Episode Transcript
Welcome to the World Changers Church Gold Coast Podcast. Join us as we listen to today's message. Amen.
You got me, man? Hallelujah. Good morning, church.
Can you hear me okay? All right. Let's give it up for our worship team.
Thank you, worship team. All right. Thank you, Pastor Kyle. How are we doing, church?
We good? You enjoy that worship this morning? Yeah? You guys ready? So we're going to begin a series for the next three weeks.
We're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit. Who's excited for that? Come on, you excited for that?
You excited for that? So last week we talked about, we had Pentecost Sunday last week where Pastor Kyle shared a message on the gift of the Holy Spirit and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit in the church. And we looked at three things.
We looked at what Pentecost taught us, three different things. We looked at Pentecost teaching us about the power of unity, The Bible says they were all with one accord in the upper room when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the church. So we saw the power of unity and how that God blesses unity and how His presence is felt in unity and is ushered in through unity and the unity of the body. We looked at the second thing, which was how God uses, and I love this one, ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
I mean, that's great. For me personally, you guys might be extraordinary. I don't know, but I'm ordinary and I love the fact that God uses ordinary things, hallelujah.
We've had fishermen and tax collectors and sinners and people that by society's standards were outcast and not usable or fit for God's kingdom or to be used in a pharisaical sense. But God said, no, I wanna use the ordinary things so that my power is made perfect in weakness, amen. Which is for you and me, a really great thing.
And lastly, we saw that surrender is essential to the flow of the Holy Spirit. You know, Jesus said, not my will, but your will be done to the Father. You know, that's Jesus on earth.
And He modelled that for us. He modelled that surrender. If we wanna walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, if we wanna see the Holy Spirit flow through our lives, if we wanna perform the signs, the wonders, the miracles, the things that we see through the book of Acts and through the gospels, then surrender is essential to the flow of the Holy Spirit. We gotta get out of the way basically. And we gotta let God use us, the broken, the ordinary vessels that we are to do the extraordinary things that He wants to do.
Amen. We're the hands and feet of Jesus. Everybody believe that this morning? Amen.
So I'm excited to start this series on the Holy Spirit. We have so many things we wanna talk about. And as I was preparing this message, I felt like God was really taking me back to my initial journey of walking with the Holy Spirit and understanding who the Holy Spirit is.
I got saved when I was 32. So I've been walking with the Lord for roughly eight years now, so you can all know how old I am. And God, initially I had no problem with God the Father and God the Saviour, Jesus the Saviour, God the Father and Jesus the Saviour.
I had no problem with that, right? But the Holy Spirit was this thing that I really wrestled with in my humanity and my carnal thinking and in my mind. I'm a pretty logical guy, I'm an engineer.
So I like things to kind of follow a set standard and a way. So grasping this concept of the Holy Spirit, this unseen power, this unseen partner, this force or this person that I can fellowship with, but I can't see. Is it my thoughts?
Is it His thoughts? Is it God speaking to me? All of these things I really wrestled with in my early walk with the Lord, but as But here's what I knew.
I knew all of those things and I was good with those things. So if I knew all of that and God said it was better for me to have the Holy Spirit, then I'm okay with that and I need to just understand it. I need to go on a journey of finding out who the Holy Spirit is and why He's been given to me.
Does that make sense? So I'm okay with it because God said it. He promised it to me.
So if He promises it to me and He's good and everything He has for me is good, then I wanna know who the Holy Spirit is. I wanna know how He fits into this Christian puzzle that is my life. Amen?
Is that cool? We all on the same page with that? So I went on this journey of trying to understand and discover who the Holy Spirit is.
And the beautiful thing about God's Word is that if we ask, we receive. If we seek, we find, and if we knock, the door is open to us. That's the beautiful thing about God's promises is that if we go on this journey of discovery, of wanting to know more about who he is and understanding his goodness in our life and all the blessings that he has for us, if we go on that journey, if we seek first the kingdom, God promises that all of those things will be added unto us.
That's beautiful to me, that God is so gracious in that way. And it's not based on my ability or my wisdom or how smart I am or how many books I can read. It's about me seeking first the kingdom and then all these other things will be added unto me.
