Last Sunday we gathered together and discussed John 15. We discussed the Vine and the branches, the Vinedresser and the fruit. We talked about God’s patient and deliberate care of our hearts, how He nurtures us, how He prunes and disciplines us for our good, how He never asks us to do anything that He has not already done Himself and how not only has He called us to abide in Him but He has promised to also abide in us. God desires intimacy with us, He is building a relationship with us because He loves us. I came away from last week’s conversation with a better grasp on God’s work as the vinedresser of my life. He knows that bearing fruit is a process and He is faithful to the work necessary to bring lasting and eternal fruit from my wounded, broken and sometimes stubborn heart. The Vinedresser knows the seasons, He knows when work must be done, when pruning must happen, when support is needed, even when dormant rest is required; God is the One doing the work of my heart, I’m simply called to trust Him by following Him and to love Him by obeying Him as He does the work. What Jesus shows us in John 15 is the beauty of God’s character so that we will be willing to surrender to God’s purpose. All action flows from character and character defines all action. Over the last six weeks we have been studying the person or the character of the Holy Spirit, we have been seeing that He is a person and not just a power, that He is “another Helper” meaning that He is exactly like Jesus, that the Spirit that lives in us is not like God, He is God Himself. The Godhead is perfectly united, there is no shadow of turning, no envy or jealousy, no competition or fear, God, meaning the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is love. Today we begin to talk about the purposes of the Holy Spirit, meaning the work He does in us and the work He does through us but to do so we have to all be convinced that all of His work flows from His character of love, every action He takes, every gift He bestows, every leading He offers, every truth He reveals, every word of Jesus He reminds us of, it is all done out of His perfect character and because of His everlasting love. This morning we are going to try to connect John 15 and John 16 and talk about one of the very important purposes of the Holy Spirit, conviction. Conviction is the act of having something exposed, it is when something that was either hidden within us or hidden from us becomes uncovered. Conviction is when we suddenly realize that an action, a thought, a mindset or an attitude is unpleasing to God, but conviction is not only when our sin is exposed. Conviction is also when the Holy Spirit within us shows us something about God’s character and kindness that we have never known before, it is when He alleviates our fears by showing us that He really will never leave us or forsake us, when we actually come to believe that He truly is patient and does not condemn us, it is when we see Jesus in more of His beauty and the Father in more of His love than we have ever seen before. Conviction is not only when we see our sin and/or see God’s holiness, conviction is also when we see the reality of the world we live in and the enemy we wrestle with. I John 4:4 says “Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” Conviction is when we see that and believe it, when we stop being afraid of what might affect us and become convinced of how we can affect others, it is when we believe that Jesus finished His work on the cross and overcame this world and all of its trouble. Today, very simply I hope that we will talk about the who, what and why of conviction; who brings it, what is it and why is it here? My hope is that we will see that conviction is a gift from God, it is given to us and it is given through us.