The Helper – John 14:15-31

The Pan American and World Health Organization has a library for dealing with disasters.  When talking about people who may want to help in disasters they write:  People have different reasons for choosing certain types of work. It is important to know yourself well and to understand your reasons for wanting to help. No one helps solely in order to do good for someone else. Often people choose to help others because it makes them feel worth while. Some helpers may themselves have needed help in the past and remember what it was like to have no one to assist them. Others may at times have problems of their own and believe that, if they help others, they will also be helped to cope themselves. You must understand your reasons for wanting to help so you can be sure that they do not prevent you from helping others.”  The Holy Spirit is Jesus’ designated Helper for us and is fully focused on us, not Himself.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.  And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper, Who will be with you forever, the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot receive, because it cannot see Him or know Him.  You know Him, because He remains with you and will be in you.  I’m not leaving you as orphans.  I am coming to you.  In just a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.  Because I live you also will live.  In that day you yourselves will know that I am in my Father and you are in me and I am in you.  The one who has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.  And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself known to him.”

Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how can it be that you will make yourself known to us and not to the world?”  Jesus answered, “If someone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we, coming to him, will make our home with him.  Whoever doesn’t love me will not keep my words.  And the word you are hearing is not mine but the Father’s, who sent me.”

“These things I am saying to you while I am remaining with you.  But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father is sending in my name, He will teach you all things and remind you of all the things I have told you.”

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.  I’m not giving you peace like the world gives you.  Don’t let your heart be troubled, nor be afraid.  You heard me tell you that I am going but that I will come back to you.  If you were loving me you would rejoice for me, because I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than me.  And now I’m telling you before it happens, that when it happens you will believe.  I will no longer talk much to you, since the ruler of this world is coming.  He has nothing on me, but that the world may know that I love the Father and do as the Father has commanded me, so I’m doing this.  Rise, let’s leave from here.”  (John 14:15-31)

Jesus has been telling his disciples what their work will be while he is gone and how that will be accomplished.  The world will know that we are his followers if we love one another, and in faith we will do the works Jesus did knowing that there is guarantee of a home with the Father that Jesus will take us to.  But now Jesus begins to focus on how he will work through us to make us obedient to his charge to reach the world.  The how-to starts with loving him and therefore obeying him, and that will lead to him asking the Father to give us the Holy Spirit.  Here is what Jesus wants us to know about the Holy Spirit:

– He is our helper (“another helper” of the same kind) just like Jesus was.  Jesus is giving the Spirit to us just as the Father gave us Jesus, but as spirit ,the Holy Spirit will dwell inside us, giving us the same truth Jesus did, encouraging us the way Jesus did, loving us as Jesus did, and empowering us as Jesus did.

– Having the Spirit will be having the Father and Jesus present with us.  Though Jesus is gone from earth physically, he is with us spiritually, as is the Father, loving His obedient children and manifesting Himself to us in a way the world cannot understand, being at home with us so that we are not latch-key kids, and are not orphans nor abandoned in any way.

– The Spirit will teach us and with Him will come Jesus’ peace.  Jesus leaves peace with his disciples, peace that comes with their knowing that he is going to the Father, something we should rejoice in, and that comes from all his teaching, which the Holy Spirit will bring to the remembrance of these original disciples and which will be shared with us through their teaching and the Spirit’s own work in our hearts.

The Helper is helping us to become all that Jesus means for us to become…helping us to be like Jesus.

Discussion Questions

1. What motivations did your parents give you to obey them?
2. What does Jesus say should motivate us to keep his commands?
3. Why does Jesus need to send us the Holy Spirit as a Helper?
4. If Jesus is equal to the Father as deity, in what sense is the Father greater than Jesus?  Is Jesus greater than the Holy Spirit?
5. What did Jesus mean when he said the ruler of this world was coming for him?
6. What have you experienced of the peace Jesus said he was leaving his disciples with?