We have continual challenges in life even when we walk with Christ – that is the reality. Let’s talk today through this reality and how we can lean on the Holy Spirit for reassurance during those times. Even amidst the challenge there is so much hope! Lean in for the hope today.
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Show Notes:
One Guide, Three Persons:
The Holy Spirit is the parakeet who comes alongside and brings comfort. The devil is the accuser. The reality is that we have continual challenges, even though we love Christ. Spiritual battles, patterns in the world, broken, relationships, loneliness, and negativity, we talk through these realities and what our options are in those situations.
The Second part is Reassurance:
God is still here. God still has a plan. God still loves us. God still has promises for us. The Holy Spirit reminds us of truth, John, chapter 14:16-17 and 26, John 15:26, John 16:7, 13, John chapter 16, Ephesians 5:18, Luke 11:13,
The Third part is Redemption:
The Holy Spirit Does a redemptive work during the most difficult days. God does his greatest work in the darkness. Out of the evil, God brings good we learn through trials. Our character is refined. We become more like Jesus purposes revealed, and opportunities to reach more people increase. Romans 15:13 the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Special thanks to World Concern for sponsoring The Bonfire Podcast.
Transcription:
Pastor Jesse Bradley:
Welcome to the Bonfire. This is season three, episode two, and in this season we’re focusing on the Holy Spirit because the Bonfire is all about God’s presence. We linger in God’s presence. This is a relationship you can enjoy and when you think about God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, sometimes we don’t talk very much about the Holy Spirit, but the truth is we have relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit helps us.
I’m going to start out by saying the Holy Spirit is not an it. A lot of people refer to the Holy Spirit as it. “It helped me.” “It is with me.” There’s no it. The third person in the Trinity, this is a relationship, he.
And this is going to be important because we’re talking about comfort today. The Holy Spirit comforts us. We’re not comforted by an it. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force. This is a close relationship where there’s love and there’s truth, there’s guidance, empowering, and there’s comfort. The Holy Spirit is called the Paraclete, the Comforter, and brings help.
Jesus in John chapter 14 and 16 talks about the Holy Spirit. Jesus knew he would be ascending. After his death and resurrection, he would ascend to heaven and yet not leaving us as orphans, instead through Pentecost, the Holy Spirit is poured out. Yes, the Holy Spirit is there in the Old Testament, but now in a new way. A fresh wind, a fresh fire, a filling, filling God’s people. Our bodies are a temple, God’s presence, the Holy Spirit fills us. What an incredible gift. We don’t become God, but God dwells in us and the relationship couldn’t be closer. That’s how close God wants to be with us at all times. God dwelling in us, an incredible gift.
There’s so much in the Bible about the Holy Spirit and that’s why we’re taking these seven episodes right now to cover different aspects of the Holy Spirit, and today, the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
In our time together, I want to share three key areas. The first is the reality of life, the second is the reassurance that comes from the Holy Spirit, and third is the redemptive work, redemption through the Holy Spirit.
And I’m thinking about you today going through some hard stuff. I’ve been through some difficult challenges that tested me to the core, that really stretched me beyond my ability to endure alone. I couldn’t do it alone. I needed God. I needed other people too, and the Holy Spirit’s help was so significant in my journey. That’s why I’m glad to stop on this topic and talk about the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
To set the stage, let’s begin with realities. There are realities in our life. They’re painful realities. This side of heaven, we live in a fallen world and the realities include a real devil, real demons, and the enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy. The father of lies, there’s oppression and all of this happens in the spiritual battle.
We feel the spiritual battle. Sometimes you feel the darkness, you feel the evil, you see the manifestation, you read the news, and you see what’s being played out. There’s a real spiritual battle. God and the devil are battling back and forth. The devil’s a defeated foe. He is going to be thrown into the lake of fire.
