The Ministry of the Holy Spirit Part 1 - Convicting the World - John 16:8-11

3:26And so I would probably get in the weeds if I started talking to you about all the different viewpoints of the Holy Spirit. And so instead of going that route, I'm just going to go through this passage. And I want us to hear from Christ himself, who is going to send the Holy Spirit, what he says about the ministry of the Holy Spirit, so that we can anchor our understanding about what the Holy Spirit is doing in our world, in our lives, and in the church today, so that it comes from Him, that we might understand more carefully. But certainly, look at verse 7. Jesus makes it very clear. He says, but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, then Helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him to you. We looked at that last time. Giving thanks that Jesus did go away. He says it's to his disciples' advantage that they go away, and certainly implications, it's to our advantage as well that he has gone away, because if he didn't go away, there would be no cross, there would be no resurrection, there would be no ascension, there would be no forgiveness of sins, there'd be no removal of sins. But specifically, there would be no helper. There would be no helper given. And the Holy Spirit here again is referred to that one who comes alongside, the one who strengthens from within, the one who completes that which is lacking. See, the Holy Spirit wasn't sent to in lieu of Christ's presence. The Holy Spirit was sent to complete Christ's presence within his disciples.

5:33And so we'll pick this up in verse 8. But before I go there, I want to tell you a few years back, there was an interstate construction project here in Texas, and there was a large highway project, and part of that project was to remove and replace a bridge. The bridge was removed, and the on-ramps to the interstate were closed during construction. Well, there were some high school kids, new driver's license, I suppose, one evening thought it would be fun to get out and race up and down the open interstate with no one else on it. So they removed the barricades, took their vehicle up onto the interstate, and drove.

6:39I think you can kind of see where this may end up. We'll come back to it in a minute. But look at verse 8. And when he comes, when he, Holy Spirit, helper, when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. So the subject here is the Holy Spirit's activity in the world. He's noticed it's the world. This is what he's going to do. He's going to convict the world, convict the world.

7:23And so he comes, that one, to complete that which is lacking. He comes to. Convict. And the idea of convicting here is to bring to light, to expose, to can mean correct, can mean reprove. It's all that necessary to bring an awareness. It's a convincing ministry, a convicting ministry, a convincing ministry. The world needs convincing of something. Specifically, it needs convincing about issues regarding sin, righteousness, and judgment. And I see this on a personal level. The issue isn't here about at that final day that the Holy Spirit's going to come on that final day and, like a prosecuting attorney, forever settle that the world is guilty. No, there's something in the present that the Holy Spirit does to bring about a conviction of soul that Christ wants the world to be convicted about. That's why he's going to send the Holy Spirit.

8:41You see, the world needs convincing on a personal level of their own guilt and their own need for repentance. We have a need. We need to be convicted. We need to be convinced of certain matters that we're not going to be. Convicted of unless the Holy Spirit ministers to us. And so when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. Now the world has a problem. John has been very vocal about that problem that the world has throughout the whole gospel. Remember in John chapter 3, speaking to Nicodemus, unless one is born of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

9:35And the world in John 3:18, it's clear it stands condemned. It is already condemned. And unless a work of the Spirit happens, they remain condemned. Now there's a problem because when you get to chapter 7 and verse 7, Jesus himself makes it very clear, the world hates me. Doesn't hate you speaking to his brothers, but it hates me. So the world hates Jesus, cannot enter the kingdom of God, stands condemned. And in chapter 14, verses 16 and 17, having just in the upper room spoken to this just hours ago, probably from where we are now. And Jesus said in verse 16, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper. That he may be with you forever. That is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him.

10:40See, the world can't receive the Spirit. Now, there's a problem, right? The world cannot receive the Spirit, but it needs the Spirit in order to enter into the kingdom of God. Otherwise, it's going to stand condemned. And there's a fundamental problem. They hate Jesus. They hate the Spirit of Jesus. They hate everything that testifies to Jesus because Jesus Himself came testifying that their deeds were evil. So there's a world's problem, right? The world needs a work of grace before it can properly relate to God. And that's the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And that's why it's to the disciples' advantage, to our advantage, to the world's advantage, that Christ go to the Father.

11:31But the text is very simple, very plain. You see that there is a threefold convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. You see it right there. And I want you to see this threefold convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit to the world so that you will come out of the world. That's why the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit is alive and operative today is so that people who are in the world, who are of the world, will come out of the world. And belong to Christ.

