Over the next several weeks, we’re focusing intently on what Jesus teaches His disciples about the Holy Spirit. These chapters, John 14 through 16, record Jesus’ final conversation with His disciples before the cross. It’s Thursday night. Judas has already gone out to betray Him. The arrest is only hours away. And what does Jesus do in these final moments? He comforts His disciples. He prepares them. And He makes them a promise: not just that He will return someday, but that the Spirit of God will come to live in them.
This morning we dedicated a child to the Lord, and in doing so, we asked for God’s help to raise that child to know and love Jesus. Why? Because we know that good intentions and moral instruction aren’t enough. We need the Spirit’s help to carry out what Christ has entrusted to us. And that’s exactly what Jesus is doing here, He’s dedicating His disciples to the mission, but He’s not sending them in their own strength. He’s asking the Father to send the Helper. Because just as a child can’t grow without guidance and strength, the Church can’t thrive without the Spirit. This promise isn’t sentimental, it’s missional. It’s not soft, it’s strong. Jesus is preparing His people to be filled with divine power so they can go out and turn the world upside down.
This is not background theology, it’s front-line discipleship. Jesus is handing off His mission, and He’s making clear that His followers will not carry it alone. That’s why we’re not rushing through this. We need to hear what Jesus says about the Spirit, because without Him, we have no power, no peace, no perseverance. And that brings us to our verse for today
John 14:16-17 NASB “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; 17 that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.
What did Jesus mean when He said, “He will be in you”? He did not mean that you simply “ask Jesus into your heart.” That phrase, though familiar to many, never appears in the Bible. No apostle ever told anyone to become a Christian that way. It likely began as child-friendly shorthand to describe receiving Christ personally, and in some cases, God may have graciously used it. But over time, it has become a poor substitute for the biblical call to repent and believe. The danger is not in the phrase itself, but in how it’s often used. It may leave people thinking they are saved because they “invited” Jesus in, rather than because they were born again by the Spirit of God. The same Jesus that He stands at the door of a lukewarm church and knocks (Rev. 3:14) also says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Me.”
When we equate the indwelling of the Spirit with a feeling or a phrase, we risk giving false assurance to those who have never truly repented, never truly believed, and never truly been changed. The danger is real. This language can produce false converts, people who remember a prayer, but bear no fruit. People who call Him Savior, but never surrender to Him as King. People who live with no hunger for holiness, no grief over sin, no burden for the lost, and yet assume they are saved because of something they said, not Someone who lives in them. But John 14:17 speaks of more than invitation, it speaks of invasion. The Spirit doesn’t knock politely, He moves in and takes over. And when He does, everything changes. And the Word of God does not hesitate to make it plain.
Romans 8:9 NASB …if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
If the Spirit does not dwell in you, if your heart has not been changed, your mind transformed, your desires redirected, then you are not His. You may have walked an aisle. You may have gotten wet in a baptistry. But if your Christianity is void of power, hunger, obedience, and witness, then it may also be void of Christ. Paul goes further:
Romans 8:5-8 NASB For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
So what does it look like when the Spirit doesn’t just dwell with God’s people, but in them? John the Baptist declared at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry “I baptize you with water, but One is coming… He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire” (Luke 3:16). He was declaring that the Messiah would flood His people with the living, purifying, empowering presence of God Himself. Before the Spirit came, the disciples were confused and self-protective. Do you recall how many times Jesus had to callout the disciples for their little faith? And how Peter had crumbled under pressure and denied Christ? After Jesus’ crucifixion, they hid behind locked doors (John 20:19). Even after the resurrection, they were still asking if He was about to restore the kingdom to Israel (Acts 1:6). In Acts 1:5, Jesus told them, “John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” They didn’t fully understand what that meant, but Jesus explained the result:
Acts 1:8 NASB but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
The Promise of Presence Is a Call to Mission.
The Spirit would not just cleanse and comfort them, He would clothe them with power to testify about Jesus across boundaries, barriers, and even bloodshed. From hiding in fear to heralding Christ in public, the Spirit would make them witnesses, people willing to die so that others might hear and live.
That promise exploded into history in Acts 2. The Spirit descended, not upon one prophet, but upon all the gathered believers. And it wasn’t subtle. The sound of wind, the appearance of fire, the eruption of speech in multiple languages, all testified that heaven had invaded earth. This was the baptism with the Holy Spirit that Jesus had foretold. And the result was unmistakable.
