Preparing for This Sunday July 15



Our latest addition devouring the church bulletin

So profound it was tasty

Studies from the Gospel of John
John 16: Preparing for Christ’s Departure
The Rest of the Story will be Told by the Spirit
16:12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
The disciples were at information overload spiritually, so the Lord told them He would not offer any more information at this time
“You cannot bear them now” meant they were in such sorrow and anguish they couldn’t deal with any more news about the Lord’s leaving; they had misunderstood the plan of God on Christ’s dying, resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit, a misunderstanding that led to emotional sorrow but could have resulting in emotional joy if they had but understood the plan of God. Their sorrow was unnecessary but Jesus understood they couldn’t handle anymore.
They were a little hardened against the Lord at this point because He was not going to do what they had expected Him to do, rise up, defeat the Romans and start the kingdom immediately; their false expectations led to an obtuse inability to understand, as it also does us.
But the Spirit of truth would arrive and get through to them about the Father’s plan through the cross and resurrection. Therefore the Spirit would guide them into the truth and show them only the Father’s plan.
The Spirit would not promote His own plan but only speak on the Father’s initiative and show them only the Father’s plan, a plan Jesus revealed to them but they were not able to understand.
“He will show you things to come” was the same as “He will guide you into all truth;” to this point they had understood only a part of God’s plan, so they needed all of the truth and would receive it with the coming of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit would only speak the words of the Father, but to do this also meant He would glorify Christ, for the Father’s plan was shown to the world through Christ His Son, and the Son was the Word of the Father.
All that belonged to the Father was also the Son’s. Whatever the Spirit would reveal would be directed by the Father and be in agreement with what the Son had taught and shown
He would take the teachings of Christ (“take of mine”) and make it known to them (“to show it unto you”)
All 3 persons of the Godhead were in agreement and completely consistent, so the work of the Spirit was the continuation of the work of Jesus Christ who came to do the will of the Father.
We have the privilege of continuing the work of Christ through the empowering Holy Spirit who indwells us. We are an integral part of this plan.

"From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring; renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king.” (J. R. R. Tolkien, from Fellowship of the Ring)