12:05And I hope this morning that the Holy Spirit will convict us of these things. So very simple. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, righteousness, and judgment. And what happens in the next few verses is that Jesus goes into more detail concerning those three. So, first of all, and we'll just walk through those. We'll ditch the video. I'll get in the weeds if I start going down into a lot of the different thinkings about the Holy Spirit. I think we'll just stay on task and let the Holy Spirit do his work through his word on us and in us. Well, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of, you can see it right there, right? Sin. Verse 9. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Verse 9. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of its sin, and that specifically involves its wrongdoing. It's wrong thinking. The first aspect of the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit is to convince people of their sin. That is, their wrong thinking and their wrongdoing. That's what the Holy Spirit's ministry to the world is. You must be convicted.

13:31Of your wrongthinking, of your wrongdoing. You see, what sinners do is sinners cross the line. Sinners miss the mark. Sinners move the boundary lines. All these are Old Testament descriptions of what sin is. It's crossing the line, transgression. It's missing the mark. It's moving the boundaries. And this is what man has done. This is what people have done. This is what people do. And so in the early chapters of Genesis, you see that man embarked upon a course of life. You can almost see him more personified in Cain than anyone else in those early chapters. When the operating principle becomes self, and you are operating to please self, you elevate self, your world is all about yourself, and you do what you think is right to serve your own interests, regardless of what God or anybody else thinks. If you were the one to be pleased and you were the one to be exalted, this self-centeredness set man on a course that made him full of envy, full of murder, full of strife, full of faithlessness, full of ruthlessness, full of heartlessness. And we can certainly see that in our world today, can we not? You see, that is our basic sin, putting ourselves at the center. Of our world and elevating ourselves as the one primarily to be pleased. That's what sin is. It's all about self. It shows up in our pursuits, shows up in our relationships. I'll tell you what, if you ever want to have a good relationship with anyone, you're going to have to learn how to put yourself down for the benefit of someone else. But when you have a home where you just have two competing interests for supremacy, no wonder we have such marital problems in our world today.

15:43But look back at the text. There's a specific sin that Jesus has in mind here concerning sin, verse 9, because they do not believe in me. That's the definitive sin he's talking about. The Holy Spirit is going to come and he's going to convict the world of its sin, of its wrongthinking and wrongdoing, because they do not believe in Jesus. See, the definitive expression of mankind's self-centeredness shows up when God sent his Son into the world and man refused to believe. Believe in him. Man opposed him by not believing in him.

16:38And that's what sin does. The world should have believed in him. The evidence was over the top in Christ's favor. This one is from God. But why? Why wouldn't they come under? They kept demanding more proof. Give us more proof, more proof. Well, that's the nature of unbelief. The world did not want to know God. They did not want this man ruling over them. They did not want God ruling over them, so they rejected Jesus. The evidence testifies to Jesus.

17:30And yet, the world is not believing in him. Jesus said, second, they are not believing in me. They are not believing in the one whom God ordained to have authority over mankind. Jesus came demonstrating authority over every realm of the universe, including man. And yet, they would not believe in him. I don't get me wrong, they believe he existed. They just didn't believe that he was who he said he was, not because the evidence pointed there, but because their heart didn't want to go there.

18:25And this fundamentally is wrongdoing, not believing in the one whom God has sent. And evidently, Jesus is going to send his disciples and basically say that on the same. If they do not receive you, they do not receive me. Just as they did not receive him, they did not receive the Father. Well, do you believe that God created the world? Good. So do the demons. Do you believe that God has appointed a king, one who has all authority over humanity?

19:21Who is he? It doesn't take long to scan the pages of history to see one. Candidate rise above the masses. There is only one who came out of the grave. He's not hard to miss. So, why wouldn't you believe in him? That's what you need convicting of. What excuse do you? And young people, what excuse do you have not to believe in him? Why would you not? Fundamentally, Jesus says that is the fundamental issue of humanity. And this is why the Holy Spirit comes to convict. You need to know what your personal sin is. And Jesus Himself says, You have everything you need to know to believe in me.

20:33So believe. Repent of your unbelief. So the Holy Spirit's ministry to the world is to bring it under conviction. That's what He does. He comes to show it to be guilty of not believing in Jesus. And this is a gracious work. This is that work of grace you need. And I need, right? Because without it, the world cannot perceive its need for Jesus. How does this world, as I just described, that John describes for us that hates Jesus cannot receive the Spirit, how in the world are they ever going to be born of the Spirit? Well, it's the gracious, convicting work of the Holy Spirit. That's why, if you hear his voice today, you respond.