Well, the Holy Spirit, the one who’s in us is greater than the one who’s in the world and that should give us great comfort to know that we don’t have to walk around in any fear. We know the end of the story. We have help today through the comfort of the Holy Spirit. If you’re in a spiritual battle, lean in in your relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Not only do we have the spiritual battle happening. We have patterns in the world that don’t align with God and they want to trap us. They want to grieve and quench the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Here’s the good news: the Holy Spirit, the spirit of truth, that’s what Jesus says. The Paraclete, the one who comes alongside, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of us, the one that reminds us of the truth and guides us into all the truth about God, guides us in our close walk with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This abiding.
Well, there’s truth coming from the Holy Spirit. There’s conviction coming from the Holy Spirit, and that is a gift from God, because we don’t want to be left to our own devices and sin and follow the patterns of the world. No. We want to walk in the light and in the love and in the peace of the Holy Spirit. What a comfort to know that there is a guiding, a convicting, a rebuking, and all of this work guiding us into truth because we are loved.
In addition to those realities, there’s relationships that go sideways. Maybe you felt misunderstood, mistreated, lonely, alone. Sometimes life doesn’t play out how we think it will, and we have these markers like 20 years old, 30 years old, 40 years old, 60, 70, 90, and we have expectations. We think, “My life’s going to look like this. “At this age, this is what I know is going to be true,” and then we arrive that age. It’s like, “Oh, it’s not happening.” Well, what do we do? How is that related to the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit comes alongside of us, comforter, Paraclete, really defending us in that way. The enemy is an accuser. Sometimes we have our own broken dreams. We have expectations that aren’t fulfilled. We have hopes that don’t come together and we need the help of the Holy Spirit. You can be persecuted, jailed, beaten, killed. Those are the realities of people following Jesus in the Bible. The reality is today. Your own family can ostracize you. You can have friendships that are now distant because of your faith. All these are realities.
See, sometimes people say, “If you follow Jesus, it’s going to work out A, B, and C. It’s all going to come together. It’s going to be smooth sailing.” The reality of the Bible and the reality of our life, we know that’s not always the case. And in fact, most of the time we are feeling tension. We’re feeling some stress. We’re feeling some sadness. We’re battling with anxiety. That’s all of us every day and in those realities, where are we going to turn? The help of the Holy Spirit.
There is an option. There’s a good place to go. There’s a relationship, and the one who comes alongside of us knows us, intercedes for us when we pray. In Romans chapter eight, the Bible says, we pray in those situations and maybe you’ve been praying lately, crying out to God and you don’t even know what to pray. It’s like you groan. Well, the Holy Spirit also is groaning, interceding, knows God, The Father, knows us, and then intercedes while we pray. What a gift. Again, the Holy Spirit, a seal for redemption, the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and I can’t think of a greater gift from God than His presence.
The realities we go through, the challenges are massive. The tests, the trials, the disappointment. Have you been there lately?
I won’t forget what happened to me where I was fighting for my life for one year, took 10 years to fully recover. That’s when I leaned in to this relationship with the Holy Spirit. I knew I cannot get through this alone. There’s no fast-forward. There’s no quick fix. The pain is so massive. I didn’t even know where to start. The disappointment, the loss, the mourning. In those moments, those raw moments where instead of denial and instead of running to sin to try to numb it or run to entertain, to numb it, or act like it’s no big deal, instead of those options, there is a great option and it’s to go deeper with the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has more comfort than you have pain. The Holy Spirit has more comfort than you have loss. And when you lean in and receive, the Holy Spirit is going to provide for you in supernatural ways. Yes, God uses His Word. Yes, God uses other people to bring comfort, instruments of healing. Yes, God uses so many different things. It could be enjoyable food or it could be laughing with certain people. So many ways that God brings healing.
I’m not trying to limit God in any way here, but I am saying that the comfort that comes from the Holy Spirit and this direct relationship with God’s presence, it’s there if you want to go deep and receive. And absolutely the message of the Bible is to go deep and receive. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. You can have self-control in your pain. You can receive love in your pain. You can have peace that’s greater than your pain. You can receive from the Holy Spirit.
