2023-01-31 Ghosted - Our Comforter

The talk is about the Holy Spirit as our comforter. The speaker discusses how we often seek comfort in other things like routine, people, technology, and vices instead of relying on the Holy Spirit for comfort. The Holy Spirit's comfort is different from what we expect, but it is the peace that comes from God and stands with us in difficult times. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being on a mission for God and seeking His peace through prayer and gratitude. The story of missionaries in North Korea is shared to illustrate how God's peace can be experienced even in troubling circumstances. The speaker encourages listeners to seek the Holy Spirit's comfort and trust in God's plans, even when things don't make sense. We are going to be finishing up our series titled Ghosted about the Holy Spirit, why he matters, who he is, and tonight I want to talk about the idea of the Holy Spirit as our comforter, right? We've talked a bunch of times as we've read the sort of theme passage, we've heard him described as an advocate, different translations also say comforter, and so we want to talk about that tonight. So from John 14 verses 15 and 16 in the King James Version says, if you love me, keep my commandments and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever. My main point for you guys tonight is that we can't experience the comforter, the Holy Spirit, at work in our lives when we're already comforted by something else. In other words, we can't experience God when someone else is already taking his role. And the problem is that we don't necessarily think of it like this, right? We don't think of it as being God's job to comfort us, or maybe we don't trust him to do so, so we try to comfort ourselves with other things. My first point for you on that is that we want to be comforted, right? I think we all want comfort in our lives. We all want to be comforted. We look for comfort in many areas of our life, even unconsciously, and really what it means is we're filling the place the Holy Spirit is meant to fill with lesser things. I think one of the places that we seek comfort, if you're a person like me, you'll especially try and seek comfort is routine. I like routine. Anybody like routine? Hannah's the other end of the extreme. She likes things to be different all the time. I'm the person, every time I go to a restaurant, I have my favorite order at each restaurant. This is what I know I like. That is what I'm getting every time I come here because I know I like it and I know what to expect, whereas Hannah's more like try a new restaurant every time, try a different thing on the menu. One of the first meals I ever ate with Hannah, she had a vegetarian burger, like a vegan kind of vegetarian burger. It was not like the Beyond Meat, but something kind of like that. I think it was like bean or something like that. Anyway, then I was like, oh, are you vegetarian? She's like, no, I just like to try new different things, right? But if you're like me, you like things to go in a certain way that you can expect and rely on, right? I like to plan for my day or for things I'm doing and I like to stick to my plan and I don't really like when plans change. I'm not saying that I'm entirely inflexible, but I do struggle to adjust my plans when I don't feel they have good reasons to be adjusted. But why is that? What does that mean? I think, honestly, for me, if I'm just being transparent and introspective here, I think it's a bit of pride. I think that for me anyways, it's arrogance, assuming that I know the best way for everything to go. And it's thinking that the routine and expectations which I create are more reliable. It means I trust my own reliability more than anyone else's. I don't want to depend on anyone's last minute changes and trust that it will go okay. But God asks us to trust him, sometimes at the expense of our own plans. That doesn't mean that planning is bad. You can get two ends of the extreme. I've been in churches growing up where the idea of planning was almost sinful. The idea of everything's got to be a free movement of the Holy Spirit and if we planned anything, then we're hindering the Holy Spirit from doing his work. That was kind of the logic, this idea that God is always spontaneous. But it's kind of funny if you think about it too, because if God knows the end from the beginning, spontaneity doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You know what I mean? It might appear spontaneous to us, but it's not spontaneous to him. He knew what was going to happen. I once remember talking to a worship leader in a worship group and they were having some trouble because they said, you know, I was talking to somebody in the worship group and I was saying that I'd like them to do things this certain way. And they said, oh, you're hampering my freedom in the Spirit to just kind of go whenever. And they said, you know, you shouldn't have all these plans. But the funny thing was like, well, God gave a plan to that person. It doesn't mean that they're not working in the Spirit. It means that the Spirit's working through their particular way and that way is some planning. Now, sometimes he's going to