21:34Well, do you know that you're a sinner? Do you know that you need Jesus? Guess who's been at work in your heart? The Holy Spirit. Our world resists him, but don't you resist him? Come out of the world. And the reason the world resists him is because the world loves its sin and they do not want to think that their sin is wrong. And Jesus says that's wrong thinking. That's wrongdoing. I came to testify that your deeds are evil so that you will abandon them.

22:24But the Holy Spirit comes to convict the world so that the world will believe in Jesus. He comes to you to convict you of your personal sin. Don't be afraid to confess it to him and go on with him. He does that so that you will come out of the world. That is why he sends the Spirit, is so that those who are of the world, who hate Jesus, will no longer do so and will come to him.

22:58Second, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, and second, the Holy Spirit convicts the world of righteousness. And here in view deals with the wrong standards. Look back at verse 10. And concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see me. So the Holy Spirit, the world needs convicting about its sin, but it also needs convicting about its understanding of righteousness, specifically its standard of righteousness. There's something really off with the world's standard of righteousness.

23:41They need standards. They need convicting about their own standards of right and wrong. You know, there are two different standards of righteousness that are in view here, right? There's the world's standard of righteousness, or the world's definition of what is right and wrong, and you've got God's standards of righteousness. Righteousness of what is right and wrong. Which one are you going to go with? Well, it's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict you that God's standards are right and that the world's standards are wrong.

24:16Wrong standards. In fact, this is how God views the standards of the world. In Isaiah 5:20, he says, Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness, who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. And don't get me wrong, the fallen world has standards of righteousness, but they're grossly off. They are misguided, they are ungodly, and they are empty, they are superficial, they are substandard when compared to the true righteousness that Christ Himself perfectly embodied. That's righteousness.

25:07There's a way that seems right to man, but it leads to death. So, why does the Holy Spirit convict the world in righteousness? Why does he teach? What is the reason for such conviction? Look back again. Because I go to the Father and you no longer see me. You see, the world. Despised Jesus' righteousness, and Jesus was leaving. The Holy Spirit is going to come and pick up the convicting work of Christ Himself, and He's going to do that through His people. That's why they are going to be persecuted. Jesus came to testify that their deeds are evil, and there was something convicting about His presence. He exposed the shallow, and superficial, and phony religion of His days. He saw through hypocrisy and the false pretenses.

26:13And there was something about His presence that convicted the world of its sin. And now He's leaving. He's going to the Father. They're not going to see Him anymore. And yet, that same convicting ministry is going to go on through the disciples. And they're going to be persecuted for it. They're going to need. But what's interesting here is that Jesus is going to the Father. The world despised Christ's righteousness. They counted it as unfit, not necessary, not needed, and really even something to be adamantly opposed. Yet, God said. Saw Christ's righteousness as fit and necessary and beautiful, and what was necessary to enter into His presence. It was Christ's righteousness that went into the presence of the Father.

27:18That's a kind of righteousness that the world needs, and it's not going to get it from its own fallen standards. And so, their ministry of the Holy Spirit is to convict the world not only of its sin, but its need for perfect righteousness. That's why he's going to convict the world regarding sin and righteousness. People need to see themselves as sinners in need of God's mercy. And they need to see themselves naked before a holy God in need of a perfect kind of righteousness that can clothe them and fit them for eternal habitation in heaven.

28:13And without the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit, it's not going to happen because man is running the other way. Our system is sinful. Our worldly system of thinking, that which seems natural, that seems to be natural. Which seems right in man's eyes is broken. It's a sinful system. And the reason it's sinful is because it closes its mind to Jesus and it averts its heart away from Jesus. That's the sin of humanity. Closing its mind to Jesus and averting its heart away from Jesus.

28:55Jesus is God's standard of righteousness. And really, the most important issue in your life is how you respond to the Holy Spirit's convicting ministry about your sin and about your need for his righteousness. That is what the Holy Spirit is going to bring to bear upon your soul. That's where this scripture takes us: to expose you, to show you of your own personal sin, your own shortfall, your own moving the boundary, your own crossing the line, to show you that on a personal level, but to show you the perfect righteousness, the beautiful perfect righteousness that's in Jesus Christ. Otherwise, we just waller in our own sin, but then we see the beautiful, perfect righteousness of Christ. We need to be convicted of sin. We need to be convicted of righteousness so that we may. Have a relationship.