I’m starting with reality, because I’ve been through it, a deeper valley than I ever thought I would go through. Didn’t know life could go that low, and it lasted longer than I ever imagined or anticipated. It’s not how I thought I’d spend my twenties, and it’s not like it ended when my twenties ended.
When you’re tested, that’s the time to remember, “I’m going to really grow in my relationship with the Holy Spirit” and I hope that by talking about these realities today that you are comforted and you also know and have a commitment, a conviction that you really want to grow in your relationship with the Holy Spirit. You’re going to receive comfort the more of the Holy Spirit you have, and the only way to have more of the Holy Spirit is to confess your sins, yield and surrender, ask to be filled. Ask for more of God’s presence. Luke 11:13, “How much more will the Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?”
Today, it could be right now, in the middle of this podcast, take a minute and ask God to fill you with his presence and your relationship with the Holy Spirit is going to grow.
Now, what is the Holy Spirit going to do when you are starting to receive more comfort? What’s that going to look like? We now want to go from realities, because we live in reality, we live in truth, to reassurance and read, John chapter 14, John chapter 16, and how many times Jesus talks about the helper, the Paraclete, the comforter, what a gift to us and coming alongside of us, there’s reassurance. Reminding us of the truth, reminding us that we’re not alone reminding us that God is the one who has the final say and the story’s not over.
There is a reassurance that comes through the Holy Spirit. First of all, God’s presence and we need God’s presence. Still, God is with us.
There were days and there were nights where I wondered how far away is God, how distant is God? Here’s the truth. God is still with you and the Holy Spirit is going to remind you. There are some words in the Bible, “Yet.” “Even though I go through all of this, yet… It’s a turning point. It’s a hinge.
Another one is, “But God.” All these things were happening but God… God is still with you. You need to know that. That’s a fact. Never will he leave you. Never will He forsake you. The Holy Spirit reminds us of scripture, reminds us of the promises of God, reminds us that heaven’s our home, our citizenship is in heaven, reminds us that God still answers prayer, reminds us that we have a hope greater than our challenges. The Holy Spirit reminds us when you spend time on God’s word, the Holy Spirit reminds you of The Word. When you meditate on The Word, the Holy Spirit reminds you for the different areas of your life.
In my finances, God will remind me of his promises. In my daily walk with God reminds me, he’ll give me everything I need for life and godliness. He reminds me in every area of my life, there’s a reminding ministry of the Holy Spirit. There’s a reassurance, a ministry of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we forget. It’s not only new teaching, but we need to be reminded of the teaching we’ve heard before, because when it’s crunch time, when the rubber hits the road, we tend to forget. We tend to have amnesia. We drift. We get focused on the problem. The more we focus on the problem, the problem grows. We need to be reminded and the Holy Spirit is reminding us. What an important ministry reassurance. God is still with us, reminding us that the promises still stand.
And also communicating to us, because the Holy Spirit communicates. Well, what does that look like? It’s hard to describe. It’s supernatural. It’s not usually any audible voice, but the Holy Spirit communicates to your spirit, to your mind, to your heart in a very intimate way. The more you spend time with the Holy Spirit, the more you tune in and you’re honed in on the voice of the Holy Spirit. You know that voice.
My wife and I have been married a long time now and I can tell just by hearing the first word, I can tell sometimes without a word just looking at her, the non-verbals. I know what the message is. Why? Because we’ve spent time together. We’ve listened closely to each other. You become familiar with the voice of the Holy Spirit, the nudges of the Holy Spirit, the prompting of the Holy Spirit, the reassurance of the Holy Spirit, and one of the things that the Holy Spirit is going to communicate to you is that there’s still a plan. The plan is not forsaken. That you are not forsaken and you can trust the Holy Spirit, almost like shining a spotlight on Jesus. The Holy Spirit is going to remind you of the presence of God, the power of God, the promises of God and the plan of God.
