When someone who seems less qualified than us lands a dream job, promotion or some special favour like ‘mates-rates’ because they have friends in high places they can call on for personal benefits, we often say: “It’s not what you know but who you know that counts!”
Imagine if there was a friend in high places who we could always go to; someone who was watching out for us, someone who could help us through life. Someone who we could approach for favours and help, someone to comfort us, and counsel us with wisdom, someone who would be by our side forever. Someone who would defend us and plead our case for us in times of trouble.
The disciples needed someone like that.
As Jesus prepared to go to his Father and told the disciples of his imminent betrayal and his going away from them to a place where they could not follow, they were understandably confused, nervous, perplexed and vulnerable. So Jesus reveals to them that they do have friends in high places! He promises them: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor, to be with you forever”.
The original word for ‘counsellor’ here is Paracletos. It’s a complex word that is difficult to translate into any one particular English sense and means ‘One who walks beside’. In our different bible versions the word is rendered as ‘Counsellor’, ‘Comforter’, and ‘Advocate’, and all these appropriately describe Jesus who walked beside the disciples, who counselled and taught them, comforted them and advocated for them before their Father in heaven. As Jesus prepared to go to the Cross, he told his disciples he would ask his Father to give them another who will walk beside them, counsel and teach them, comfort them, and be their advocate—the Holy Spirit.
This was the focus of our Ascension service last week. Luke tells us in the book of Acts that after his crucifixion, Jesus presented himself alive to his apostles over forty days, and ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Holy Spirit who the Father would pour out on them. Then he was taken up into heaven and a cloud hid him from their sight. Ten days later, when God fearing people from every nation came to Jerusalem to celebrate the festival of Pentecost, God the Father did as Jesus had said, and poured out the Holy Spirit on his apostles and all those there, through the ascended Christ. As Jesus had promised, the Holy Spirit would remind them of everything Jesus had said. So as the Spirit descends upon them, they speak the gospel in their own languages, declaring the wonders of God in Christ Jesus the Lord—his suffering and death, his resurrection and ascension as King over all who has won salvation for all, so that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
Notice that the Holy Spirit is given. The disciples couldn’t earn the Spirit. They couldn’t reach up and grasp the Spirit through their effort or performance—which is just as well, because at times their performance has been anything but extraordinary. They had normal human fears and anxieties and doubts. They squabbled about who among them was considered the greatest. They failed to keep watch with Jesus before his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane. Peter even denied who Jesus was—three times. None of them would defend Jesus as he was led away. The Holy Spirit is a gift from the Father.
So—they certainly had friends in high places!
And so do you!
You have friends in the highest place! Through Jesus, the Father continues to pour out the Holy Spirit after that Pentecost Day in Acts on his church of all times and places, gathering his people into the one Communion of saints. Jesus has asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to you. The world cannot receive God the Holy Spirit, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and is in you. Your Father in Heaven has chosen you, called, gathered and enlightened you by the same Holy Spirit he has given you, when he came to you by water and the word.
The Holy Spirit is given, not earned. That’s good news for us because like the disciples, we too are ordinary people, sinful by nature who have no hope of measuring up to God or meriting his favour. We cannot manipulate God into giving us more of the Holy Spirit and his gifts because of our religious works, personal piety, and devout worship. That would be to think of the Holy Spirit as some kind of product we can accumulate and have ownership over.
But the Holy Spirit comes when and where he wills, a gift from the Father, creating faith in those Jesus has asked the Father to send him to. And so Jesus has asked the Father to send the Holy Spirit to you. We do not possess the Holy Spirit, but he has come to possess us. You know the Holy Spirit, for he lives inside of you, bringing you to share the glorious reign of Jesus who has ascended to the highest heaven, through faith.
Through faith. Faith is the whole point of Pentecost! Pentecost isn’t about some super spiritual experiences in and of themselves, but the greatest miracle of all—faith! The Father has sent and still sends the Holy Spirit through Jesus his Son, to resurrect us also: to bring life out of our once spiritually dead hearts, to ransom us from the powers of death and hell by giving us a new birth through water and the word and opening our ears to remember everything Jesus has said to his church, that his words and promises to his first disciples on the night he was betrayed might be for us here today, also.
It’s no coincidence that Jesus speaks about obeying his word three times in today’s text: “If you love me obey what I command”. “Whoever has my commands and obeys them is the one who loves me.” “If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching.” By contrast, anyone who doesn’t love Jesus, does not keep his words.
This is even more than the sense of obeying instructions. It is in the sense of keeping Jesus’ commandments, keeping his teaching—keeping his word close to our hearts, holding it dear. Cherishing it, guarding it as a precious treasure.
That is the life of faith…isn’t it? To not go off on our own expedition in life, but to follow God by following his word, even when that makes little sense to our human eyes and minds. The human way is to walk by sight and not by faith, even as the onlookers did in Jerusalem when the Gospel was being proclaimed in different languages: “They have had too much wine!” They tried to make sense of spiritual things by falling back to human reason. But Peter points back to the Scriptures: “These men are not drunk as you suppose. It’s only 9 o’clock in the morning! This is what the prophet Joel said would happen.”
Jesus says that the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in his name, will teach us all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Whoever holds dear the words of Christ; the Scriptures; holds Jesus dear too. Whoever holds Jesus dear is loved by the Father and they will come and make their home with us.
Isn’t that a lovely image! Jesus and his Father will come and make their home with us. They have not just come to your front doorstep to drop off a parcel or called in for a quick cuppa or for some weekend maintenance. They have come to make their home with you—Father, Son and Holy Spirit—to live in every room of your heart, to make you the temple of God.
This is the spiritual reality for us. Indeed, one can only love Jesus and his word by the power of God the Holy Spirit in the first place: the same Holy Spirit who walks beside you and lives in you, counselling you with divine wisdom, comforting you, and even now is interceding for you, advocating for you before the Father. And just as Jesus has promised not to leave you as orphans but to be with you to the very end of the age, he says that the Holy Spirit will also be with you forever. Not just to the end of our life, when we return to the dust of the earth, but forever. Long after we are unable to hold on to our lives anymore, God will still be holding on to us. He will still be with us, and one day raise up our bodies just as he raised Jesus by the power of the same Spirit (Romans 8:11).
Yes, it is fair to say that in the life of faith it is not first of all what you know, but who you know that counts. It was when we didn’t know him—while we were sinners—that Christ died for us, rose again and ascended to heaven—through whom the Father would pour out the Holy Spirit on all of God’s people. It was while we didn’t know the one true God that he came to us in the Person of the Holy Spirit, to point us to Jesus through his word, and bring to our minds and hearts all that he has said.
People of every other religion work so hard at being good, and doing good, but they are not one rung of the ladder closer to God than when they first started climbing it.
You though, have friends in high places. It is not just a discount off your debt of sin that God has given you, but Jesus has paid it fully by his holy and precious blood. It is not just some kind of favour God has done for you, but for Christ’s sake he is delighted to show you the fullness of his divine favour forever. Your friends in high places have not just given you a promotion to some dream job…you have been raised up with Christ and seated with him in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come—in order that in the coming ages he might show you the incomparable riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:20-21 and 2:6-7).
God wants to be for you the One to whom you can always go to for help—not just with a pay rise or access to a great deal, but for us to grow as his children as we walk by the Spirit, not by the flesh. Come to him by coming to his word, for he is already there to meet you and lead you through this life and into the life to come. With such friends in high places you can be sure of God’s favour and help always as—even as Jesus says today: Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. Amen.