30:03Listen to Isaiah 64:6 says this: For all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all of our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment, and all of us wither like a leaf, and our iniquities like the wind take us away. That's what sin does: it withers the soul of man, it withers your soul, and you need to be convicted of that. And you resist the Holy Spirit's convicting ministry by refusing to repent. That's where all this takes you to show you your sin and your failing standard of righteousness.

31:05Have a change of mind about Jesus. Have a change of mind about your sin. Agree with him. That is, in essence, what repentance is. So don't refuse to repent. Don't let your mind start justifying for whatever reason. It's resisting the work of the Holy Spirit. Just agree. It's that simple. Just agree. With him? So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, of righteousness, and number three, of judgment. Of judgment. Look at verse 11. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

31:50You see, the Holy Spirit needs to convict us about our wrongdoing, about our wrong standards of righteousness, but also about our wrong evaluation of Jesus. The world needs to be convicted about its wrong evaluation of Jesus. You see, the world's ability to judge is grossly off, or to judge correctly, let me say. Well, they judge all the time. We all judge all the time. And if it says stop judging, it says stop. It's really basically saying stop thinking, stop discerning. Now, Jesus expects us to judge, to make distinctions. But the world's ability to judge correctly is grossly off, especially when it came to Jesus. In fact, Jesus over and over would exhorts us to judge correctly. In John 7, 24, he says, do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgments. I want you making right evaluations.

33:04And that's why he's given you the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's ministry is to come and to give a conviction about our wrong evaluation of Christ. You see, nowhere is man's faulty evaluation system better seen than in the way they judged Jesus. That is the fallen world system at work. An intruder came into their world. A intruder came that disrupted their religious monopoly. And so the world of that day chose Barabbas over Jesus. And that world rejected Jesus with an exclamation point, did they not?

34:03They rejected him as a stone rejected by builders. Absolutely no worth in this building. Throw that one away. Right? And yet, God highly exalted him most gloriously. Like, ah, this is the stone that gives the personality and character to the whole structure. This is my choice stone. The world was greatly off. The world was through more. As worthless, and yet God saw him as great value. And if you're ever going to come to Christ, you're going to have to change your evaluation of who he is because your judgment about him, if it isn't informed by the word of God, by the Holy Spirit, through the word of God, it is off.

34:54That's why we say we love the Christ of Scripture here and we want to grow more and more like him. Why does the Holy Spirit need to convict about the world about its evaluation of Jesus? Look back, because the ruler of this world has been judged. You see, the world has to understand they condemned the wrong man. They condemned the one God was exalting. The adversary of God and humanity was being condemned. That's what was happening in the life of Christ and on the cross. That's what God was doing. Judge correctly what's happening here.

35:52The world saw the cross as God's judgment upon Jesus, saw him as criminal, but actually. The cross was actually God's judgment upon Christ as a substitute for the world. As we just read earlier in our service from Isaiah 53 and 4, we thought he was smitten of God. No. He was smitten of God for our transgression. He was smitten not for his own transgressions, but for the transgressions of his people. Jesus went to the cross not because he was criminal, but because he was saving criminals.

36:35And your evaluation, the world's evaluation about the cross has to be radically changed if they're going to ever come to Christ. And put this in this context, what's happening here in context. The Holy Spirit is going to have to do an incredible work because the judgment is so off about Jesus. The ruler of this world, that was the criminal. That is the criminal. And that adversary met his undoing on the cross. That's the gospel. Satan led the world into believing that God had no gracious remedy for sin. Ah, you ate that. You ate from that tree. You weren't supposed to do that. Run. There is no Forgiveness in God. Take matters into your own hand. There is no forgiveness. Run, flee. That's the power of the ruler of this age, and he's a brutal taskmaster.

37:43So, what does he do? Satan slandered God. He would never forgive. He put mankind on flight from God and led us to rely upon fig leaves, metaphorically, to cover our sin. Fig leaf looks like excuse, blame. No, she's the one. He's the one. I'm not, I'm righteous because she did it. He did it. Whatever, I'm not to blame. I was victim. I was this. And we come up with all these little coverings to make ourselves righteous. And they amount to nothing more than fig leaves. But all that is undone at the cross. Satan is the criminal and is exposed as the criminal. He is the one with the murderous lies.

38:44And he is the one that is rightfully condemned. He has been judged. Look at that verb. He has been judged. His monopoly over humanity has been broken. Allegiance is due to Christ, not to the ruler of this world. You need to let the Holy Spirit convict you of that. What are you doing on this world anyway? Do you think God really put you here so that you could take whatever few years you have and totally give them in allegiance to the ruler of this world?