challenge us outside of our comfort zone too. But I would say that God shows facets of both. He's not somebody who is always spontaneous. He's not somebody who's always planned. He can change our plans, you know, but he is also someone who sees what's going to happen. So I don't mean to say that planning is bad. It doesn't mean God doesn't want us to be responsible by trying to dedicate our time wisely. If you're the planning type, I think that's a gift that God gave you to use wisely. But it's ultimately we have to submit our plans to him. A great quote that I really like, I don't know who said it, but I really like it is, write your plans in pencil and give God the eraser. You know, let him guide those things. We plan, but we let him direct. And I think because of this, God challenges people like me by not always giving them an immediate clear answer or full picture of his plan, but instead by showing them only the next baby step and asking us to trust him. And maybe that's you. Maybe you're the person who keeps being frustrated because you're like, God, I just want to know what is next. What is the next thing I should say? And we're really not asking what's next. You want to know the whole picture, you know. My mom likes to talk about the fact that when I was a kid, she'd put me to bed and then I would be asking her, okay, what are we doing tomorrow? She'd say, okay, well, this is what we're doing tomorrow. Okay, cool. What are we doing the day after that? And I would just keep going and going. So she got me a calendar and she wrote down on the calendar, this is what we're doing. So I would stop asking her, but I always wanted to know what's next, what's next, what's the, what's that bigger picture there that we're going for. And I think a lot of us want to know that big picture because we can trust our knowing the picture easier than we can trust that God knows the picture and we can just rely on him to tell us what's next. We just have to take the next little baby step. Can we trust him? Can we trust the Holy Spirit is reliable? I believe we can expect him to be our comforter and rely on him to be our guide. I think another place that we try and seek comfort instead of in the Holy Spirit is in people. When push comes to shove and rubber meets the road, do we turn to God in prayer and go to his word for comfort? Or do we immediately want to call our friend or our mom or spouse for comfort? And I'm not saying it's bad to get comfort from these people that we love. We're meant to be there for each other and comfort one another. But do we seek all our comfort from those people and end up no longer needing, having a feeling of any need for comfort from the Holy Spirit? And it's not that we still don't need his comfort, but that we no longer feel that we need his comfort until the next crisis when we end up turning to people again, right? The Holy Spirit wants to give us comfort, which corrects, guides, and changes us so we don't keep facing the same problems over again. And that's the key thing here, right? Because maybe your mom will tell you that your boss was unfairly criticizing your work when the Holy Spirit would convict you instead about how you could have learned from your boss's wisdom. And maybe sometimes we want to get comfort from people instead of God because people's comfort comes without a challenge. It comes without a correction. And there's lots of places that we try and seek comfort, though. We try and seek comfort in technology to just kind of distract our mind from our problems, right? Money, status, vices such as addictions, or even entertainment doesn't have to be something super, like, that we think of immediately. We think of, you know, you hear addictions, you think drugs, you think alcohol, but anything can be an addiction that we can use to try and dull the pain but not challenge us to grow or change. And these things may give us the illusion of comfort, but do they really comfort us long term? Which brings me to my second point for you tonight, which is that the Holy Spirit wants to comfort you. He wants to comfort you. And sometimes, as we just mentioned, we fill the void meant for Him with lesser things, but the thing is, there's supposed to be a void that we feel without Him. There's supposed to be a longing, a hunger, and it's a hunger meant for the Holy Spirit to fill. But we fill this hunger with the first Twinkie or candy bar that we can find, right? The good news is, God the Father has sent the Comforter in Jesus' name. But we can't experience His comfort if we're being comforted by something else. We no longer feel the need for His comfort when something else takes its place. But His comfort is different. It's different than we expect. We question whether or not we can rely on Him. When we eat junk food, we get hit with those sugars, right? We get an instant sense of gratification and relief, but we get brain fog later in the day or health problems later in our lives. And it's the same with lesser comforts. People that are just telling us that we're great, we have nothing to worry about in our lives, or there's other fish in the sea, they make us feel good, but they do nothing to guide us through the issues in our lives. And maybe there