Peter, once a coward before a servant girl, now stood in front of thousands and proclaimed Christ crucified and risen. This was no strategy. It was no hype. It was the fulfillment of Jesus’ words: “You shall be My witnesses.” Empowered by the Spirit, Peter declared truth with clarity and conviction, and over 3,000 people were cut to the heart and saved. And when the crowd asked what they must do, Peter responded in
Acts 2:38 NASB Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is the promised gift to every person who turns to Christ. And when He comes to live inside you, He turns you into a joyful, risk-taking, sin-hating, lover of Christ, who is so thrilled by the beauty of Jesus that you cannot help but speak His name, even at great personal cost.
That’s exactly what happened in the early church. So radical was the impact of their witness that in Acts 17:6, angry mobs dragged believers before the authorities and shouted, “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also!” That wasn’t flattery, it was fear. These Spirit-filled believers were dismantling idol systems, confronting sin, toppling cultural assumptions, and declaring that “there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). And they did it without weapons, without wealth, and without status. Just boldness, truth, and the Holy Spirit.
The early Church altered the trajectory of world history. They carried the gospel from a single city to the heart of the Roman Empire. They shattered the boundaries of race, class, and geography. Within a generation, the name of Jesus was being preached across three continents, and not because of savvy strategy, but because the Spirit of the risen Christ lived inside His people, empowering them to go, to speak, to suffer, and to rejoice. They turned the world upside down, because the Spirit had turned them inside out. That is what a Spirit-filled Christian looks like.
In a world where unwanted infants were routinely discarded, Christians, moved by the Spirit of adoption, rescued and raised them, laying the foundation for human dignity, orphan care, and the sanctity of life. In a society steeped in sexual exploitation and male dominance, they taught that the body was a temple of the Holy Spirit. They called men to purity and honored marriage as a sacred, mutual covenant, upending centuries of sexual injustice. Economically, they stunned the world with radical generosity. They shared their possessions, fed widows, and cared for the poor like family. In doing so, they birthed the very concept of charitable infrastructure. In a world where slavery was accepted as normal, they insisted that masters and slaves were brothers in Christ. With that conviction, they planted seeds that would one day grow into abolition. When plagues devastated cities, it wasn’t philosophers or Roman priests who stayed. It was Christians, full of the Spirit, who nursed the sick and buried the dead. Their compassion wasn’t theoretical. It was embodied.
Through all this, the Church turned the world upside down, not with swords or political power, but with holiness, truth, mercy, and Spirit-empowered love. Their lives made the invisible kingdom visible. And the same Holy Spirit who animated them dwells in us. But if that’s true, why does our modern world look more like ancient Rome than Acts 2? Why is it still so dark? Could it be that we have too many professing Christians with right beliefs but no burning witness? Too many who speak of Christ, but live without His fire? The world doesn’t need more Christian opinion, it needs people filled with the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just come beside you to clean up your messes or whisper comfort when you’re hungover with regret, He comes in you to break you, raise you, and send you.
The Spirit-Filled Life Cannot Be Apathetic.
The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in the believer. The same Spirit that turned fishermen into preachers and tax collectors into martyrs is in you. That means your ordinary life is not an obstacle to God’s mission, it’s the very soil He intends to sow with resurrection power. You want to do some real good in the world before you die? Then stop trying to write your own redemption story. Lay it down. And let the Spirit of God write something eternal with your life.
You say you’re tired of the headlines? Of the brokenness? Of the moral collapse? Then stop cursing the darkness. Be filled with the Spirit. Raise your kids to fear God. Pray like eternity depends on it. Speak the name of Jesus when it’s inconvenient. Stand for truth when it costs you something. Love the unlovable. Call sinners to repentance. Preach the gospel. And die with fire in your bones. Because when the Spirit of Christ is in you, the world doesn’t stay the same.
Think of the world your sons and daughters, your grandkids, are going to inherit. What kind of culture are we preparing for them? What kind of gospel legacy are we leaving behind? The world isn’t drifting toward Jesus. It’s drifting toward despair. Unless Spirit-filled believers stand up and speak up, your children will grow up in a world that calls evil good. A world that mocks what is holy. A world that silences truth by calling it hate.
You’d take a bullet for your kids. You’d fight for your family. You’d speak up if someone mocked your mom, slandered your wife, or threatened someone you love. Because when you love someone, you don’t care what it costs, you show up. But what does Jesus really means to you if you’re too afraid to speak His name in front of a coworker? What does it say about your view of the gospel if you can’t tell a friend that Christ is the only way to life? If the Spirit is in you, why do you go silent?