You’re not going to understand everything. In the moment, you’re going to need that reassurance, because it feels like life just went off the track. It’s going to feel like life’s out of control. It’s going to feel like life went sideways and it might feel at times like the enemy won and you lost what you can’t get back. You’re going to have all those feelings, those realities are going to kick in, but then the reassurance of the Holy Spirit is greater than those realities and to receive that reassurance.
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Pastor Jesse Bradley:
Now it leads to a third part, which is the exciting part. It’s the redemptive part. The Holy Spirit moves in power and redeems, restores what has been taken and lost, and that redemptive work, the Holy Spirit can take what is aimed as evil and use it for good.
When you think about the Apostle Paul and you read through the book of Acts, there’s a shipwreck. There’s being bitten by a snake. There’s death threats, beatings, thrown in prison, jail. They thought Paul was dead at some point after stoning him. There’s so many things that Paul goes through and he lists it throughout Scripture.
So, why does he list that? Because the comfort of the Holy Spirit was greater than everything he went through and God continued to communicate, there’s a plan, helped him to persevere, helped him to forgive, overcome, all that work through the Holy Spirit and God redeems it. Through Paul’s weakness, God’s power is made perfect.
The Holy Spirit is going to work on your behalf and do a work that no person can do and turn some things around, because God still has purposes. In the test God is still doing a deep work in you.
When I went through that lowest point in my life, there was a work, a redemptive work God was doing. I had no clue at the time. I was in survival mode. I didn’t even see it, didn’t make sense. I couldn’t even talk about it at the time. All I knew is my prayer started to shift from just intellectual and short and theological to now I’m pouring out my heart to God. I’m opening my heart. I’m giving him my burdens. I’m sharing the pain. I’m sharing the stress. He’s starting to carry it. There was a deep transformative work the Holy Spirit was doing in my character. There was a deep work. It was redemptive.
Because when you go through the pain, it’s like the refiner’s fire to make you more like Jesus, and there was a lot of areas in my life and there… Of course it’s going to be a lifelong process. That’s called sanctification, becoming more like Jesus, but there’ll be seasons where God’s refining fire is intense and burning off. He shatters pride. He burns off stuff that is pointless, that’s periphery. He burns off stuff that’s not for the kingdom, and he gets you really focused. He does that.
I’ll tell you in this world there’s a hundred things you can chase and then all of a sudden you go through some suffering and you realize what’s most important in your priorities and the purpose you’re here on earth and you start to hone in. Like in a room of white light where it all blends together, it’s like a red dot. It just becomes so clear. “This is why I’m here. This is who I want to help. This is what I want to do,” and you start to hone in on that.
And the Holy Spirit takes those tragedies and those trials and then turns it around and really propels you, gives you a purpose and a passion, redeems it, and it’s clearer than it ever has been before.
As we go through trials, there’s a redemptive work that God does through the Holy Spirit and this includes our character, our purpose, our habits, our mindset, our attitude, our worship, our prayer, and then our impact and the calling God has in our lives, and it gets clearer. God gives courage. There’s a greater compassion for people who are suffering.
When you go through it, you feel like you’re the only one. You feel like you’re the only one that’s going through something like this. The reality is most people are going through similar stuff, they just don’t talk about it or admit it or open up about it. We all need the help of God. We all need his reassurance and as we go through those challenges and then God heals and God restores, now we’ve got a story, we’ve learned some things. Now we can help some people who are stuck in the middle of it.
See, when I went through the stuff I went through, I didn’t have a roadmap. I didn’t have those coping skills that come from scripture. I didn’t cultivate those habits. I had no idea how to walk through it, but God helped me. The Holy Spirit communicated in love.