is other fish in the sea, but you can't keep a date because you're afraid of commitment. Maybe our old job wasn't great, but the real reason we can't keep a job is because we have an equally bad attitude. And maybe the only one in our lives who can say those things to us without fear of repercussion is the Holy Spirit. Which leads me to my last point for you tonight, which is that His comfort is different than we expect, which we mentioned earlier. John 14, 27 says, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I do not give as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. The Holy Spirit's comfort, His peace, is different than the world's peace. And that's sometimes why I think we don't go to Him for comfort, because it doesn't quite feel like the comfort we thought we wanted. It's not that quick-acting sugar. It's not that candy bar. God doesn't give the same kind of peace we would expect. How does it differ? Well, primarily, His peace is not a peace which removes us immediately from all bad experiences, but one which stands with us in them and gives us a peace even when it doesn't make sense to be at peace. The Bible says that we will have trouble. In fact, it was Jesus who said that. He said, I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows, but take heart because I have overcome the world. John 16, 33. And I think that's really important to remember, because you hear a lot of people, a lot of Christians talk about the promises of God, and they're in there in the Bible, but this is something else. There's these promises, but there's also these other things that He told us about, like things will be hard sometimes. That's something that He told us is going to happen. And maybe we're not feeling His comfort because we're too comfortable or we're uncomfortable for the wrong reasons. The Holy Spirit comforts us with God's peace, but this peace is not one which takes us out of the troubles of this world right away, because we're soldiers on a mission. Maybe I'm getting into some army analogies here, but bear with me here. We're at war, and consequently it doesn't make sense to imagine a Christianity which is just about us and our families living our best moral life without discomfort. For Him to comfort us, we first need to get uncomfortable, but for the right reasons. It's getting out of the boat, embracing this discomfort, and going where we can rescue others. To snatch them from the flames, so to speak, as Jude 1, 23 says. Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives. This is why we're not taken out of troubling circumstances right away. Instead, He assures us He has overcome these sorrows. In the end, He wins. But think about it. If the life of the Christian was meant to be just one, had no problems and all those kinds of things, and it was all just about us becoming our best self and all this kind of stuff, the minute we said, yes, Lord, I want to follow You, He'd go, take us up to heaven, and we'd just be there, because there's no point in us being here anymore. The fact that any one of us is still here means we're here for somebody else. We're not here for us. We're here for somebody else. And that's what I mean about that, the right kind of discomfort. Are we uncomfortable because the universe that's... I don't mean to sound condescending, because I'm speaking about myself too, okay? Because I do this as well. But the universe that we craft that revolves around us is not going the way that we wanted it to. Is that why we're uncomfortable, or is it because we're getting out and doing hard things for others? And that might sound like a hollower peace to our human minds, right? But I read a great quote attributed to Sheila Walsh, which says, peace is not found in the absence of trouble, but in the presence of God. And I think that's so key. That's the peace we're talking about. We're not talking about a peace where God just immediately removes you from all the hardships. I'm not saying it's easy. It sucks. But He is with us in those awful circumstances. He's going through it with us. This is not a peace brought by your army commander sending you home and saying you don't have to engage the enemy. This is a peace where your commander says, hey, I know it's going to be hard, but I am going to be with you. I'm going to be out on the battlefield with you. As Matthew 28, 19 to 20 says, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you. And be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That's something that we call in Christianity the Great Commission, because He commissioned us to go out on that mission and do that task, to go into all the world, making disciples, teaching them what He has taught us and baptizing them. But He said He will be with us in that. He'll be with us, giving us His peace, but we must be on mission to experience that. Meaning you must be out there living as representatives of Jesus, living by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, reaching out to a lost and dying world with the good news of Jesus Christ. This is where we find peace as we do this mission He gave us. Not as we hide from the world, afraid of all it does. Not as we fear what the schools teach our children. Not as we