And one of those things is the gift of the Holy Spirit. Amen. And so after I went on this journey and I started to read the Word of God and I asked God, I said, God, I wanna know about this Holy Spirit.
So I went and opened up the Word of God and I started reading about the Holy Spirit and studying the Holy Spirit. And it wasn't long, it was probably a week or two weeks. All of a sudden, my eyes were just open to Him in my life.
You know, the Word of God. people coming across my, I'd pray a prayer and then the next day someone would come and they'd just share a word with me out of the blue randomly and it would actually fulfill that very prayer that I had, right? Like I would just pray, pray something, God, you know, God, you know, I haven't seen a caterpillar.
I said this once, I remember this, God, I haven't seen a caterpillar in like months. It feels like I haven't seen a caterpillar in forever. And I went to take my dog for a walk, walked out the front door and there was a caterpillar on my pathway.
And I'm just like, what? Like what? What are the chances of that, right?
So just little things, I'd be driving, listening to the radio and I'd be seeking the Lord and I'd be asking Him to help me understand more about the Holy Spirit. And then the word of the day on the vision radio would be, we're gonna today talk about the Holy Spirit. And I'd be like, for real?
Like all of a sudden my eyes would be open and my heart was ready to hear what God had to say about the Holy Spirit. So we're gonna pray this morning. We're gonna open our hearts to be ready to hear about the Holy Spirit, amen.
So Heavenly Father, we just open up our hearts to you this morning, Lord God. We switch off all the distractions, what we may have known or have heard about the Holy Spirit, Lord God. And we want you to speak to us directly today, Lord God.
Our eyes are open to see and our ears are open to hear all that you have for us this morning regarding your Holy Spirit, Lord. We wanna grow in this relationship with him. We wanna know more about him.
We wanna know how he can journey with us, Lord God. So would you share that with us today in Jesus' name? Amen.
Amen. All right, everyone good? Okay, so one of the greatest things that started happening in my life when I started seeking the Holy Spirit is all of a sudden the Word of God started to come alive.
You know, before it was like I was trying to understand it with my mind and my intellect. But once I invited the Holy Spirit in and I started seeking the Holy Spirit, it was like God's Word just started jumping off the page at me and I started receiving from Him. Because how many of y'all know the Holy Spirit speaks to us through the Word of God?
Yeah, He spoke it, He wrote it, so He reveals it. Amen. It's the Holy Spirit that ministers to us His Word.
So that's one of the things that started happening in my life once I started seeking God. His Word came alive in my heart. As an engineer, I like to think logically, but all of a sudden when I invited the Holy Spirit and I started having these like, out of the box ideas, like smart ways of looking at problems, seeing things from a different solution. And it was God's wisdom being downloaded to me for these situations.
I remember going into a room and it was a meeting with some of the seniors in the department that I was working with at the time. And we were trying to solve this complex structure bridge problem where we had roads and bridges. And because I'm a civil engineer, so I work in that field.
And I had executives, I had heads of department, I had construction people that had been in an industry for 50 years and no one could solve, no one could work this thing out. It was gonna cost so much money. And I'm just sitting there, I'm praying and I'm asking the Holy Spirit to give me wisdom.
And all of a sudden I just say something, I just feel it in my heart. Like, I'll just say this. So I say it and everyone in the room just went dead silent.
And they're like looking at each other. that's actually a really good idea. Why don't we think of that?
It was really simple. It was really, yeah, really easy to understand. And everyone agreed that it was the right idea.
So we ran with that idea. We saved about $500 million in construction fees. And we delivered this thing like three months early. Like it was awesome.
And it was all because of the Holy Spirit. It was all because of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
So he's amazing. And we need to invite him into our lives, God, guys. We need to invite him into our lives.
Like he wants to walk with us. He wants to show us things. He wants to teach us. He wants to love on us. He wants to reveal Jesus to us. He wants to give us the gifts and all the things and the blessing that God has for us. He is our unseen partner, our friend here walking with us now.
Amen. But I'm telling myself a little bit here a little bit. Sometimes I am guilty of kind of just putting him on the bench of my life.
Like I got this Holy Spirit. You just sit on the bench, warm the bench for me and I'll bring you in, kind of sub you in when I need you, right? Like, yeah, maybe around about the four minute mark of the first quarter, I'll bring you in and you can take a couple of shots for me and just maybe bring the ball up while I catch a breather.
