John 16:4-15 – “Help! We Need Somebody’s Help, But Not Just Anybody’s Help”

Director Peter Jackson succeeded in making us forget that help was on its way to Helm’s Deep.

Defeat at the hand of Saruman’s terrible Uruk Kai army was upon the people of Rohan, when suddenly Gandalf came with reinforcements as promised, “on the first light of the fifth day,” from the east at dawn.

The devil, the world he is ruler over, and our flesh, often succeed in making you forget “our help comes from the Lord.” (Psalm 121:2)

Not only does our help come from the Lord, it is ever present. Jesus promised that His departure to Heaven would trigger the sending of “the Helper.” He meant God the Holy Spirit.

God the Holy Spirit was sent on the Day of Pentecost. From that day forward, He takes residence in believers the moment we are saved.

In verse seven, the Lord said that we have a great “advantage” thanks to the Helper within us.

We should take advantage of our advantage.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Take Advantage Of The Helper’s Help In Your Walk With Jesus, and #2 Take Advantage Of The Helper’s Help In Your Witness To Jesus.

#1 – Take Advantage Of The Helper’s Help In Your Walk (v4-7 & 12-15)

God lives in you.

Here are a few verses to corroborate the incredible truth. When the text reads, “Jesus” or “Christ” lives in you, it means He lives in you in the Person of God the Holy Spirit, whom He sent as your Helper.

In Second Corinthians 13:5, the apostle Paul asks the Corinthian believers a question: “Do you not realize about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you?” 

Romans 8:10, “But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Galatians 2:20, “I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me.”

Ephesians 3:17, “Christ may make His home in your hearts.”

Colossians 1:27, “To whom God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

One commentator said, “Jesus Christ isn’t outside of us in our time of need; He actually lives in us, and is with us all the time.”

We can believe God the Holy Spirit indwells us, but behave as if His help is far off and late in coming. The apostle Paul described this tendency as “having begun in the Spirit,” but trying to go forward “in the flesh,” i.e., in our own efforts.

Jerry Bridges writes, “Our reliance on the Spirit is not intended to foster an attitude of “I can’t do it,” but one of “I can do it through Him who strengthens me.” The Christian should never complain of want of ability and power.”

God lives in you. Take advantage of Him to “do all things through Jesus who strengthens you.”

Joh 16:4  But these things I have told you, that when the time comes, you may remember that I told you of them. And these things I did not say to you at the beginning, because I was with you.

The Last Supper concluded, Jesus led His eleven disciples to the Mount of Olives. Along their walk, He taught them.

Jesus had just told them they would be hated and persecuted. While He was with them, on Earth, He took all the hatred upon Himself.

He didn’t need to warn them they would become targets until now, at His departure.

It sometimes seems that the Lord springs things on you at the last second. You don’t feel ready. I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s at Pam’s appointment.

You are always ‘ready,’ in the sense that God indwells you.

You are always getting ready, in a general way, by reading your Word and fellowshipping. Your day-to-day walk provides a strengthening of your foundation so that when storms come, the wind and waves will not topple you.

Joh 16:5  “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, ‘Where are You going?’
Joh 16:6  But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
The eleven did previously ask Jesus where He was going. They stopped asking, not because Jesus wasn’t answering, but because “sorrow” filled their hearts.

People are different. Our emotional responses are all over the place. A believer might be overcome by emotion, while another seems almost unaffected. I guess what I’m getting at is, since we are all different, we must be careful in our counsel to others.

Nevertheless, the apostle Paul was bold enough to comfort believers in Thessalonica whose loved ones were dying by saying he did not want them to sorrow as those who had no hope (First Thessalonians 4:13).

If you allow “sorrow” to fill your heart – depression, discouragement, defeat, etc. – it drowns out the still small voice of the Holy Spirit right at the time He could offer the most help. There is a time for every purpose under Heaven; time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance (Ecclesiastes 3:4).

Jesus wanted them to keep asking. For one thing, their give-and-take was a way of teaching them that would be more memorable than lecturing them. He would give them prompts and clues to figure it out.

