too. This is why the world tries to silence and even kill Christians. They try to kill the messengers! The proclamation that Christ has died for our sins and is risen from the dead for our righteousness before God is despised by the devil, and hated by a whole host of people.
So, let us remain as instruments of the Spirit, who uses us by our words and deeds to proclaim to the world what is good and right and true. We do so in love of course, but out of love we speak what’s true. In your daily life, tell others of Christ. Our congregation also gathers for this same message, to hear the same condemnations of the world against our own sinful nature, which wants to wallow in the world’s ways. So Christian pastors proclaim conviction concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment.
(Conclusion.)
THE SPIRIT DOES HIS WORK IN YOU AND THROUGH US.
He works faith in Christ, who died and rose for us. He strengthens and keeps in that faith by the Word and the Sacraments. Apart from Christ, the Spirit helping us, we can and will do nothing. But “if you remain in My Words,” Christ says, “You’re truly my disciples, and you’ll know the truth and the truth will set you free.” (Jn 8) “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood remains in Me and I in Him.” (Jn 6) “Whoever remains in My and I in Him, He it is that will bear much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15) And so the Spirit works in you not only to want to do good, but He works good works in your life that follow the Commandments of Christ, your God.
But the Spirit also uses us as His mouthpieces, His microphones to the world. He does His work through us of convicting the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. It’s all about proclaiming God’s Law, what’s good and right and holy according to God’s standards rather than our own thoughts and traditions. It’s also about preaching Christ, that He died for our sins, was raised for our righteousness before God, that He gives us His righteousness in Baptism, through His Word, and at Communion. That the devil’s kingdom is done and one day the truth will be revealed when Christ returns.
The world will hate you for it. But so what, even still THE SPIRIT DOES HIS WORK IN YOU AND THROUGH US, until the day that He “will raise you and all dead and give eternal life to you and all believers in Christ.”
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