And we do that, right? We do things like, hey, Holy Spirit, help me find my keys, right? Holy Spirit, where did I leave my phone?
Did I leave the oven on? Holy Spirit, help me with that. That's the kind of thing we do.
And that's okay. Like God's good with that. God's so good with that.
But there's so much more. There is so much more. And like I said, I'm telling on myself.
I'm as guilty as doing that as the next person, just getting into the busyness of life and starting my day and doing all the things that I need to do. Checking my emails, my phone, all that sort of stuff. And it can go, you know, a couple of hours before I even go, oh yeah, the Holy Spirit.
He's supposed to be hanging out with me. I'm supposed to be leaning on him, you know? So that's okay, guys.
Like, it's all right. This is a journey. We're all learning and we're all getting better at surrendering and being more attentive to the Spirit of God.
But we need this relationship with the Holy Spirit. I really don't know how we think we could live a Christian life without Him. And He is our unseen partner.
He is our faithful friend. He is our advocate. You know, the Holy Spirit shows me that I'm more capable than I think I am.
I'm stronger than I think I am. I'm able to get through things that I don't maybe think I can. The Holy Spirit shows me that I am with Him more able to do these things, that I have a strength that goes beyond myself. I have a wisdom that goes past my understanding.
And we need that all in our lives. Who agrees we need that in our lives? Amen. And God wants that more than we want that.
I don't know about you, but I wanna see the church bringing lost in. I wanna see salvations. I wanna see healings.
I wanna see signs. I wanna see wonders. I wanna see miracles. I wanna see all those things that God has promised to those who believe.
He says all things are possible to them who believe. And I wanna see that happening in my life, but without the Holy Spirit, it's just not gonna happen. You look all through the book of Acts and the common denominator, the theme that's central through the whole book and even through the gospels, through Jesus's life.
He didn't start his ministry or wasn't able to do any healings or anything like that until he was baptized and received the Holy Spirit and started fellowshipping and communing with the Holy Spirit. The disciples, they were full of fear and doubt and uncertainty until the Holy Spirit came upon them on the day of Pentecost and all of a sudden they were ministering and 3000 people were ushered into the church. The Holy Spirit was the catalyst for that.
The Holy Spirit was the central theme of the gospels and the acts and all through the epistles in the New Testament. And the Holy Spirit is all throughout the Old Testament too, moving upon people, King David and other prophets throughout the Old Testament, bringing about God's will and purpose, healing, providing, restoring, all of those things interwoven throughout the whole Bible, the Holy Spirit. And He's interwoven in through our lives now too, and in the church and through what we know as the New Testament.
Amen. So we need this relationship with the Holy Spirit, but I don't know about you, it's hard to have a relationship with someone I don't know. Amen.
Like when I first started dating Michelle, I didn't know her and she didn't know me. And to be honest, I think she was quite wary of me, which is fair enough. It's fair enough.
She's very discerning. Very discerning. But you know.
Managed to figure that one out. But we needed to get to know each other. We couldn't just get married off one conversation.
It was kind of close to that. We needed to get to know each other. We needed to spend time with one another.
She needed to test me and she needed to prove me, man. She needed to know that. I was the man of God for her. And that took time and that took relationship and that took, even to be honest, it took friction and it took struggle and it took us going through things together so that we could be united and bonded in a deeper way.
And it's the same thing with the Holy Spirit. You know, He wants to go through these things with us so that we can learn of Him and depend on Him and see Him faithfully carry us through. So all of a sudden we build this bond with Him and it's something that can't be broken.
Amen. The Bible says, Amen. So God wants us to fuse together with the Holy Spirit and walk hand in hand with the Holy Spirit.
You know, in the New Testament, In the gospels, Jesus walked, the disciples walked with Jesus daily, right? They walked with him, they fellowshiped with him, they communed with him, they ate and broke bread with him, they learned of him, they sat with him. But Jesus is not here with us today.
The Holy Spirit is. And just like the disciples walked the streets of Jerusalem with Jesus, we walk the streets of Arundel and all these places with the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It's the exact, yeah, all right. We're gonna get into it. Hallelujah.