39:28Don't you think God has something else for you? He does. Allegiance is due to Christ, not to your own flesh, not to your own supremacy. You need to be convicted of this. Following Christ is by necessity crucifying the flesh. Allegiance is due to Christ. And that's where the convicting ministry, we've made a wrong evaluation about Jesus. And unless something happens, unless the Holy Spirit convicts you, you're going to continue in your wrong evaluation of Jesus. No, allegiance is due to him.

40:22So just go with it. That's what, be taught. Healed to the Spirit. Back to the interstate. These teenagers get on the interstate and driving at a mad speed, reckless. They're on a closed interstate. Bridge is out. There is a ravine fastly approaching, spilling into a flooded river. A state trooper saw these kids get on the interstate. He was a fast-thinking man. He took his car, chased them down, and averted a catastrophe. That's what the Holy Spirit does.

41:42Man was so bent on his own way, and it took the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit to run after that world, to chase after that world. To bring conviction about their sin, to bring conviction about their wrong standards of righteousness and their wrong evaluation of Jesus. Because if the Holy Spirit does not do that, they will remain hating Jesus and totally unable to receive the Spirit. Something amazing I find in these chapters and in the history that comes out of them and follows them. Something amazing happens. And I just want you to think about this for just a moment. Jesus was crucified as a criminal.

42:47The Jews saw him as an evil heretic. The Romans saw him as a dangerous criminal. That generation thought Jesus was worthy of the severest punishment for the worst of criminals. Everything. That was society. And they emphatically rejected Jesus and they emphatically said, whatever you do, do not follow this guy. They branded him an enemy of God and an enemy of state. And with Those kind of credentials, I mean, that's a pretty impressive resume, right? How are you going to go out and get a job with that resume, right? Let alone, how are you going to get a bunch of followers?

43:42How is there going to be, some 2,000 years later, a little congregation over here at Emmanuel Baptist Church and throughout this land and throughout this world singing praises to that Jewish criminal? How does that come about? I mean, if he was truly God, how would anyone ever be convinced of it? Well, that's where the ministry of the Holy Spirit comes in. Religiously and politically, he was not to be followed. So something overcame that. Something spoke to the hearts of men and showed them Christ, convicted them about sin, about righteousness, and about judgment. You know, you can consider this for a second. Remember in Mark chapter 6, the disciples had already experienced somewhat of the power of the Holy Spirit. They were given authority over demons and over sickness, and they went out and they were preaching, as Mark 6:12 says, They went out and preached that men should repent. And they were doing all these signs and all this. And so they, It was a very dramatic ministry, and yet the people largely remained unrepentant.

45:10The crowds of Jesus' generation failed to understand the so what of Jesus' ministry. So what? Okay, here's this guy doing all these wonderful things. So what? What does this mean? They failed to be convinced of their personal need for repentance until Pentecost. Right? Now, I want to read you just the last few verses of Peter's sermon in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, 36, everything he says leads up to this point. Peter says, Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

45:54Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. Who's doing that? That's the ministry of the Holy Spirit to convict. They were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, Brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, Repent, and each one of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit. What a difference. What a difference the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit makes.

46:30So, why would anybody follow a Jewish apostate Roman criminal? Why would we today follow a person that we cannot see? Why is it that we are convinced that he was crucified and that he was resurrected? And the only witness that we have is the witness of the apostles themselves, the disciples, all of that? Is it not an amazing thing that we here today as believers in Christ put our trust for our eternal well-being in a crucified Jewish criminal?

47:10Do you see the work of the Holy Spirit? Why would we? It is the Holy Spirit who convinces us of our sin and our need for the complete righteousness of Christ. And he convinced us that Jesus rose again, that he is at the right hand of his Father. And he has convinced us that the ruler of this world has been judged, that sins are forgiven. And so when the ruler of this world comes and says, God can't forgive you for that, run.

47:50You say, keep your fig leaves to yourself. I will be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, thus saith the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to convict us. Father, for we would remain lost, racing towards our own destruction with no hope. And yet you inserted yourself through your Holy Spirit in our lives to convict us. Thank you. Thank you that we know there's a coming judgment, that all of us in here know that we're going to stand before you, and that is a convicting work of your Spirit. Thank you that you've also made it very clear that there is a coming heaven.

48:51And you have convicted us and convinced us that it is in this crucified Jesus that we have found our Savior and our Lord and our perfect covering and our hope for the future and for every good thing that satisfies the soul. Thank you for him in Christ's name.