Albert D. Mosley - "The Work of the Holy Spirit" (June 10, 2001)

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-	But now I am going to Him who sent me,	0:11
	yet none of you ask me where are you going.	0:15
	But because I have said these things to you,	0:20
	sorrow has filled your hearts.	0:23
	Nevertheless, I tell you the truth.	0:27
	It is to your advantage that I go away,	0:30
	for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you.	0:34
	But if I go, I will send Him to you.	0:41
	And when He comes, He will convince the world concerning sin	0:44
	and righteousness and judgment.	0:49
	Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.	0:52
	Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father,	0:57
	and you will see me no more.	1:00
	Concerning judgment,	1:04
	because the Ruler of this world is judged.	1:05
	I have yet many things to say to you,	1:09
	but you cannot bear them now.	1:13
	When the Spirit of Truth comes,	1:16
	He will guide you into all the truth,	1:17
	for He will not speak on His own authority,	1:20
	but whatever He hears He will speak,	1:24
	and He will declare to you the things that are to come.	1:26
	He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine	1:30
	and declare it to you.	1:35
	All that the Father has is mine,	1:37
	therefore I said that He will take what is mine	1:40
	and declare it to you.	1:44
	This is the word of the Lord.	1:46
Congregation	Thanks be to God.	1:49
-	When the Advocate comes,	1:53
	He will convince the world of its sin,	1:56
	and of God's righteousness, and of the coming judgment.	2:00
	Sin, righteousness, and judgment.	2:08
	These are all words that, at least for me,	2:15
	produce a feeling of queasiness.	2:16
	It's quite similar to the feeling	2:20
	one has just before walking into an interview	2:22
	that you know will determine the direction of your career	2:25
	and your life.	2:28
	There is a lot at stake.	2:31
	Our lives are literally hanging in the balance.	2:34
	Things can go one way or the other,	2:38
	and the worst part of it all is that it seems	2:42
	that we have little or no control over what happens.	2:43
	The gospel lesson tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes,	2:50
	He will convince the world of its sin,	2:54
	convince the world of God's righteousness,	2:59
	and convince the world of the coming judgment.	3:02
	I think this is enough to make anyone a tad bit nervous,	3:07
	but especially those who are in the world.	3:11
	A relatively young parson received his assignment	3:16
	to rather small parish in a very rural community	3:20
	in the Mississippi delta.	3:23
	While out making calls on his members one day,	3:26
	the parson had an encounter with a farmer	3:28
	in this new community.	3:31
	The parson asked the farmer,	3:34
	do you belong to the Christian family?	3:36
	No, replied the farmer, they live two farms down.	3:39
	I mean are you lost, said the young minister.	3:45
	Lost, why I've lived here for over 30 years.	3:48
	I mean, are you ready for the coming judgment?	3:52
	When is it, asked the farmer.	3:57
	Well it could be today, or it could be tomorrow.	3:59
	Well, said the farmer, when you find out for sure when it is	4:02
	let me know, my wife will probably want to go both days.	4:06
	(laughing)	4:10
	Imagine what sort of response the young preacher	4:14
	would have gotten had he asked the farmer	4:15
	about sin and righteousness.	4:17
	Sin, righteousness, and judgment.	4:21
	These three words cover almost	4:25
	the entire gamut of human experience.	4:27
	We enter the world in and through sin.	4:30
	We spend the interim of our lives, at least some of us,	4:34
	striving to mimic God's righteousness.	4:37
	And finally, as we near the end,	4:40
	we begin to think of the judgment that awaits each of us.	4:43
	We are told in today's gospel lesson	4:48
	that these three entities are linked by God's spirit,	4:49
	the Holy Spirit,	4:53
	and that it is this Ppirit that will literally uncover,	4:55
	or make plain to us, our sin.	4:57
	This Spirit will uncover, or make plain to us,	5:02
	God's righteousness, and the coming judgment.	5:05
	This particular aspect, or this particular work	5:10
	of the Holy Spirit, is the fourth of five Paraclete sayings	5:12
	found in Jesus' farewell discourse in the Gospel of John.	5:17
	Jesus had, on previous occasions, made several other claims	5:23