All right, amen, amen, amen. Oh man, I'm excited. I love the Holy Spirit, guys.
I love the Holy Spirit. My life, I would not be here today without the Holy Spirit, doing the things I'm doing without the Holy Spirit. So God desires more than we do to have the Holy Spirit in our lives.
But for reasons still unknown to me, He chose to use broken and empty and unordinary people or ordinary people to fulfill His will on this earth, right? The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4, it says that He has put this treasure which is Himself, the Holy Spirit, in these earthen vessels, these fragile clay pots. Amen.
But He's, for reasons unknown about, He's God, so I'm not gonna question Him. And neither should you. We should just be like, all right, God, this is your plan.
There's no plan B, C, D through to Z. It's plan A. Fill us with the Holy Spirit and go out there and do the same works and greater works.
Amen. So that's plan A. You can take it up with Him when you get into glory and ask Him why.
That'd probably be the first question I ask. Why me, Lord? But if we just sit him on the bench of our lives, we won't see the miracles, the signs, the wonders we wanna see around us.
We need this personal, intimate, and dynamic relationship with the Holy Spirit. Just like my marriage with Shelly, it takes that time, it takes that care, but it takes one other thing, it takes sacrifice. It takes me giving of myself.
It gives me surrendering my need to know, my comfort, my ideas, my wants, my agendas. It means I've got to lay those things down. Just like in my marriage, I've got to sacrifice those things so that the Holy Spirit can come in and He can fill those gaps.
And He can do more and immeasurably more and more than I can ask, think, or imagine that I could possibly do in and of myself by bringing Him in, amen, in relationship with Him. So we're going to talk about who is the Holy Spirit this morning. Is He a force?
Is He a person? Is He wind? Is He something else?
You know, there's so many different misconceptions and misunderstandings about the Holy Spirit. So hopefully today I can help bring some clarity to that. Is everyone cool with that? So the main way that we learn about the Holy Spirit is through the Word of God.
So we're gonna unpack the Word of God a little bit this morning. And in every instance in the Word of God, the Holy Spirit is referred to as a he and a him, not a it, okay? The original writers of the New Testament are intentional in confirming the person of the Holy Spirit.
You can't have a relationship with your toaster. Okay, maybe some people out there these days do have a relationship with their toaster. It's a crazy world, man. But yeah, my toaster's not talking back to me. If your toaster's talking back to you, we got some bigger problems we gotta maybe deal with, right?
The Holy Spirit is a person. You know, I can fellowship with the Holy Spirit. I can speak with the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit can speak to me, amen, through the Word of God.
Amen. So he was personally involved in creation. He empowers God's people.
He guides, he comforts, he convicts, he teaches, he commands. But each of these things involve a person's will rather than just a force or a thing. The Holy Spirit's not gonna force me or make me do something.
There's a will involved, right? And he's a person that gives me opportunity to either agree with that will, surrender to that will, or do my own thing and he'll clean up the mess later. Hallelujah.
Amen. But it wasn't until I understood the person of the Holy Spirit that my relationship with him took off. And that took that time and that care.
It's hard for a relationship to thrive without understanding of who that person is. The same way my marriage doesn't thrive and be fruitful if I don't spend time with my wife, I have to spend time with her for that to blossom and to grow and to see the fruit from that. Amen?
It's the same thing with the Holy Spirit. So we're gonna look at a few things today to help us build a deep and rich relationship with the Holy Spirit. Everyone good?
Amen. All right, so the first one we have to understand about when we're talking about who is the Holy Spirit, we have to understand that the Holy Spirit is God. He is God, okay?
So let's look at this together. The Holy Spirit is co-equal and co-eternal with the Father and Jesus. He is as much God as they are.
And get this, He is actually the presence of God here with us now. You know, we sang that song, Holy Spirit, you're welcome here this morning. And I hear a lot of religious things about why are we inviting the Holy Spirit in?
He's already come, He lives in my heart. Yes, this is very true. But the Holy Spirit also is in the room. He's not just in our hearts and dwelling us, He's also in the room.
He moves upon people. the prophetic words. He moves upon the lost to bring them to a place of opening their eyes and the scales being lifted so that they can see the glory of the gospel in the light of Jesus Christ.