One of the things was my identity was in performance. That’s a trap. It’s inflated, deflated, pride, shame who you are is not what you do. As an athlete and in terms of academic excellence, that was my striving for my whole life. But what happens when school’s over and now I can’t play soccer? I’m struggling with who am I? The Holy Spirit’s going to comfort me and show me I’m a new creation in Christ. I’m God’s child. I’m secure, I’m loved. I don’t need to try to achieve an identity. I just receive what God has already given to me and that’s a massive shift.
The Holy Spirit wants to do some deep shifts in your life. It might be from complaining to gratitude. It might be from cautious to taking relationship risks. It might be from self-reliance to reliance on God.
All the comfort that the Holy Spirit brings. It’s more than just a feeling. I want to say that again, because a lot of people are looking for the microwave. They’re looking for the feeling. They just think pain doesn’t feel good, God give me comfort. God’s vision of comfort is so much greater than just to relieve a little pain. God is more interested, it’s been said, in our character than how comfortable we are.
We love being comfortable. There’s no question. In a prosperous nation, we’re always thinking about how we can be more comfortable.
Well, when we’re going through trials, there is a comfort that’s different than being comfortable and God’s vision of comfort goes far beyond our feelings. God works at the core. He goes from the inside out. The feelings are like the caboose in the train. They’re the last thing that comes. The comfort is that I’m still loved and God’s still here. The comfort is seeing God’s purposes, that he’s still doing His grace in the middle of the tragedy. The comfort starts to come in seeing the growth and development. The comfort comes as you serve other people and bring comfort to them. The comfort starts to grow when you start to feel like things are getting crazy in this world, but I’m okay. I’m okay in the sense that I’m secure. I have the Holy Spirit, I have comfort. The One who’s in me is greater than the one who’s in the world.
As I look around the world today, I moved and I have compassion because I look at the suicide rates. I look at the mental health epidemic. I look at the wandering from God. I look at the broken families all around, and I see what’s there in terms of stress and I see the challenges and the confusion. I look at the wars that are happening in the Middle East and Ukraine. There’s so many things right now in the world that if that’s all I knew, I would be so depressed. I would have so much despair. We could literally just grieve every day fully as we look around at the pain.
The truth is God is still on the throne and God is in us and God is working to redeem and reassure and comfort, and God has created us for such a time as this. It’s not a time to shrink back and get silent, to be intimidated, to give up. None of that’s coming from God.
Here’s the contrast again. The devil is an accuser. The enemy wants to steal, kill and destroy. We see evidence of this all around.
The Holy Spirit is our comforter.
Who are you listening to? If you listen to the accuser and the lies, he wants to take you down with negative thinking, a narrative of hopelessness, a narrative of despair, a narrative that nothing’s going to ever improve, but the Holy Spirit reminds us the best is yet to come. This life is short. God’s grace is sufficient and God won’t leave us or forsake us. And the Holy Spirit starts to move in a redemptive way in our lives.
If you’re going through something immense right now, something you’ve never been through, there’s a lot of uncertainty, you’re not sure how to navigate this, it’s really time to slow down, draw near to God, and start to listen closely to the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit has solutions. The Holy Spirit communicates. The Holy Spirit comforts and reassures, and as you read through the Book of Acts, notice what the Holy Spirit is doing throughout Paul’s journey. As you read through John 14 and John chapter 16, look at what Jesus is saying about the Holy Spirit, and look how much the church needs the Holy Spirit, then and today.
As Jesus was on the cross, the disciples fleeing, the disciples denying Jesus. One of the disciples, of course betraying Jesus, and then what happened after that? The disciples are scared. They’re retreating. They’re intimidated. They’re outnumbered. Martyrdom is going to start to happen all over the place. That’s terrifying. They have all those feelings. We still have those feelings. We get overwhelmed. We have trials that are massive. We have struggles. We just want God to take away the pain. Don’t you just want them to take away the pain and bring all the provision and just make it all better?