Maybe you’re not ashamed of Him. Maybe you just don’t love Him like you think you do. Because we always speak about what we value. We defend what we love. We take risks for what we believe matters. So when your mouth stays closed, your silence is saying something: “Jesus isn’t worth the awkwardness. He’s not worth the cost.” But if He really is in you, the fear doesn’t have the final word. You can confess your coldness. You can ask Him to rekindle your affections. You can yield again. And when He fills you, boldness follows.
Why does the world need this today? Because it’s dying under the weight of sin, deception, and false religion. It’s choking on empty ideologies. Drowning in false promises of freedom. Selling its soul for dopamine and affirmation. It doesn’t need more church buildings, Christian events, or cute slogans. It doesn’t need cultural Christianity with a fresh coat of paint. It needs people who are possessed by Christ, not in theory, but in power. People who walk into darkness with light in their eyes. People whose holiness makes the world uncomfortable. People whose joy isn’t explainable. People who grieve over sin and speak of Jesus like He’s alive, because He is. The world doesn’t need your spiritual hobbies. It needs your full surrender. It needs fire-baptized Christians, indwelt by the Spirit, driven by love, fearless in witness, and willing to bleed if it means just one more soul hears the gospel of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus said, “He will be in you,” He wasn’t just offering you help. He was offering you purpose. You weren’t created to live a safe, manageable life. You were created to be filled with God, to walk with Him, speak for Him, and pour out your life for His glory. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just comfort you in your weakness. He reorders your loves. He rewires your identity. He makes Jesus real to your heart, so that obedience becomes joy, and witness becomes purpose.
The mission of Christ is not some side project for the spiritually elite. It’s not a burden laid on your back after you get saved. It is the very reason you were made. The Spirit comes not just to secure your salvation, but to ignite your life. He doesn’t just remind you that you’re forgiven, He fills you with love for the One who forgave you. And when that happens, the mission stops feeling like an obligation and starts feeling like the overflow of a heart that’s seen glory.
The problem is that many of us still carry a false narrative about God. We think He saved us to be good people. To behave. To stop sinning and stay out of trouble. So we treat the Christian life like a chore chart: read your Bible, go to church, try to be nice. But the Holy Spirit isn’t interested in producing nice people. He produces new people, people so gripped by grace, so awakened to Christ’s beauty, so filled with resurrection hope, that they can’t help but witness. People who see lostness and run toward it. People who lay down comfort to reach the hurting. People who know that life isn’t about self-preservation, it’s about gospel proclamation.
And here’s the breakthrough: when the Spirit fills you, mission doesn’t feel like a burden. It feels like home. It feels like this is what I was born for. Because it is. And if that’s not how you feel right now, don’t fake it. Confess it. Ask the Spirit to rekindle your heart, to show you the glory of Christ again, and to send you, not in your strength, but in His.
The Diagnosis Is Either Complacency… or Lostness.
If this kind of Spirit-filled, Christ-exalting, world-disrupting purpose feels foreign to you, if it stirs longing more than recognition, then it’s time to be honest with yourself.
Some of you are dry, not because God has withdrawn, but because you’ve stopped yielding. You’ve treated the Holy Spirit like a background app, quietly running while you live on your own terms. Your faith has grown dull, your prayers shallow, and your fire dim. That’s not because He left. It’s because you’ve stopped surrendering. This is complacency. And it grieves the Spirit.
But for others, the problem is more serious. You’re not dry, you’re dead. You’re not Spirit-filled, you’re self-led. You may have walked an aisle, said a prayer, or grown up around Christianity, but the Spirit has never taken residence in you. That’s why your heart doesn’t burn with love for Christ. That’s why you’re not broken over the lost. That’s why your faith feels more like an obligation than a relationship. You’ve built your assurance on emotion, memory, or tradition, but not on regeneration. That’s not complacency. That’s lostness. And it’s eternally dangerous.
Yet even now, the invitation stands. Jesus didn’t die to improve your habits or decorate your morals. He died to give you a new heart, and He rose to pour His Spirit into all who repent and believe. The Holy Spirit is not optional. He is essential. If He’s not in you, you do not belong to Christ. But if you will turn to Him, confess your sin, and call on His name, He will not leave you outside. He will cleanse you, fill you, and mark you as His own. And the life that begins in that moment will not be safe, but it will be real. And it will be worth everything.