Amen. So the Holy Spirit is not just in us, he is with us. Amen.
He is the presence of God around us. So if you read John 14, verse nine, we'll go there together and we're gonna break this down a little bit. So we're talking about who is the Holy Spirit.
So Philip, one of the disciples, says to Jesus, Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied. And Jesus replied, he says, have I been with you all this time, Philip, and yet you still don't know who I am. Anyone who has seen me, Jesus, Jesus says, has seen the Father.
So why are you asking me to show him to you? So Jesus says, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. meaning that they're the same.
And Jesus was and is the exact image, the very presence of God with us. He's Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus is God on this earth, God in an earthly suit.
We see that in Hebrews. It says that he was the express image of his glory. So the glory of God was wrapped up in the person of Jesus Christ.
That's super cool. So if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, he says. And then let's go down to John 14 and six.
Amen. And so Jesus says this, he says, and I will pray the Father. How many knows when Jesus prays a prayer, it's getting answered, hallelujah.
Aren't you glad that Jesus prayed this prayer? And I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever. So that word another is in the Greek, the original word, that word another is the word alos.
And it is the word that means, I'm just gonna make sure I don't get this wrong. So the word elos, and it means one of the exact same kind. So Jesus says, Philip, have I been with you this so long and yet you don't know me?
Anyone who has seen me, Jesus, has seen the Father. And then Jesus later on goes, I will pray the Father to send you another, one the exactly the same as me, and he will be with you. So in the same breath, Jesus says, I and the Father are one, and guess what?
I'm sending you the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, and He and I are one, and He's exactly like Jesus, and He's exactly like God, amen? So the Holy Spirit is one with God and one with Jesus, just the same way Jesus is one with God and one with the Holy Spirit. There is no difference between them.
They are exactly the same, which means that the Holy Spirit's will is the same will as the Father, is the same will as Jesus. It means that everything that Jesus did, the Holy Spirit does, because that was the will of the Father. It means that the Holy Spirit will do the works that Jesus did through us now in partnership. It means that the Holy Spirit is doing the healing, the ministering, the deliverance, all the things that Jesus did, the Holy Spirit is doing through us.
Amen? If that doesn't light your fire, your wood's wet. Hallelujah.
Amen. Amen. So in the same breath, Jesus says that he and the Father are one and the Holy Spirit is exactly the same as them both.
He is God, nothing less. So why is that important? Because his will, the Holy Spirit's will, is aligned with the Father's will and with Jesus's will, which means we can trust him.
Because we can trust his character. We can trust his leading. We can trust his guidance. We can trust his help. We can trust him.
Amen. Amen. Beautiful.
That's good news. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus.
So in that same scripture, thank you, Timmy, for leaving that up. It says, so I'll send you another one exactly the same as me. Comforter.
Now the word comforter is the most commonly used word to describe the Holy Spirit throughout the New Testament. It's the most repeated word when describing the Holy Spirit. And if I teach you anything today, if God repeats things in the Bible, pay attention to it, because it usually means something important, right? God repeats the word comforter when describing the Holy Spirit over and over again.
He does it in John 14, 15, 16, and then he does it again in the book of Acts, and then later on in the epistles as well. The word comforter is the most commonly used word when describing the Holy Spirit. So let's look at that word comforter.
The word comforter in the Greek is the word parakletos, and it means something pretty cool. So in the Bible, that word parakletos is described as one who is summoned, one who is called to one's side, especially considering it's called to one's aid. And in the context of the Holy Spirit, it is described as the Holy Spirit destined to take the place of Christ after his ascension to the Father to lead them and us, the believers, to a deeper knowledge of the gospel truth and to give us divine strength that we need to undergo trials and persecutions on behalf of the kingdom.
So that word parakletos means one summoned or called to come alongside to give aid or help in our time of need. So Jesus said, I will pray the Father and he will send you another one exactly like me to come alongside you, to walk with you, to teach you, to bring you aid and to be your helper in your time of need. Jesus is saying in this scripture, he's saying, I'm gonna ask the Father even just that is awesome.
Jesus is like, I'm going. Jesus says, I'm going back to the Father. I'm dying on the cross.