	about the work of the Holy Spirit.	5:26
	In chapter 14 of this gospel,	5:29
	He declares to the disciples that He will ask the Father,	5:31
	and the Father will give them another Counselor	5:35
	to be with them forever.	5:37
	This Counselor is the Spirit of Truth.	5:40
	Also in chapter 14, He announces that the Counselor	5:43
	will teach the disciples all things,	5:46
	and remind them of everything that Jesus had said to them.	5:49
	Chapter 15 reveals to us	5:54
	yet another role of the Holy Spirit.	5:56
	Here the Holy Spirit bears witness	5:58
	to Jesus and to His ministry.	6:00
	And finally, here in the lesson appointed for today,	6:04
	we are told the the Holy Spirit	6:08
	will not only convict the world of guilt	6:09
	in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment,	6:11
	but that It will also, in a fifth saying,	6:15
	guide them into all truth.	6:18
	It is the role of the Spirit found	6:22
	in the fourth Paraclete saying	6:24
	that I would like for us to examine today.	6:27
	Allow me to paint for you a picture	6:31
	of trial taking place in a courtroom.	6:33
	At least the following characters are present,	6:37
	the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit,	6:40
	has the role of representing of the prosecuting attorney,	6:42
	and the world is the defendant.	6:47
	These two, the Paraclete and the world,	6:51
	are standing before God, and before the believing community.	6:53
	Against the backdrop of the picture of this trial,	6:58
	please bear in mind that there was another trial earlier.	7:01
	In the earlier trial,	7:06
	the world had declared Jesus to be guilty,	7:07
	guilty of sedition against Caesar,	7:10
	and blasphemy against God.	7:12
	For the more the world had declared earlier	7:16
	that the same Jesus was a man without righteousness,	7:17
	and was worthy of death by crucifixion.	7:21
	The accounts of this trial of Jesus	7:26
	are written in the synoptic gospels	7:28
	and in this fourth gospel in such a way	7:30
	that they readily display to us	7:33
	the reality of Jesus' innocence and the world's guilt.	7:35
	Now in this second trial, in the trial	7:40
	that John alludes to in today's scripture lesson,	7:44
	the Paraclete is given the task	7:47
	of exposing the mockery of justice	7:49
	that took place before the Sanhedrin,	7:51
	and before Pontius Pilate in trial number one.	7:53
	Paul Harvey, in his collection titled For What It's Worth,	7:59
	tells of a story of a great escape from judgment.	8:02
	Gary Tindle was in a California courtroom	8:06
	charged with a crime.	8:08
	He asked and received permission from the Judge	8:11
	to go to the bathroom.	8:13
	While in the bathroom,	8:16
	Mr. Tindle climbed up into the plumbing	8:17
	and opened a panel in the ceiling.	8:19
	Sure enough, that was a dropped ceiling with space between.	8:22
	He climbed up into the crawlspace and headed south.	8:27
	After about thirty feet,	8:31
	the ceiling panels broke from under Mr. Tindle	8:32
	and he fell through the ceiling.	8:35
	To his dismay, he fell right back into the courtroom	8:38
	of the Judge who had excused him to go to the bathroom.	8:41
	So just when the world thought it was off the hook,	8:46
	it finds itself in the courtroom again.	8:49
	The tables are turned in trial number two.	8:54
	In trial number two, the world stands before God,	8:57
	the Paraclete, the Advocate, the Holy Spirit,	9:01
	convinces the world of its sin.	9:04
	A more literal translation of the Greek word elegcho,	9:08
	which is translated in the NRSV as convince,	9:11
	is expose, or convict.	9:14
	In trial number two, the Paraclete will expose the world.	9:17
	The Paraclete will convict the world.	9:21
	It will convict the world, and it will demonstrate	9:25
	its error with reference to sin,	9:27
	righteousness, and judgment.	9:29
	This exposure is not related to specific acts of sin,	9:32
	specific acts of righteousness,	9:36
	or specific acts of judgment.	9:38
	But it is related to what sin,	9:41
	righteousness, and judgment are.	9:42
	In the first count brought against the world,	9:47
	the Holy Spirit, or the Paraclete,	9:48
	brings out into the open the true meaning of sin,	9:50
	and it then holds the world accountable	9:55
	to the standards derived from this meaning.	9:57
	The sin that the world stands accused of	10:01
	is unbelief in Jesus,	10:03
