This is a copy of my talk given at Ayia Kyriaki and Saint Luke’s in the Anglican Church of Paphos on Sunday 10 May 2026. The Bible Reading was John 14:15-21

Prayer

Heavenly Father,
I thank You for Your word.
By the power of Your Holy Spirit,
May You speak to my heart,
And change my life.
In the precious name of Jesus I pray.
Amen

Introduction

In our reading from John 14, on the night before his own death, when the disciples were beginning to get distraught and the thought of life without Jesus was so overwhelming, Jesus told them 14:1:“Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  In other words, “stop worrying.” Jesus knew how they felt and the challenges ahead of them, so he told them that he would send someone who would guide and help them do what they had to do.

Jesus made several promises to his disciples: to send a Helper or another Counsellor (vs16); to send the Spirit of Truth (vs16); that he will not leave us like orphans (vs18); and he will give us union with the Father who will love us (vs21). And in doing so, he introduced them to the third person of the Trinity – the Holy Spirit. Some versions say that God will send another Helper, some say Comforter, but Counsellor is a more accurate translation of the original Greek word, Parakletos. Essentially, it is someone called in to help in times of need or trouble.

The Person of the Holy Spirit

When someone is so important to you, you don’t want someone else you want the person themselves to stay. Vs16-17: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth.” If I were to ask you to describe God the Father, what would you say? That he is Creator, he made us and knows about us and cares for us. If I were to ask you to tell me something about God the Son, I am sure you would say he is the human face of God, the second person in the Trinity who came to die on the cross for our sins, has been raised to life, ascended to the Father and will come again to judge the living and the dead!

But if I were to ask you about the Holy Spirit, it might be a bit more difficult. Of the three persons of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit is the one we seem to understand the least. The Holy Spirit seems a shadowy figure, and even more so when he used to be referred to as the ‘Holy Ghost’ you can’t get more shadowy than a ghost! Perhaps the most common mistake is to think of the Holy Spirit as being more of a power than a person.

The first thing to need to understand is that the Holy Spirit is a person in his own right, he is not a creation of God. The Holy Spirit is referred to in Genesis 1, hovering over the waters at creation. In fact, through the Bible, the Holy Spirit had been sent at certain times, to certain places and upon certain people in order to fulfil God’s purposes.

The Holy Spirit of Truth

That the Holy Spirit is a person is underscored for us in verse 15-16 as well as unpacking for us the kind of person he is: ‘I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth.’  vs17: 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.’ It is through the Spirit of Truth that we will learn about the Father, about how we can be saved and have eternal life. He will also give us some home truths about ourselves, things that we may not always want to hear but what he wants to change in us, so we become more Christlike in thought, word and deed.

The presence of the Holy Spirit will transform our lives when we understand and believe that we are being inhabited and led not by some impersonal force from a distant God, but by a person who is God Himself and whose very essence is the love of God.

It is through obedience that we prove our love for Christ. He says in vs15, “If you love me, keep my commandments.” We all know how easy it is to say you love someone but in the same breath get irritated by them. How often do we fail to show kindness and patience to those we say we love? Words are not enough; we are to be obedient to God’s commands. Jesus proved his love by his obedience to the Father and by dying for us.

The Purpose of the Holy Spirit

So, what of the purpose of the Holy Spirit? First of all, he is someone who is with the follower of Jesus forever, vs17 ‘you know him for he lives with you and will be in you.’ But even more startling is the other word Jesus uses, that he will be ‘in’ us. In this way he works differently to the way Jesus did while he was on earth. There Jesus was ‘with’ his disciples, but not ‘in’ them. Here we are told he will be ‘in’ all the followers of Jesus for all time. So why is he with us and in us? Jesus goes on to explain, vs18: ‘I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.’ Jesus has just been speaking about sending the Helper, the Holy Spirit to be with and in his followers and immediately he follows this up by speaking of himself being with them.