I'm gonna pour out my body and my blood for the forgiveness of your sins so that you can be made new and you can come back into right standing with God again and you can have relationship with the Father and what was lost and broken is gonna be restored and reconciled. He says, I'm gonna do that, but that means I gotta go. But it's better that I go because if I go, Because if I stay, I can only be in one place at one time.
But if I go, then I can send you another one exactly the same as me. He thinks the same as me. He walks the same as me.
He talks the same as me. He does all the same things as me. And he will be called alongside you.
And he will walk with you. And he will be with you. The same way Jesus says, I'm with you, disciples.
I've been with you every day. I've walked with you every day. You've sat with me.
You broke bread with me. You've eaten with me. You've learned of me.
I've taught you. I've shown you. I've comforted you.
He says that same way, the Holy Spirit is gonna be with you. And he's gonna walk with you. And he's gonna lead you.
And he's gonna guide you. And he's gonna teach you. And he's gonna show you things to come. And he's gonna minister to you. And he's gonna work through you.
Hallelujah. Amen. Thank you, Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Holy Spirit. You know, imagine that. Imagine, so you all think when God gives a command that it's gonna get done?
Yeah, you think when God speaks something, right? Says his word never returns void, right? Thank you, Holy Spirit.
So if God said, Jesus prayed, God answered, and he said, I'm gonna call the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna summon the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna send the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Why do we do it by ourselves?
I'm talking to me, man. God's talking to me right now. He's like, Everything, everything.
It's like you need help raising your kids. You're a single mom or you're a single dad. And man, you just don't know how to raise these kids, man.
They're coming into their teenage years and it's a mission. God's like, I've summoned the Holy Spirit. I've called him alongside you.
You have a comforter. You have one exactly the same as me. You have the paracletos.
You know, you're walking out this journey of figuring out your identity and what you stand for and who God is and the Holy Spirit. And God's like, I'm sending you one right alongside you. You have a comforter.
You know, you're... Man, what are you... Yeah, thank you, Lord. Oh, Jesus. Really?
Thank you, Holy Spirit. Like you're dealing with addiction and... I'm just gonna say what God's saying.
So you're spending your evenings watching pornography that you shouldn't be looking at and entertaining lusts and things that you shouldn't be entertaining. And even in that, God's like, I've called one alongside you. You have a comforter.
He doesn't turn away from that. He's not afraid of that. He's not ashamed of that.
He's called one right alongside you in that. One exactly like him. And he's not putting shame on you.
He's not putting guilt on you. He's just saying, I love you. I'm here with you.
Let's walk this out together. Would you invite me in? Would you let me into that place?
Would you let me show you something greater? Would you let me show you something? Would you let me show you who you truly are and how I see you?
Thank you, Jesus. You have a comforter. You have a paracletos.
You have one that's called alongside you, exactly the same as Jesus, to walk with you, to bring you aid in your time of need, to help you, to assist you. And whatever it is that is going on, you have a comforter. Amen?
Amen. So Holy Spirit is God, and God is the Holy Spirit. They are exactly the same.
And the Holy Spirit is God with us. Parakletos, another, a comforter, one to come alongside you. He is God with us.
He is God with us right now. So let's look at John 14 and 18 together. This is so good.
And Jesus gives us this amazing promise here. He says, I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you.
Man, that's beautiful. So Jesus says, I'm gonna send another one just like me. The comforter is gonna walk alongside you.
He's summoned to be with you. He's exactly like me. He thinks like me.
He talks like me. He reveals me to you. And he says, I will not leave you comfortless, but I will come to you.
So what is Jesus saying here? He's saying that not only am I going to send you the Holy Spirit to come alongside you and to walk with you, I am promising you that you will never be left alone. Think about the disciples in this moment.
They've walked with Jesus for three years, side by side, hand by hand, learning, teaching, all those things. And then all of a sudden he says, I'm going. I'm going back to the Father.
They'll be like, what? What are you talking about, Jesus? So Jesus, because he loves them and us so much, he makes them this promise.
He says, I'll pray the Father and he'll send you another. and he'll be with you and he'll come alongside you. And he says, I won't leave you comfortless.
That word comfortless is the word orfanos, and it's where we get the word orphan from. But it means more than just one without a parent. It means one without a teacher, one without aid, one without guidance, one without leading, one without direction.