	an unbelief that manifests itself in a variety of actions	10:05
	that are inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus.	10:09
	The world did not believe that Jesus	10:13
	was the incarnate logos of God.	10:15
	John writes in the present tense to indicate to us	10:19
	that the world still does not believe	10:22
	that Jesus is incarnate word of God.	10:24
	There's is an ongoing rejection	10:28
	of the revelation of God in Jesus.	10:29
	This rejection, and thus this sin,	10:32
	did not stop with the Jewish power structure.	10:34
	It is very present and real in our world today.	10:38
	Today this rejection of Jesus presents itself	10:43
	in the form of racism.	10:45
	It presents itself in the form of sexism.	10:47
	It presents itself in the form of classism.	10:50
	It presents itself in the form of anyway of life	10:54
	that does not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.	10:56
	The ongoing rejection, and the continued unbelief in Jesus,	11:00
	is the sin that the Holy Spirit exposes.	11:05
	The Holy Spirit will expose decisions	11:08
	made behind closed doors,	11:10
	decisions that benefit only a few,	11:13
	and bring distress to the masses.	11:15
	The Holy Spirit will expose our well-meaning,	11:18
	yet sinful actions that lead	11:20
	to a large percentage of God's children	11:23
	being excluded from decisions about their own fate.	11:25
	This sin, this unbelief that the Paraclete will expose	11:30
	and uncover, entails rejection, not ignorance,	11:35
	of the proclamation of Christ and the gospel.	11:40
	The world knows what Jesus has proclaimed.	11:43
	The world knows what Jesus has said about the poor.	11:47
	The world knows what Jesus has said about the outcasts.	11:50
	The world knows what Jesus has said	11:54
	about those who are despised, those who are downtrodden.	11:55
	The world knows all of this, but it has chosen to ignore it.	12:00
	It has turned its head the other way.	12:05
	Sadly, so has the Church in many instances.	12:08
	It is this sin that the Holy Spirit will expose.	12:12
	In count two, after the Holy Spirit exposes	12:18
	the sin of the world, It will then,	12:20
	according to John, expose God's righteousness.	12:23
	In the context of the world's trial by the Paraclete,	12:27
	righteousness is to be understood	12:30
	as synonymous with vindication.	12:32
	In this instance, it is not referring	12:35
	to the believers justification by faith.	12:37
	The nature of righteousness in this passage	12:40
	is brought to light in that Jesus goes away to the Father,	12:42
	and his disciples see Him no more.	12:46
	Jesus is lifted up on the cross, which in the world's eyes,	12:50
	was the demonstration of Jesus on righteousness.	12:54
	The Holy Spirit, however, exposes the world,	12:58
	and exposes to the world that this was none other	13:00
	than the means of Jesus exhalation to Heaven by the Father.	13:04
	The world assumed that Jesus' death was His defeat.	13:09
	In actuality, His death shows forth	13:13
	the righteousness of God,	13:15
	because in death, Jesus goes to God and completes His work.	13:17
	What to the world was the end of Jesus,	13:22
	His disappearance from the earth scene,	13:25
	the disciples came to know as none other	13:28
	than the reception of Jesus by the Father into glory.	13:29
	It is this righteousness, this vindication	13:34
	that the Paraclete will expose to the world,	13:36
	a righteousness that is definitely out of sync	13:40
	with what the world had in mind.	13:42
	The world thought that they had gotten rid of Jesus,	13:46
	that they had finally quieted Him.	13:48
	His crucifixion, the world thought, would be the end	13:51
	of heretical teaching that encourages	13:54
	the mixing of Jews and Samaritans.	13:56
	It would be the end of heretical teaching	14:00
	that encourages ignoring the Sabbath to heal the sick,	14:02
	that encourages a new system of justice	14:06
	not based on an eye for an eye,	14:08
	but rather on love and the ability to forgive.	14:11
	This is what the world thought to be the case,	14:15
	but the Paraclete exposes something entirely different.	14:18
	The Paraclete exposes God's righteousness	14:22
	because through death, Jesus returns to the Father,	14:24
	and is glorified with the Father	14:28
	by a special place at his right hand.	14:30
	Finally, in count three,	14:34