grumble about our co-workers, but as we take God's light into dark places to light them up. In conclusion, the Holy Spirit does give us peace and comfort. A comfort which doesn't make immediate sense to our human way of thinking. A peace which exists outside and beyond our ability to understand. As Philippians 4, 6-7 says, don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God's peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and mind as you live in Christ Jesus. There is a condition on our ability to experience this peace. Verse 6 is the condition to the result of verse 7. Verse 6 told us that don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. That is the condition that gives us the result of then you will experience God's peace. We need to let go of our worry and put our focus on gratitude toward God to experience His peace. And that might sound like, oh, well, how come there's a conditional? You know, God's love is unconditional. His love is unconditional, but there's also cause and effect. As long as we're holding on to our worries and not giving them to Him, He can't take care of them for us. Imagine if a kid falls, they scrape their knee and you want to help them out. Well, if they just sit over here covering their knee and moving away from you, you can't do anything. They have to come open and allow that person that trust. That might sound like a condition, but it's a cause and effect. I was thinking about the idea of God's peace, even in troubling circumstances. It really made me think about a story that I heard from Speaker Francis Chan. He told this true story about some missionaries who had been held hostage in North Korea, and many of them were killed. But while in prison, they pressed into God. There's about 30 of them to begin with. And they pressed into God and they prayed and they worshipped all the time. And I think by the end of it, I'm trying to remember. I'm going to get the details a little fuzzy here, but I think there was only about four of them that actually lived through the experience because every so often guards would come and just be like, we're taking another one. And that was it. But years later, the few of them that were left got together and they shared with each other how they actually missed being prisoners. Right? Just like, I need to see a psychologist. But no, it wasn't because of the terrible conditions. The reason they missed it is because they never felt as close to God as they did in that moment of trouble. They had a peace beyond understanding during trials. God gave them a peace for that occasion that while they went back to their comfortable life and had no real challenge, they had no real reason for that peace either. Tonight, maybe you wish you had the Holy Spirit's comfort. I'm sure that each one of us has situations in our life, maybe situations that you've been thinking about as we've been talking, you're thinking like, well, that's that trial that I'm going through. That's what I'd like the Holy Spirit's comfort for, or like, man, I really wish it was a peace that took me out of that situation. And this is the situation that I wish I was out of. And I'm not saying that God necessarily wants you to stay in the midst of that hard situation. That's not what I'm trying to tell you. What I'm saying is that he will be with you in it. And I trust that he's going to walk you through it for his glory and purposes, for good things to come out of the other side. And those things might not be always apparent. These are things that we don't always know the big picture, right? We get stuck on our own problems and things, and I'm not trying to minimize those problems by any means. But sometimes us going through hard things and coming through the other side with God's peace is the evidence that somebody else we don't even know is watching, needs to see for them to be able to trust God. So let's just take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you that we can have comfort through you, Holy Spirit, Lord. Lord, I just want to pray for each person in this room, including myself, Lord, for each of the areas that we need your comfort. I just pray that you bring that comfort and that peace which surpasses all understanding for each person here. Help us to be an example to others as we trust you even when it doesn't make sense. And Lord, for each of us, for the areas in our lives that we have sought comfort in lesser things, whether it's vices, whether it's entertainment, whether it's our routine, whether it's other people, Lord, help us to first come to you before we go to everyone else with our problems and to trust you, Lord God. Help us to grow in a relationship learning to trust you because we know you are faithful. And so, Lord, I just pray for a tangible, evident movement of your peace for each person here, Lord, that this week, Lord, as they're going through things, Lord, that you would give them that sense of peace, Lord, that it wouldn't just be a head thing that we're talking about today, Lord, but something that people can actually sense, Lord, that they would sense your peace as they go throughout their situations, Lord, and let that peace be a testimony to everyone watching. In Jesus' name, amen.