So the word comfortless means that very thing, to be without direction, to be directionless, to have no hope, to have no idea of what you're doing. So Jesus says, I will not leave you orfanos. I will not leave you comfortless. I will not leave you as an orphan. I will not leave you without a teacher, without a guide, without an aid, without a direction. I will not leave you to do this on your own.
I'll send you the Holy Spirit. That's good. That's good.
He says, I will come to you. I will come to you. But how does he come to us?
He comes to us through the Holy Spirit. You all tracking? You good?
This good? Getting blessed? I'm getting so blessed.
Amen. I will not leave you comfortless. The word of Farnos. Amen.
Thank you, Lord. So let me ask you some questions. Do you feel like at times you just don't have the answers?
Yeah? You have a comforter. All the time, right?
All the time. Man, my hand is up, brother. Like, all the time.
Jesus, I got no idea what's going on. Help me out with this one. And he says, you have a comforter.
Amen? Does it seem like that thing in your life is never gonna turn around? And that this is just...
There's a lost cause, Jesus. I don't even know what I'm supposed to do with this anymore. I don't think this is ever gonna turn around.
I don't think we're gonna see breakthrough in this area. You start having those thoughts, you have a comforter. You have one with you.
He's not gonna leave you. He's not gonna forsake you. He's gonna be with you.
Do you feel like at times, maybe it would be easier if you just, I'm gonna say this out loud, Jesus, really? It would be easier if you weren't a Christian and if you had just stayed lost in your sin. And that is a straight up lie, my brother.
That is a straight up lie. You know what? God says, you have a comforter.
You have someone to strengthen you. And he says, blessed are the persecuted. Blessed are those who are persecuted for my name's sake.
That's the word for you this morning. If you feel like it would have been easier to stay as a non-believer in your sin, the word for you this morning is, blessed are those who are persecuted for my namesake, for theirs shall be the kingdom of God. Do you know when everything comes against you for your faith and who you are and you feel like you're under attack and it would have been easier just to go back or do that, go back to the old ways.
Jesus says, blessed are those who are persecuted for my name. Say, blessed are you for struggling through that. Blessed are you for hanging on and leaning on the comforter and being led by me and by trusting in me because yours is the kingdom of God.
Man, there is so much breakthrough and just pressing in and pressing forward and leaning on the Comforter and being strengthened by His grace and being led by His Spirit. There is so much blessing on the other side. Can I just encourage you this morning, keep going.
Because blessed are you if you are persecuted for righteousness sake. Because yours is the kingdom of God. There is so much fruit on the other side of your valley.
There is so much fruit on the other side of your trial. I'm encouraging you through the Spirit of God this morning, through the Holy Spirit, stay the course. fight that.
You are strengthened. You have one alongside you, a comforter to come alongside you in your time of need, Simon. Not when it's all going great.
He's there when it's all going great too. But in your time of, specifically Jesus is saying in these scriptures, one is called alongside for you in your time of need, to bring you aid. When you can't do it, the Holy Spirit does it.
He makes intercession for us. The Bible says that when we don't know what we ought to pray, He prays for us. Amen.
I'm digressing. Let's go. Who is the Holy Spirit?
Thank you, Jesus. I have no idea where I am. Okay.
I will not leave you as orphans. Let's look at the Amplified, Timmy, just to sort of break it down a little bit. I got five more minutes, Tim.
Five more minutes. Holy Jesus. John 14, 18 in the Amplified.
We got that, Tim? Yeah. I will not leave you as orphans, comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, or helpless.
I will come back to you. So think about this. The disciples have been with Jesus for three years, day in and day out.
And in their time of greatest uncertainty, they are given the promise of his presence. in their time of greatest uncertainty, in their deepest doubt, when they had no idea, they are promised His presence. So whatever you're facing today, whatever that doubt is, whatever that uncertainty might be, whatever that struggle is that you are going through, you are promised His presence.
The Bible says that He is near to the brokenhearted. You are promised his presence, the presence of his Holy Spirit, another one just like him to come alongside you in that area right there. In your greatest time of need, in your ups and your downs, in your uncertainty and your fears, God has promised to never abandon you, but to be with you always.
And it is through the gift of his Holy Spirit. He is God's promise to you that you have his presence with you always. Man, that's good.
