I want to start by reading something that Jesus said when He was on earth:
John 14:16-17 AMP - And I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive (and take to its heart) because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.
This is actually in answer to what some of Jesus’s disciples, His friends, were asking about where He’s going, asking Him to reveal Father God to us/them. Jesus says before that, and that’s a whole sermon in itself, that He and the Father are one. If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father…He says.
Jesus then promises us this “another” - in this chapter it feels like the people He’s speaking to have an understanding of Him and an understanding of the Father, but Jesus then says basically - now that I am going to leave you, I am going to send you another one like me, but different. This is what He is going to be for you.
A Helper - the Greek word used here is Parakletos…- summoned, called to one's side, esp. called to one's aid, the Holy Spirit destined to take the place of Christ with the apostles (after his ascension to the Father), to lead them to a deeper knowledge of the gospel truth, and give them divine strength…
One thing I read said that Parakletos can be translated as one who can be
summoned to one's side in time of need, one who gives advice, one who
gives comfort, one who assists…
The Amplified version here really clearly lists us the different aspects of the Holy Spirit as Helper - He is our Comforter, our Advocate, our Intercessor, our Counselor, our Strengthener and our Standby.
I don’t have time to go into all of these and I really encourage you to go back and read this verse again, do some studying on this - it’s really made me think.
Before we go into anything further I would like to read this Scripture in another translation, in the Message version:
John 14:16 MSG - I [Jesus] will talk to the Father and He’ll provide you another Friend so that you’ll always have someone with you.
I had forgotten about that particular wording of this Scripture until I was preparing this sermon and I am going to be completely honest with you here….it broke me. “So that you’ll always have someone with you”.
Who do we have with us?
A Friend, Helper, Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor, Counselor, Strengthener, Standby - The Holy Spirit.
I am not going to pretend and say life is all roses, we all know it’s not. We all know life is hard work at times, we might be in circumstances which are beyond our control, we might be in some circumstances we ended up causing, we might be facing some medical diagnosis, we might be struggling financially, whatever…this is life, this is what we live in. It’s also beautiful.
Who/what do we need when this is all happening around us?
We need a friend.
Oh but I don’t have anyone I can trust. I don’t have anyone that needs to hear my woes. I don’t have anyone who will say the right thing. I am not ready to tell anyone.
We need a comforter.
But I am alone, I don’t live near family, I don’t have anyone who can comfort me.
We need a strengthener.
I am exhausted. I don’t have enough energy. I am not sleeping. I feel like I am going to crash any minute.
There are plenty of answers to each of these things that you could come up with yourself, you don’t need me to do it for you…
But what about the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit, it says right here, is that exactly. That friend. That friend we need all the time.
But Asia, you don’t know how alone I feel, how can I allow something/someone I can’t see to be there for me?
I am fighting my own thoughts, I am fighting how I feel, I have no energy.
Or on the flip side - life is good, I don’t need another friend, everything is going tickety-boo, I don’t need a helper.
Let’s just cover that last bit. If life is amazing right now, I have 2 things to say…1 - The Holy Spirit wants to be your friend…..share your joy with Him! 2 - there will always be a time in everyone’s life when something happens and we need help. No one is immune from the storms of life (Ps Charlotte Gambill does an amazing talk on this, worth a listen).
Someone who will be with you all the time.
Wow.
What a promise. What a promise!!!!
People come and people go. Friends come and friends go. Life changes, things change.
The Holy Spirit does not.
Galatians 5:25 ESV If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
In another translation this verse says “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit”.
Let’s tap into what the Holy Spirit has for us, He is our friend, let’s walk in step with Him. He’s that friend that will never lead us astray, He will never take us down a road we shouldn’t go down.
Now - very quickly. The Holy Spirit is not a wish granting genie, the Holy Spirit is not some Star Wars force, some magic wand. Your circumstances may or may not change. YOU will change as you interact with the Holy Spirit, and your response to the situation will be able to change as you have comfort and a friend, a strengthener and helper.
Your circumstances may change, we serve a miracle working God, that is yet another sermon, but what we are focussing on today is how we can interact with the Holy Spirit and how we can get that perfect help that we need, in the perfect way.
I am going to speak into something that is a hot topic at the moment, rightly so, and it is something that I’ve thought long and hard about speaking about and I want to, because I think it will help many of you here and online.
It’s okay to not be okay. We hear this a lot. Anxiety, depression and other aspects of mental health are something which we are thankfully beginning to talk about freely.
There is power in understanding that we are not okay. Jesus, on the cross, as darkness came over where He hung, He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. Jesus was very much not okay in that moment.
We can’t stay in the “not okay” zone, and I think this is where we fall short a lot of the time, and we don’t ask the Holy Spirit to help us, to be our friend, to strengthen us.
None of us here have gone through being crucified, but when the darkness of depression or the fear of anxiety is overwhelming, it feels like we are absolutely alone. We can stay in that realm, and never come out of it, or we can tap into what the Holy Spirit wants to offer us.
IT IS NOT THAT EASY, I know. I know the energy it takes to even think about any kind of help when you are in that overwhelming darkness. You might be sitting there thinking……Asia, you have no idea. When I am in a bad place mentally, you have no idea how bad it is.
I do.
I actually do know.
And that’s why I want to stand up here and tell you that the help that the Holy Spirit brings, is real.
Why am I bringing this up? I think that there is power in testimony, in being real, in saying that just because I am standing up here doesn’t mean I have it all together.
But you know what I have discovered? How unbelievably amazing the Holy Spirit is. I am not going to lie and tell you that I have it all figured out. I am not going to stand here and tell you that every single time the darkness comes at me I can stand up and beat it off. There are people here today that can testify to the fact that this is not the case, we are all human and I am also learning every day.
BUT - I want to share with you some practical ways in which you can discover the Holy Spirit as helper, as comforter, as a friend.
We spent time this morning in worship. Worship is so powerful, it doesn’t have to be you in a crowd with a band, it can be you and your phone with songs playing on it, whether or not you can sing! Pastor Roz often says - worship. Worship through it. Worship through whatever you are going through. Worship. It’s now second nature to me to pull out my phone and just have worship music playing. I can get in the car after a hard day and put worship music on, and my mood will lift - the day will still have been hard, I still might have tricky things to do or figure out but the way that I feel and I go about it will change.
There are times when I have to do something or I go into a situation which is tricky and I will sit there and just say - Holy Spirit, please help me. Please be with me. I know You’re here.
Romans 15:13 NIV - May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
How comforting is that? Overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we might feel like there’s no hope…..I get it, life is a lot.
The reality is - we will never be able to take on what God has for us through the Holy Spirit unless we ask, unless we say yes. The Holy Spirit is not there shoving His friendship down your throat, He isn’t there saying YOU WILL BE ENCOURAGED BY ME!
John 14:16 MSG - I [Jesus] will talk to the Father and He’ll provide you another Friend so that you’ll always have someone with you.
Who knows you can’t MAKE someone be your friend? Have you ever tried to force children to become friends? Have you ever had a friend whom you kept messaging and you kept trying to talk to and you finally decided that it’s just not working, you can’t MAKE someone be your friend.
The Holy Spirit is not going to MAKE you be His friend. He really, really, really wants to be your friend. He really does. Believe me when I say this.