The Bible was written by inspiration in a way that causes you to dig into it in order to discover rich veins of truth. God is not hiding things from you. He wants you to experience of joy in finding things yourself – with His Helper’s help, of course.

For another thing, the Lord seems to enjoy hearing you ask Him for things. Even things He has already given to you, like the Holy Spirit.

For example, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells believers to keep on asking for the gift of God the Holy Spirit. He’s been given; He permanently indwells us. Why go on asking?

He is our Helper, but we can don’t like asking for help. How many times have you broken something, ruined something, hurt yourself, because you did not want to ask for a friend to help? Same goes with the spiritual help we need. Too often, instead of asking the Helper for help, we say in our hearts, “I got this.”

Without the Spirit’s involvement, you don’t got this.

Joh 16:7  Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

Jesus rose from the dead in a physical body. He will remain in that body for eternity. So much so that He still bears the wounds of His suffering. He is described, for example, in the Revelation as a lamb that had been sacrificed.

Don Stewart writes, “Jesus made it clear that he was not a disembodied spirit. He did things only a person having a body can do. Jesus walked, He showed His disciples the prints of the crucifixion on His body, He breathed and ate. Consequently both His words and his deeds testify to the fact that His resurrection was bodily.”

Whereas Jesus is currently seated in Heaven, God the Holy Spirit, called the Spirit of Jesus, can indwell every saved individual.

A few times in our studies in John’s Gospel we’ve said that this permanent indwelling of the believer is unique to saints in the Church Age. Old Testament saints did not enjoy this permanent indwelling. Here we find another corroboration of that truth.

Jesus said He could not send the Holy Spirit unless He first returned to Heaven. Thus God the Holy Spirit could not have permanently indwelt believers prior to the ascension of Jesus to Heaven, because He would not be given until the Church was born.

There is only one way of salvation throughout history. Believe God, and He accounts it as righteousness:

Abraham, the father of the Jews, believed God, and it was put into his account as righteousness.
Israel had the Law of God, but no one was ever saved by keeping the Law. They were saved by believing God and accepting His righteousness.

The permanent indwelling of God the Holy Spirit was not necessary for salvation. In the Church Age, it is part of your salvation.

Jesus is in Heaven, and He told us it was better for us He stay there. I want to suggest for your consideration that this might have some bearing on our understanding of what happens when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

We celebrate the Lord’s Supper as a memorial. The bread and the juice represent Jesus’ body and blood.

In the Roman Catholic tradition I grew up in, “the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ.” Put simply, the elements are believed to become the body and blood of Jesus.

Lutherans (and others) have yet another view, saying, “the substance of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine.”

Making application of this, J.C. Ryle writes, “It is not the bodily presence of Christ in the midst of us, so much as the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, that is essential. What we should all desire and long for is not Christ’s body literally touched with our hands and received into our mouths, but Christ dwelling spiritually in our hearts by the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Drop down to verse twelve:

Joh 16:12  “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
Joh 16:13  However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

“You can’t handle the truth,” not yet. He wasn’t prepping them for more suffering; He was encouraging them that they would be enabled to know and comprehend spiritual truth after the Spirit was in them.

Jesus emphasized during His earthly ministry that He only did and said what His Father told Him. He and the Father were in agreement. Likewise, God the Holy Spirit would be in synch with the Father and the Son.

One practical thing this means is that God the Holy Spirit will not act independently in ways that contradict what has been revealed in the Word of God. No prophecy can be attributed to Him that would not line up with the Bible. No gift of His can rightfully be exercised in a manner contrary to His instruction for doing so. It does not ‘quench’ the Spirit when we test behaviors and beliefs people attribute to Him according to God’s Word.

“Things to come,” at the end of verse thirteen, are things after Jesus sent the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. They include the mystery of the Church, the coming of Jesus to resurrect and rapture the Church, the security of the Church in Heaven during the seven-year Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming of Jesus with His Church to end the Battle of Armageddon and establish the one-thousand year Kingdom of God on Earth.

Joh 16:14  He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you.

God the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. Since He is in you, He will encourage you to glorify Jesus in all you say and do.

Along those lines, D.L. Moody writes, “There are many of us that are willing to do great things for the Lord, but few of us are willing to do little things.”