Sometimes we get tired of being tired. That’s where the disciples were. God knew exactly what they needed. They needed the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit, they’re not going to have unity. They’re not change the world. They’re not going to overcome the challenges. And yet, as you read through the Book of Acts for Peter, for Paul, for the entire church, the Holy Spirit, there’s the difference. The difference is the Holy Spirit.
I’m camping on this today because I hear a lot of people describing their problems and we’re always going to have ninety-nine problems. I have compassion. I have mercy. I’m not trying to belittle a single problem.
When I hear about solutions in our culture, I hear about, “Oh, one new principle.” “One pill you can take.” “If you just buy this.” “If you just try harder with that.” I hear that everywhere. What I don’t hear in our culture very often is, “I need the Holy Spirit. I need the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The communication, the reassurance, the redirection in my life. I need the Holy Spirit to help me grow to be more like Jesus. I want to grow in this trial and I’m really leaning into the Holy Spirit.”
I’ll tell you, that’s as biblical as you can get, and when you do that, you’re going to see the immense comfort and power and love of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is faithful. Father is faithful. Son is faithful. The Holy Spirit’s faithful.
My appreciation grew for the Holy Spirit in the most difficult moments of my life. My listening and desire to listen grew in the most confused moments of my life. My closeness grew in the loneliest moments of my life.
You know that feeling where it seems like nobody understands you? Nobody gets it? Nobody really cares? And you’re just sitting there alone and you hate it? The Holy Spirit’s still there, and it’s those moments where I look around like, “Who’s still here?” The Holy Spirit’s still here. And then hope starts to grow, and then passion starts to grow. Healing starts to come all from the closeness with the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 says this: “The God of hope…” That’s who we worship, the God of hope. “…Will fill you with peace and joy as you trust in God so that you may be overflowing through the power of the Holy Spirit.”
There is an overflowing hope and peace and joy that comes from the Holy Spirit that’s greater than our challenges or our circumstances. Have you tasted that? Have you deep in that well received? It might be time to take a deep dive for you, and don’t be overwhelmed. Don’t give up. Don’t think about suicide. There is a way out. There’s a good solution, and if you’re lonely right now, yes, it might take some relationship risks, but so much of our loneliness is a reminder that we need more of the Holy Spirit.
Receive his comfort today. If you’ve never put your trust in Jesus, make a decision to follow Jesus, because that’s when you receive the Holy Spirit and when you make that decision, the Holy Spirit dwells in you forever. You might have more or less of the Holy Spirit based on your desires, your sin choices, but you can always come back and say, “God, fill me with the Spirit.” God’s will. Ephesians 5:18, “Be filled with the Spirit.” “God, fill me with your spirit. Fill me with your comfort today. I need you today.” Those simple prayers, crying out to God, God filling you. Don’t grieve or quench the Holy Spirit anymore. Don’t take matters into your own hands and try and do it all in your own strength. You can’t. It won’t be by might. It won’t be by slick solutions, but by my spirit. That’s what the Lord’s message is today.
The church in America needs the Holy Spirit. We can’t just have more methods and programs and just try a little harder. That’s not going to work. Better ads. Sure, it’s fine to have a presence on social media. That’s definitely important in today’s culture, but our reliance is on the Holy Spirit, and if we don’t have God’s presence in the spirit, the church isn’t really going anywhere. The culture is not going to change. We’re just going to have some things we do over and over again in terms of some rituals without that deep transformation.
All roads today are pointing to the Holy Spirit, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, internationally, nationally, locally, personally, families. Let’s draw a near to God. Let’s receive the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Your test becomes a testimony, your misery becomes a ministry, and your mess becomes a message. This is the transformation of the Holy Spirit in deep places.
Receive God’s comfort today and share this message with a friend.
Thanks for all the times you rate, review, send us encouragement, and we want to encourage you to keep growing in your faith. That’s why we have The Bonfire to enjoy God’s presence and more of God’s presence in our lives. Let’s make room for the Holy Spirit and for the comfort. God wants to bring.
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