	we're told that the Paraclete will expose the world	14:36
	concerning the coming judgment.	14:38
	The Paraclete will show that this world's Prince	14:41
	had been decidedly put in the wrong.	14:43
	In this third count that is brought against the world,	14:47
	we see the cosmic,	14:50
	and the eschatological dimensions of this trial.	14:51
	The reality of judgment,	14:55
	and the world's entanglement in judgment	14:57
	is exposed by the Holy Spirit in John's gospel.	14:59
	The judgment of the world took place	15:04
	as the son of men was lifted up on the cross,	15:05
	and as the Prince of the World was thrown out.	15:09
	As the son of man was installed by God	15:12
	as Lord of Creation and Mediator	15:14
	of the sovereignty of God to the world,	15:16
	the Prince of the World was ejected.	15:19
	The Paraclete exposes, or brings to light,	15:22
	that the world is judged because it's admitted	15:26
	to the Prince of this world,	15:28
	and the rejection of the Son of God.	15:30
	And it became the tool of the Prince of this world	15:33
	in his murder.	15:36
	The Paraclete continues God's eschatological judgment	15:38
	beyond the time of the life and death of Jesus,	15:41
	until the life of the faith community.	15:44
	Many of us continue to fail to acknowledge Jesus	15:49
	as rightful Lord of the world.	15:51
	Our actions reveal just how much we continue	15:54
	to ignore the Lordship of Jesus Christ.	15:57
	We often live as people who do not have	16:00
	to give a final account for their actions.	16:02
	For some of us, it appears that the Prince of this world	16:07
	has not been dethroned in our lives,	16:10
	but that He is stronger and surer of his standing	16:13
	than ever before.	16:16
	But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Counselor,	16:19
	the Advocate, will prove the world wrong.	16:24
	The Holy Spirit will expose	16:28
	the world's distorted sense of judgment,	16:29
	a sense of judgment that is based	16:32
	upon a belief in things opposed to God,	16:33
	a belief in the ruler and things of this world.	16:37
	On all three counts, the world's cause was lost.	16:41
	The Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the Advocate	16:47
	exposes the world's faulty and perjurious arguments	16:50
	against God and against His Son.	16:54
	When the Advocate comes,	16:58
	He will convince the world of its sin,	16:59
	of God's righteousness, and of the coming judgment.	17:01
	No wonder we want to dismiss	17:06
	this third person of the Trinity.	17:08
	No wonder we spend so little time discussing	17:10
	the Holy Spirit in our churches.	17:13
	There's a story told of a children's catechism class	17:17
	that was learning the Apostle's Creed.	17:20
	Each child was assigned a sentence to repeat.	17:23
	The first child said I believe in God, the Father Almighty,	17:26
	maker of heaven and earth.	17:29
	The second child said I believe in Jesus,	17:32
	His only begotten Son.	17:34
	After this, there was a few moments of embarrassing silence.	17:37
	Finally, one of the other children piped up and said,	17:41
	teacher, the boy who believes in the Holy Spirit	17:44
	isn't here today.	17:47
	(scattered laughter)	17:48
	Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?	17:51
	And more importantly, do you believe in its work,	17:54
	amen.	17:59

Item Info

Title:

Albert D. Mosley - "The Work of the Holy Spirit" (June 10, 2001)

Description:

In coming into the world, the Holy Spirit will make plain to the world its sin, vindicate God's righteousness, and declare to the world the coming judgment. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 01:53. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 18:01.
Key quotation: “The Holy Spirit will expose the world’s distorted sense of judgment, a sense of judgment that is based upon a belief in things opposed to God, a belief in the ruler and things of this world.”

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4qj78d2d

Date:

June 10, 2001

Speaker:

Mosley, Albert D.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 CS-1071
ref10299_jet
uachapelsermaud
duke:320303
dcrau001715
ark:/87924/r4qj78d2d
aa6f2687-53e0-4a79-bca7-fe9bd7cd5999

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Albert D. Mosley - "The Work of the Holy Spirit" (June 10, 2001)

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