A sermon on John 14:15-26 by Rev Richard Keith on Sunday 10 May 2026
Over the last couple of weeks we’ve been looking at essential doctrines: the truths about God that are vital for Christians to believe. Two weeks ago we saw that only God is God. There is no one like him. Nothing we fear, nothing we love can be compared to him. Last week we saw that Jesus is truly God and truly human. He is Lord. He makes God known to us. And he gives us the right to become God’s children.
Today we come to the Spirit. And here the crucial question is slightly different. If you read through the Old Testament, one thing becomes clear very quickly. The Spirit is divine. The Spirit is God at work in the world he has made. He is God with his sleeves rolled up, doing things, changing things, making them different, making them better. In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the Spirit was already there, hovering over the ancient seas. Elsewhere we see that he is the giver of life, renewing the hope and strength of the weary. He is also the giver of wisdom, helping God’s people know right from wrong, to see what is good and better and best. And he is the giver of prophecy, carrying God’s word to the prophet, and then carrying it from the prophet’s lips into the hearts of those who hear. Wherever God touches his world, the Spirit is there at the point of contact. If you have ever had a genuine experience of God, if you have heard his voice, or known his strength when your own ran out, you’ve had a close encounter with the Spirit of God, whether you knew it or not.
So the Spirit is God. It is the consistent message of the Old Testament. It was never seriously in doubt. But here is the question the New Testament forces us to answer. Is the Spirit a force or a person?
Because those are two very different things. A force is a resource. You draw on it, channel it, harness it for your own purposes. And if we’re honest, a force is what many Christians are really looking for when they talk about the Spirit. More power. More energy. More of whatever it is they feel they’re lacking. But a force can also be controlled. If you learn the right techniques, follow the right principles, apply the right methods, the force does what you need it to do. Then worship becomes a formula. Prayer becomes a mechanism. God becomes a system. Church becomes a time and a place where we gather for our weekly recharge.
But a person can’t be reduced to a formula or a system. A person has their own goals, their own feelings, their own values. A person makes their own choices. A person doesn’t exist for your benefit and won’t be managed for your convenience. And a person, unlike a force, can be known. Can know you. Can love you, and be loved in return.
In John chapter 14, on the night of the last supper, Jesus settled this question. The Spirit is not a force. He is a person, fully God, and yet distinct from the Father and the Son. Which means that the Christian life isn’t ultimately about getting more out of God. It’s about knowing God. Being known by him. Loved by him. And loving him in return.
Jesus knew he was leaving his disciples. That very night he would be arrested and put on trial. The next day he would be nailed to the cross. And even though he would be raised to life, the time was coming soon for him to return to his Father, to take his place at his Father’s side. Jesus was leaving them, and his last words to them were chosen carefully. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.”
This is the heart of discipleship. This is what it means to follow Jesus. It is a relationship with a living person that is intimate but never equal. Jesus is Lord, and so we love him, and because we love him, we obey him. We do what he says. We listen to him and we put his words into practice. “Love one another,” he said, “as I have loved you. Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
God is not an idea. He is not an impersonal force like gravity that we can take for granted or control. He is our heavenly Father. And Jesus our Lord is our teacher and guide, our brother and companion in all our troubles. To know him is to love him. And to love him is to obey him.
And that relationship with Jesus will bear fruit in the gift of the Spirit. Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever — the Spirit of truth.” Jesus was leaving them, but he would make sure that they would not be alone, that they would have another counselor. All that Jesus had been for them — their counselor, their advisor, their encourager, their comforter, their advocate — another would take on all those roles. Someone to teach them. Someone to guide them through the difficult decisions of life. Someone to stand up for them, to pray with them and for them. Someone to lift up their spirits when they felt discouraged. Someone to remind them of God’s great promises. Someone to help them transform their attitudes and values according to the pattern of the will of God. For Jesus would intercede for them from the Father’s side to ask him to send to them another counselor, the Spirit of truth. Not a power or force to give them the strength or resilience they needed to soldier on on their own. Not a lesser being who would do its best to fill in for Jesus’ absence. But a fully divine person who could enter into the same kind of intimate relationship with them that Jesus had. One who would lead them, like Jesus had, by walking beside them. As Jesus said, “I will not leave you as orphans.”
An impersonal force would be available to anyone, anywhere, if they only knew how to tap into its source and harness its power. But the Spirit is a person who can be known, who can be accepted and who can also be rejected. As Jesus said in verse 17, “The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.”
The world is in rebellion against God. The world and its powers of state and religion refused to accept Jesus and conspired against him to put him to death on the cross. And so the world refuses to accept the Spirit, because he is the Spirit of Jesus, sent by the Father to Jesus’ followers in response to Jesus’ request. But we know the Spirit because we know Jesus, and the Spirit is Jesus’ gift to us to work for us and within us. Not just giving us power to do what we want, but making us able to become the people who truly love God and who live to love others in his name.
It’s a relationship of mutual trust and freedom. The Spirit is a person and can’t be just plugged into. He must be accepted or rejected. And we are persons too, made in the image of our heavenly Father. And so the Spirit cannot just be imposed on us unwillingly, forcing us to do what we don’t really want to do. Because the Spirit is, as Jesus said, another Counselor, he doesn’t work against our will, but helps us become who we really want and need to be. Because the Spirit is, as Jesus said, the Spirit of truth, he works primarily by helping us see what is real and true, and helping us to want that truth and to live by it, and most especially by reminding us of Jesus’ teaching. As Jesus said, “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
As a person, the Holy Spirit exists in a relationship of love with the other members of the Holy Trinity. He is sent by the Father in the name of the Son, the Lord Jesus. As a servant of this fellowship of love in God, the Holy Spirit has something to teach us. But his job is not to invent new teachings or to lead us into strange and novel experiences, but to teach us by reminding us of the words of Jesus. For although we rely on the Spirit, we confess Jesus as Lord. And although we are led by the Spirit, we are disciples of Christ, and the Spirit works primarily by helping us transform into the image of Christ. For he is the Spirit of truth, and so he serves the one who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” And so the Spirit does his work in us and for us as he reminds us of Jesus’ words: “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven.” “If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” These are the kind of lessons that we are prone to forget, and yet if we do, we have wandered from the truth as Jesus taught it. And he reminds us of the wonderful promises of Jesus: “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Promises which, if we forget them, we will be tempted to give up the way of Jesus.
So is the Spirit a force or a person? He is a person. He is fully God, sent by the Father at the request of the Son, to be with us and within us for ever. He is not a resource to be tapped or a power to be harnessed. He is not the weekly recharge we collect on a Sunday morning and spend through the week. He is a counselor who walks beside us. A comforter who stays with us in the dark. An advocate who prays for us when we have run out of words. And a teacher who keeps bringing us back to the words of Jesus, whether we find them challenging or comforting, whether we want to hear them or would rather forget them. He is with you now. Not because you have found the right technique or said the right prayer or worked yourself up into the right frame of mind. But because you know Jesus. And because you know Jesus, you know the Spirit.
The Christian life is not about getting more out of God. It is about knowing God. The Father who made you. The Son who saved you. And the Spirit who stays with you, every day, every hour, every moment you need him. Which is every moment of every day.