The Gospel readings for the past four Sundays and then again next Sunday all come from the section of John’s Gospel, when Jesus teaches His disciples many things right before He is betrayed. He prepares them for life without His physical, localized presence after His ascension into heaven. He also prepares them for the coming of the Holy Spirit after He departs.

Jesus says, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father.” The Helper is the Holy Spirit. After Jesus suffers, dies, rises from the dead, and ascends into heaven, He will send the Holy Spirit from God the Father. From this verse, we get the line in the Nicene Creed that we confessed a little bit ago. “I believe in the Holy Spirit… who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the son together is worshiped and glorified.”

The Holy Spirit is here called by Jesus, “the Helper,” or from the original Greek language, “the Paraclete.” The basic meaning of this name is that the Holy Spirit is one who stands beside God’s people. We could be thinking in terms of courtroom imagery so that He is the Advocate or Counselor, as in Defense Counselor. We could be thinking in terms of a hospital so that He is the Comforter or Helper. The point is that the Holy Spirit comes to be by our side as our Helper. And He doesn’t just help a little bit so that we can be the major players in the thing we need help with most—our salvation and being made holy. The Holy Spirit is our Helper in the way mom and dad help a three-year-old clean up his or her room—the Holy Spirit is the one who ultimately gets it done.

The Lord calls the Holy Spirit “the Spirit of Truth.” He is the Spirit sent to Help the disciples (and all of Jesus’ followers) by being a beacon of the Truth, by proclaiming the Truth, by taking the Truth and declaring it to the disciples and all who believe. That Truth is Jesus, who is the Word and whose Word the Holy Spirit proclaims.

As the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit has an important job in the economy of God. He bears witness about Jesus. He testifies to Jesus—who He is as God’s Son, what He has come to do as Savior, and why He has come to save sinners. And through the Holy Spirit’s witness of Jesus, the glory of the Father is revealed—for Jesus is the image of His glory. As the Lord says, “If you have seen me, you’ve seen the Father.”

The Holy Spirit will bear witness through the apostles’ preaching and teaching. He will teach them all things and bring to their remembrance all that Jesus said to them. He will guide them into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to them the things that are to come. Therefore, aided by the Holy Spirit, the apostles will bear witness to the things Jesus taught and did throughout His ministry, because they were eyewitnesses of these things from the beginning.

As believers and followers of Jesus, you have been brought into the mission of bearing witness to Jesus. For you have received the Word of the apostles that they received from Jesus through the Holy Spirit. You have come to know Jesus, God’s Son, your Savior. You have come to recognize Jesus’ Father as your heavenly Father. You are brought into the mission of bearing witness to Jesus in your homes, among family, friends, and neighbors, even with strangers, whenever and wherever you have the opportunity.

Why did Jesus tell the disciples all the things He told them on the night of His betrayal? The main reason is to keep them (and to keep you) from falling away—especially when everything seems to be going wrong. The most important thing that Jesus and His Father and the Holy Spirit are worried about is your eternal destiny. God cares more about where and with whom sinners spend eternity than He cares about the things of this world.

Sure, the Lord may give us good things and allow us to live the good life, but then He may also give us suffering and hardship and toil and pain. He may not give you the really nice house or the super fancy car. He may not give you super awesome health. He may not give you relationships free from strife. He may not give you a life free from persecution. He may not even give you a life free from a martyr’s death.

The Lord knows what you need. He knows what will harm your soul. His biggest concern is that you remain faithful to Him who is the Truth. And the Helper guides us through these things as our faithful Advocate—always and ever pointing us to Christ our Savior.

This message of comfort from the Lord Jesus is important as far as the “head’s up” He gives the disciples and the Church. There will be persecution.  “They will put you out of the synagogues.” Already at this point in Jesus’ ministry, some of the Pharisees and Scribes were kicking people out of the synagogue for following Jesus. They were removed from their local congregations for believing that Jesus is the Messiah, God’s Son.

If that’s not bad enough, Jesus says there would be a day coming (in fact, it would begin that very night with the Lord’s betrayal) when “whoever kills you will think He is offering service to God.” The apostles would stare death in the face for bearing witness to the Truth of Jesus.

We are all well aware of the persecution brought upon the Church by the world. We are well aware that in some parts of the world, the Church has to worship in secret so that they aren’t discovered by government leaders. We are well aware that in some parts of the world, Christians have been beheaded for worshiping Jesus. We should be well aware that in some employment industries a person can be fired, harming their livelihood—maybe not for outright rejecting Jesus but—for standing on the Truth of Scripture in the face of demands to deny God’s Word.

Now, I want you to think about this, brothers and sisters in Christ, Jesus here isn’t talking about persecution from the world. He’s not talking about what the Romans would do to the disciples. He’s talking about what the disciples’ own people would do to them. He’s talking about persecution that comes from those who claim to worship the same God. They rejected Jesus, condemning Him to death and bringing Him before the Romans to carry out the deed. They stoned Stephen to death, while Paul—before he became a Christian—nodded approvingly. After Paul became a Christian, he was stoned on more than one occasion. Eventually, he was arrested. Why would those who claim to follow God do this to God’s Son and His followers? They actually thought they were serving God by it.

This means the scariest persecution doesn’t come from the world. It comes from within those who claim to be Christians. It comes from those in churches who call you closeminded and intolerant because you believe that Jesus is the only way to salvation. It comes from those in churches who call you a bigot because you believe the Bible’s teaching on sexuality. It comes from those in churches who might say you aren’t nice enough, aren’t missional enough, aren’t loving enough because you stand on some aspect of the Truth of the Lord’s Word.

Jesus is letting the apostles and all believers and followers know what can be expected for devoting your allegiance to Him. Times of peace and prosperity aren’t guaranteed. For being a child of God you will experience hardship and suffering to some degree—some Christians more and some less—from the powers of darkness. Yet, the Lord lets you bear what you need to bear for the sake of Christ, because He desires your salvation above worldly comforts.

The world and those who may claim to be believers but persecute God’s children are willing to do so because they have not known God the Father or His Son, Jesus Christ. To know the Father and the Son is to have an intimate relationship with them. God is our Father. Christ is our brother. We have been given the family name in Baptism. The Lord has revealed His love, unity, and will to us. We know His character. We know what He thinks of us—both in terms of our sin and in His desire to save us through the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.

Of course, the unbelieving world doesn’t know the Father or the Son—that goes without saying. And yet, particularly among the Pharisees, Scribes, Sadducees, and their followers who rejected Jesus, they showed by their rejection that they didn’t actually know God. They thought they knew the one true God, but what they knew was a caricature of God made up in their minds. If they would have truly known God the Father, they would have heard, received, and believed the Father’s Son. Today, if those who say they know God the Father truly do, then they will receive the Word of God, proclaim it, and defend the Church from error.

Jesus’ concern is that His followers—the disciples and you—don’t fall away. Therefore, He tells these things so that when they happen—when life suddenly becomes very uncomfortable for us—we aren’t caught off-guard. The Lord experienced tribulation during His life. He was sentenced to death on the cross. And yet, He says He laid down His life for our sins, that He may take it up again, opening the kingdom of heaven to all who believe. The Lord tells us repeatedly in His Word that we can expect tribulation from the world. But He also tells us repeatedly in His Word that He has won the final victory and our eternal salvation. Alleluia! Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia! Amen.