Any genuine work of God must glorify Jesus. Not a man, not a movement. As stated by William MacDonald, “By this we can test all teaching and preaching. If it has the effect of magnifying the Savior, then it is of the Holy Spirit.”

Joh 16:15  All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.

The “things that the Father has” include His divine attributes. Jesus says those same attributes are His. They are equal.

We list the attributes of God to answer questions like, Who is God?, What is God like?, and What kind of God is He?

Besides the four omni’s – omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent – God is infinite, immutable, and self-sufficient.

All lists of divine attributes differ. Some say there are five essential attributes, others as many as twenty.

Jesus didn’t give the disciples a list of His attributes with their definitions. He lived-out the attributes of God. He exampled them.

Who is God?, What is God like?, What kind of God is He? Jesus – His words and works – answers those questions.

On Saturday’s, when possible, the Pensiero grandkids come to “help” me do yard work. Sweeping, weeding, landscaping, car washing. People who see them remark, “I see you have your little helpers.”

God the Holy Spirit is not “my little Helper.”

#2 – Take Advantage Of The Helper’s Help In Your Witness To Jesus (v8-11)

“There is not a better evangelist in the world than the Holy Spirit.”

D.L. Moody said that, and he ought to know. God used him to preach the Gospel to hundreds of thousand, and to see multitudes saved.

The verses we skipped over give insight to the working of God the Holy Spirit with regards to the Gospel and salvation.

Joh 16:8  And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:

“World” here refers to Earth’s inhabitants who are unbelievers. The Holy Spirit accomplishes His convicting work in a partnership with believers. That is to say, since He is in us, it is our interaction with unbelievers that gives Him opportunity to interact with those the Lord loves, who are perishing.

Joh 16:9  of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
Joh 16:10  of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
Joh 16:11  of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

“Sin,” “righteousness,” and “judgment” focus our minds on the big picture.

“Sin” is the problem. Our parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God. They defied His one, simple command. Their sin brought death into the human race. “You sin, you die,” paraphrases what God warned them. They sinned, and, boy, do we sin. Sin is imputed to us; we inherit a sin nature; we commit individual sins.

“Righteousness” sums-up what is needed to counter sin. In the Garden of Eden, after they sinned, God explained to Adam and Eve how He was going to overcome their sin. He would Himself enter the human race, but in a way that did not impute sin to Him, and which did not confer a sin nature. That ‘way’ was through the virgin birth. Because of it, Jesus did not have sin imputed to Him, nor did He inherit a sin nature. He would live among humans and never commit an individual sin. This perfect righteousness of His would be offered as a free gift to any who would believe on Him. He would take their sin (unrighteousness) upon Himself, and give them His righteousness.

“Judgment.” Jesus’ offer of righteousness has an expiration date. A sinner has only so much time, in this lifetime, to believe Jesus. Die in sin, in unrighteousness, and severe judgment follows.

God the Holy Spirit is tasked with “convicting” unbelievers they are dead and headed for eternal death unless they receive Jesus’ righteousness as a free gift. Since He lives in us, it is through our lives, through our witness – our words and works and our walk – that unbelievers are exposed to conviction.

They are convicted of sin, “because they do not believe” in Jesus. You do believe, and your transformed life cannot be denied.

They are convicted of righteousness, “because [Jesus went] to Father and [was seen] no more.” Jesus’ return to Heaven proved He had lived a perfect life, and was able to offer His righteousness to be Savior of the whole world, especially those who believe.

They are convicted of judgment, “because the ruler of this world is judged.” Since Jesus would defeat and judge Satan at the Cross, what hope could anyone in the “world” Satan rules have of avoiding judgment? None.

Thunderstruck was a 2012 movie no one saw. The plot follows a boy who magically gets pro basketball player Kevin Durant’s basketball skills. Needless to say, he dominates his high school team.

It’s not a great illustration, but you get it. If you were playing pick-up basketball, and Kevin Durant was on your team, you’d get the ball to him. If he wanted you to dribble, or pass, or shoot, you’d listen to his instruction.

What you wouldn’t do is leave him on the bench.

Take advantage of your advantage; God lives in you.