God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – our Creator, our Saviour and our Advocate each have a special interest in your growth, your health, your welfare and above all your future. They want to be with you on earth because they want you to be with them in heaven. When we obey God’s word and fulfil our mission, God comes to us and amazing things happen:

Barriers are broken, Enemies are reconciled, Disease is cured, Addiction is conquered, Hope is established, People are blessed, Communities are formed, Unity is established, and Church happens. When God sends the Holy Spirit … Discouraged people cheer up, Dishonest people clean up, Sour people sweeten up, Gossipers shut up, Conflicted people make up, Sleeping people wake up, Lukewarm people, fire up, But most of all, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour of all the world, is lifted up (Stephen Sizer).

The Holy Spirit as Teacher

The Holy Spirit wants us to mature and grow in our understanding and faith, it will take us a lifetime but he has a reminding ministry and we can see from this how the disciples and New Testament authors were able to record their experiences and the words of Jesus, it was because the Holy Spirit was reminding them for our benefit what Jesus had said and done so that we might learn. We can trust the words and the witness of the writers because it was the Holy Spirit prompting and refining memories.

It is this reminding ministry that grounds us and prevents us from  always looking for the new word because it is his aim to remind us of the word that Jesus spoke and what he did and in doing so magnify Christ, he wants always to draw us back to what Jesus said and did rather than what some preacher says. It is what Jesus did and what Jesus said that is significant for us today.

 The Holy Spirit Is Holy

It’s worth remembering that he is the Holy Spirit and therefore is concerned with holiness, not a word we use much and if we are honest not something we aspire to. If someone calls you holy you feel that they are making fun of you and making you out some kind of pious goody two shoes, but in the biblical sense, holiness means being set apart, belonging to the Lord and serving Him and worshipping him out of a thankful heart for what he has done. We are to be distinct in the world by how we live without being some kind of weird spoil sport.

The Holy Spirit’s concern is in producing holiness in us and encouraging our service to be real, relevant and effective and He is not content with having access to some areas of our lives, he wants access to it all. He teaches us that it is only through Jesus that we can know the truth about life, our humanity, our needs, and how we can come into relationship with the Father, because it is always all about Jesus. The Holy Spirit never takes the limelight he always points to Jesus because Jesus is “The way the truth and the life” and it is the Holy Spirit who reveals him to us. The Spirit of Truth is given to us to lead us to the One who is the Truth.

The Holy Spirit as the Bringer of Peace

Finally, the Holy Spirit is the bringer of peace. Jesus won us peace with God through his death on the cross. His death atoned (paid the price) for our sins and reconciled us to the Father and, because of this, the peace that existed between himself and God is now available to us.

Jesus was totally secure in the knowledge that he was loved by his Father and we can also be secure in the knowledge that the Father loves us, we are God’s children, adopted into his family by the blood of Christ, we belong to Him now and forever and nothing can break the bond between the Father and ourselves. John 14:27: 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.’

Conclusion

Beside the Bible, the other book that has probably helped me the most to understand my identity as a child of God, is Jim Packer’s classic, Knowing God. I’ll let him have the last word:

Do I, as a Christian, understand myself? Do I know my own real identity? My own real destiny? I am a child of God. God is my Father; heaven is my home; every day is one day nearer. My Saviour is my brother; every Christian is my brother too. Say it over and over to yourself first thing in the morning, last thing at night, as you wait for the bus, any time when your mind is free, and ask that you may be enabled to live as one who knows it is all utterly and completely true. For this is the Christian’s secret of a happy life? Yes, certainly, but we have something both higher and profounder to say. This is the Christian’s secret of a Christian life, and of a God-honouring life … May this secret become fully yours, and fully mine (Knowing God, pp.258-260).

COPYRIGHT DISCLAIMER The text contained in this sermon (except where stated) is solely owned by its author, Revd Paul A. Carr. The reproduction, or distribution of this message, or any portion of it, should include the author’s name.