2011-05-29 Sermon John 14

110529am John 14:15-21 Acts 17:22-31

How does Jesus get his message across? How does God want the world to find out that Christ is risen?

I read this by Peter Graystone of the Church Army. “Twice during the past fortnight, I have overheard a conversation in which someone was asked, “Why are you a Christian?” Both were on public transport. Twice, I stared at the same page of my book for ten minutes, pretending I was not listening. The first occasion was on a train from Nottingham to London. It was full of overjoyed young men who had watched Brighton and Hove Albion achieve promotion to the Championship. The conversation was cheerfully scatological, and the subjects included football, cars, embarrassing mothers, football, and football.

As they discussed where they would meet for lunch the next day, two of them suggested that the best place was outside their church. Hence the question.

The thing that impressed me most was the relaxed way in which they talked about their Christian faith. It was entirely in keeping with the rest of the raucous conversation. I have never heard more swear-words used to describe the salvation of humankind.

The theology was rudimentary — more triumphalist than Calvinist. Jesus rules; and I can’t tell you where Satan has been kicked. But it was deeply felt, readily listened to, and the best evangelism I have ever heard from a teenager dressed as a seagull. (The bird is the club’s emblem.)

The other occasion was on a bus in Croydon. This time, the conversation was between two women who were, to put it tactfully, perhaps trying out their Freedom Passes for the first time. The response to “Why are you a Christian?” was: “Oh, I can’t possibly answer a question like that. You’d have to ask the Vicar.”

Pressed by her companion, the woman continued: “I like our church service because I feel completely at peace.”

“Ah, peace! You should come to my Pilates class. It’s the most peaceful point of my week.”

The conversation ended with the Christian writing the date of the next exercise class in her diary.

Every Christian needs to have a few words to say, not merely why he or she goes to church, but why he or she is a believer. Even when asked in an entirely affable way, [many] do not know what to say.

The greatest gift that church leaders could give their congregations is to help them work out why they have a Christian faith in such a way that they could tell a neighbour. Perhaps we could come up with three reasons: one rising from joy at the complexity and beauty of God’s creation; one delighting in the life and teaching of Jesus; and one describing a personal improvement that has come from going through life in the company of a loving God.

Simple reasons are sufficient. Most of us do not need to take on Richard Dawkins: we just need enough to be able to chat comfortably to a friend on a mat in a Pilates class — who might one day want to continue the conversation in a pew.”

To find out how the Risen Christ intends to get his message across to the world, we have to look back to what he said before he returned to the Father. In John 14 we find Jesus speaking at the Last Supper about his plans for the future – for our future. The good news that Jesus is alive is spread by the gift of the Holy Spirit, because Jesus asks the Father to send him to us, and he does. What do we learn about him here?

1. He helps us (v.16). He is called the Counsellor or Advocate. Have you ever had to go somewhere scary and wanted to take an experienced friend? As clergy terms and conditions are changing, we are being advised to join a union. Can you see me as the next Arthur Scargill? 'The Management is asking us to take up the cross and follow him, go to the ends of the earth, love our enemies and lay down our lives. Everybody out!' The reason is that if you get disciplined or sacked, you want an Advocate, a Counsellor, who can support you when you have to give your testimony. The Holy Spirit is like a friend who stands alongside us when we are summoned to give our testimony before the world. We can rely on his help.

2. He never leaves us (v.16-18). To be with you for ever... you know him for he lives with you and will be in you... God is not just a theory that you can come to understand and then file away in your brain. The risen Jesus is not just an event of history that you can come to believe in and then move on. We're talking about a living experience, a relationship, an encounter, a presence. Some of us have known that presence for many years or decades, some much more recently, maybe some have not yet entered into it. You will remember my sermon from about 12 weeks ago (!) that you can't keep it in the bank. Today is the day of salvation. People talk about 'bankable' experience in your trade or profession or walk of life. And it's good to have experience of being a disciple. But you can't bank it. It's always about Today. Every day the Holy Spirit is with us and invites us to be refreshed and renewed and reinvigorated in the superabundant joy of salvation. There has never been and there never will be a day when the Holy Spirit will have gone away and left you in the lurch. I will not leave you as orphans. There is never a situation that you are in where you cannot pray 'Come, Holy Spirit'.

3. He leads us into the Truth (v.17,26; ch.16:13). This was a promise first to the Apostles, to give them the foundational truths upon which the church is based. It's a promise to the Church in general, that he will keep before us the things of Jesus. And it's a promise to each of us, that if we ask and open our minds he will help us to understand enough – and be able to explain enough. And it's a promise to those who ask us, that he they won't seek God in vain. No one who truly seeks God will be denied.

4. He shows us Jesus and the Father (v.19-20). The coming of the Spirit is not the coming of someone we don't know: he makes present to us Jesus Christ, and in Jesus Christ we have the presence of his Father. The Persons of the Holy Trinity mutually indwell each other, and we are drawn into their indwelling. We are wrapped up in God himself.

5. He leads us into holiness (v.15, 21). Loving Jesus, loving God, means keeping his word. Do you find it difficult to be good?! The good news is that you have a powerful Helper. He puts into our minds the idea of what goodness looks like – in the gospels, in the words of Jesus, and in the saints, all the people around us in whom we see goodness – and he puts into our hearts the desire to be good, that dislike of our own badness and that concern to be better; and he keeps reminding us, whispering or shouting. in our hearts and in our circumstances; and by so doing he fills the world with so much love, generosity, kindness, and peace – and it does us good sometimes to remember just how much of it there is, which rarely gets into the news.

Now, with a task force like this, Jesus can get his message across. We practise doing this in our cells, in a safe group with rules, so that we can do it out in the wide world. At our Wednesday morning communion a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about a presentation I had seen on how churches are or are not growing in our Deanery. One of our senior ladies piped up, 'The cell is the basis of it all. I used to come and sit quietly in church and never speak up, but the Cell has given my my voice.' Yes! Countless millions of people spread throughout the planet who have the Holy Spirit alongside them as the Advocate, who are indwelt by him always, who are being led into all the truth, who are seeing Jesus and the Father, who are being made more like Jesus - that is how Jesus gets his message across to the world.