The Holy Spirit is the most reliable and certain part of your life. He is your friend that you can always depend on. He is the one that has the wisdom that you need.
And he is the one that has the strength that can carry you through. Number three, the Holy Spirit is God in us. So the Holy Spirit is God.
The Holy Spirit is God with us. And the Holy Spirit is God in us. Amen.
Let's look at John 14 and 17, which is sandwiched between these two beautiful scriptures we've just been reading. John 14 and 17, he says, even the spirit of truth who the world cannot receive. So let's just back that, the spirit of truth.
So the Holy Spirit, who is he? He is the spirit of truth. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. He is the spirit of truth.
Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. Can you see how they're one and how they have the same ministry? Amen.
All right, so that was a little side nugget. So the spirit of truth for whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be, say it with me, in you. So he dwells with you and he will be in you.
Amen. Chronologically, this comes after Jesus's prayer to send the comforter and before his promise not to leave us comfortless. So let's read all three of these together, Tim, and then we'll come to the end.
Might have to do a part four, bro. Is this good? You guys enjoying this?
All right, so let's start in verse 14. We'll just wrap this up. So, and I will pray, this is Jesus.
He says, and I will pray the Father and He shall give you another one just exactly like me, comforter to come alongside you who is summoned to be with you that He may abide with you forever. Verse 17, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him, but you know him for he dwells with you. Man, you guys know the Holy Spirit.
He's with you. He dwells with you. You can see him moving. You can see him on the smile in the person next to you.
You can see him in the kind word of a brother. You can see him in the way he has been knitting together your life and bringing people into your life to strengthen you and pray with you and uphold you and give you the comfort and the wisdom and the strength that you need. And then he says, and he shall be in you.
You have a comforter. You have an unseen partner, an unseen friend. You have a strength that goes beyond yourself.
You have a wisdom that is outside of your natural thinking. And his name is the Holy Spirit. He is God's perfect gift to an imperfect humanity.
And Luke, it says that if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children with a, you know, you had to give a fish rather than a, if you ask for a fish, you don't give them a stone. If he asks, oh, here we go. If you being evil know, thank you, Tim. If you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask?
He is God's perfect gift. to an imperfect humanity. It is not dependent on how great we are or how well we know our Bible or how perfect we pray.
This is God's perfect gift to us. He knows we can't do it without Him. We can't pray perfect prayers without Him.
The Bible says the Holy Spirit prays the perfect prayers, not us. He makes a decision for us in our time of need. God knows we can't do it without Him.
So Jesus says, it's better that I go so that I can send another. and He will be with you, and He will come alongside you, and He will be in you. Hallelujah.
You are never without the presence of God. The promise of His presence is with you always. No matter what you're facing, no matter how dark that sin is, no matter how high that mountain is, or how deep that valley is, the promise of His presence is with you, and His name is the Holy Spirit.
So who is He? He is God with you, and He is God in you. Amen.
So this morning, Maybe this is the first time you've really even heard that the Holy Spirit could be someone that can come alongside you, that can walk with you, that you can fellowship with him, that he's a person. Maybe this is a time where you've gone, you know what, I have just been depending on him for my keys and my phone. I need him more in my life.
I need more of the Holy Spirit. Or maybe you've never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is what we saw in the day of Pentecost where the power of God fell on the disciples and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they started walking in this power and this authority. If that's you this morning, I invite you to come up to the front.
I invite you to stand up from your feet. If you say, I want a deeper relationship with the Holy Spirit. I wanna be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I wanna know more about the Holy Spirit. Father, today my eyes have been opened and God, I wanna walk with you. I wanna walk with the Holy Spirit.
I need a comforter, Lord. I need one to come alongside me, Lord. If that's you this morning and you want prayer this morning, I invite you to come up the front and I invite our prayer counselors, Paddy, Claire, to come up and to pray with you.
We're just going to have a little bit of time in ministry, maybe five minutes while Kenny just plays. And if that's you and you feel like you want prayer this morning for that or anything else, we invite you to come up this morning. Thank you for tuning in to today's message.
To connect or find out more, you can reach us online at worldchangers.life. Remember to subscribe for more uplifting messages from our pastoral team, and may you continue to walk in faith and transformation until we meet again.