And maybe you’re here today, and if you’re honest, you’ve made peace with being a disappointment. You’ve wasted years, hurt people you love, made promises you didn’t keep. You still believe in God, but your life feels powerless. Deep down, you hope your good intentions and fierce loyalty to those you care about might count for something. You think, “I may not be a saint, but I’m not heartless.” But the gospel isn’t about balancing the scales. It’s about being born again.
You’ll protect your family without a second thought. You’ll stand up for others when they’re in danger. But when it comes to Christ, your courage disappears. You’ve fought for people, but not for truth. You’ve defended your friends, but not your faith. You want your life to count, but you’ve settled for being respected instead of being redeemed. And you tell yourself you’re “once saved, always saved,” but there’s no fire, no fruit, no Spirit. That’s not salvation, it’s self-deception. If the Holy Spirit is not in you, you do not belong to Christ. That’s not me talking.
Romans 8:9 NASB …if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
And if He is not in you, then you are not alive. You are not clean. And no amount of loyalty or religious memory can change that. You need to be born again. You don’t need a second chance, you need a resurrection. And the good news? Jesus didn’t come for people who have it all together. He came for sinners. For the weak. For the weary. For the wasted. For the person who’s finally done pretending, finally done drifting, finally ready to lose everything to gain Christ. You can have that. Right now. But not without surrender.
There’s a group of men my prayer team and I lift up every week. We call them “the husbands.” You probably don’t know who they are, but we do. We pray for them by name. Some of them reject Christ outright. Others say they’re “good with God.” Some even come to church from time to time, maybe talk about their faith when it comes up. But here’s what breaks my heart: for many of them, I see no evidence that the Spirit of God lives within them.
These men are strong. Respected. Always ready to protect the people they love. If someone threatened their family or friends, they wouldn’t hesitate to step in. But when it comes to Christ, there’s no fire. No joy in Jesus. No hunger for His Word. No urgency to share the gospel. But this isn’t about whether you’re tough. It’s about whether you’ve been made new. You might be brave in the eyes of man, but the real question is, has the Spirit of God made you alive?
You’ve broken God’s law. You haven’t loved Him with all your heart. You’ve lived like He’s optional, like His commands are suggestions. You’ve loved your comforts more than your Creator, your reputation more than His Word. You have grieved His Holy Spirit. And the truth is, your sin isn’t a mistake to be excused, it’s treason against a holy God. You deserve judgment. Eternal separation. Wrath. And yet, this holy God, whose justice burns against sin, is also rich in mercy. He did not leave you condemned. He sent His Son, not just to warn you, but to rescue you.
Everyone wants to be on the “right side of history.” But history is not moving toward some vague moral progress defined by cultural trends. It’s moving toward a throne. One day, every story, every kingdom, every ideology will be measured by one Person, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen, returning in glory. And when that day comes, there will be no spin rooms, no pride parades, no courtroom appeals. Just truth. Just justice. Just the King. And every knee will bow. Every tongue will confess. And every soul will know exactly where they stood.
Those who lived for themselves will weep, not because they weren’t spiritual, but because they rejected the Lord of glory. They traded eternal joy for fleeting comfort. They followed their hearts and lost their souls. And in that moment, all of history will be clear. The only people on the right side of it will be those who humbled themselves, repented of sin, and followed the Lamb who was slain.
Jesus Christ is not a tame, sentimental figure. He is the Lion of Judah, roaring with power, trampling death under His feet. He is the Warrior King who entered the battle you could never win, and won it for you. But He is also the Lamb. The sacrifice. Gentle and lowly, He came not to crush you, but to be crushed in your place. On the cross, He bore your guilt. He drank the cup of wrath you earned. He died so you might live.
And now, He stands risen. Glorious. Calling sinners to come. Not to improve themselves. Not to add Him to their life. But to surrender, to be made new. When you repent and believe, you’re not just forgiven. You’re filled. His Spirit comes to dwell in you, to change you from the inside out. That’s not theory. That’s reality. That’s the promise. Jesus said “He will be in you.”
So don’t harden your heart. Don’t trust in vague belief, half-hearted prayers, or borrowed religion. Come to Christ, the King who conquers and the Shepherd who carries. Bow before Him. Trust Him. Follow Him. And He will not only forgive you, He will live in you. Don’t settle for a Christianity that merely believes the Spirit is real, live like He is in you, because if He is, then you were born for more than survival; you were born for mission, you were born to live for Christ.
