Leon Fontaine - Our Counselor
So many people they know about God. They know about Jesus but so few know more than about Holy Spirit just being around. Many people, they think we got God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in three Persons, but many do not rely on Holy Spirit, don't know how to tap in and live life with Him so that they are empowered and they're more than just a natural man. They're a supernatural man. And so that's what this series is about, is you learning to move and to live, to do life with Holy Spirit.
So, let's jump in today and I know that we're gonna talk about something that's gonna help so many people. John 14:16, here's the context. Jesus is telling His disciples that He was gonna be leaving them. Now, that freaked them out. But He was talking about when He goes another Comforter would come. You see, Jesus brought comfort and direction and wisdom and protection and power into His twelve disciples and the other 70 and the 500 or anybody whose around Him. Jesus would bring the comfort, the presence of God, the power. But when He left, because Jesus put Himself in human body. He gave up forever, whatever form He had before He was born as a baby. And when Jesus died, rose again, and the disciples watched Him rise into the sky. Seated at the righthand of God today is a human body. It's Jesus all human, yet it's Jesus all God, the Son of God. It's a stunning thing. And so Jesus can only be in one place at one time. Holy Spirit is omnipresent. He's everywhere simultaneously. Helping me now, helping my wife where she is, my children missionaries around the world.
And so He's talking here about Holy Spirit, and He says I'm gonna ask the Father, in John 14:16, and He will give you another Comforter. Then it says that He may remain with you forever. The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, welcome, or take to heart, because it does not see Him or know Him or recognize Him. But you know and recognize Him, Holy Spirit, for He lives with you constantly and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, comfortless, desolate, bereaved, forlorn, helpless. I will come back to you. In the Amplified Bible, I like it because they actually list all the seven things that this word "comforter" means. I wanna talk to you about the side of this word that means Counselor. What is a Counselor? You know, if, we often talk about mentors and the power of mentoring, and ideas really amazing. If you hang around with a great leader, and are able to hear him talk, hear his thoughts or her thoughts, hear how they handled problems, walked through problems, deal with problems. And you're able to hear them, see them, be a part of it, how fast you develop the very strengths and wisdom that they have.
So many people today, counseling is a big issue. Counseling for Christians has become the be all and the end all. There are some churches that have whole wings for counseling, people and they've got nine, ten pastors or counselors all lined up. People would often wanna talk to me about something and I'd say, "Well, okay. Everything that I've taught about that is right here". No, no. I need to talk to you. And I go, "I don't have any knowledge that I'm keeping hidden. And so if you like information about that, get the series that we did and it's all about marriage, it's all about finance, and start there. Go through that first before you think you need two, three hours of my time. And people go, "Oh, thank you". But others, oh no, they wanna be counselled with and if we're not careful counseling will take the place of you learning to be counselled by Holy Spirit.
So again, I'm not against counseling. I have many situations where people were almost finished, marriages done, families done, almost ready to take their own lives. So of course, but all of us should be reaching out and talking to one another. I remember reading a survey. It was a study actually done on a lot of the different kinds of psychology. And they found in this study that people who just had a good friend would do better than people who were seeing a professional counselor. Now, in life, in the complexities of life there are other situations that I'm not talking. I'm just about normal life 'cause there are others who gone through brutal things, incredible things, were raised in a way where literally, you know, they've not have been loved or taught.
So there's a ton of things that people need to go and get help for. Don't get me wrong. But in average, everyday life, there are those who, if you can get lazy and all you wanna do is someone tell you what to do, someone counsel with you. Here it says that I'll ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter. But we can literally put in the word and He will give another Counselor. There's nothing Holy Spirit doesn't know and He's here to counsel you. He's here to bring you to a place of peace, of wise decisions, of how to handle a task, how to handle situations, failures, heartache, hurt. I have found in my life that Holy Spirit will guide me and counsel with me. I don't know how many times I've been involved in a situation. And by the way, I have friends that I call when I need help with something or if I'm making a decision, I wanna make sure I'm on the right track.
There are friends, especially my wife. I mean, she's incredible. She's someone that I go to all the time about stuff. And there's other pastors, leaders, people in my family, in our church that I like to talk about because they're experts in medical area, systems and structures, TV, television. I have no problem getting counsel and help from somebody who is very sharp in an area. It's not what I'm talking about but I do all of that. But in life many times Holy Spirit is trying to lead us, Bible says, into truth. He is the Spirit of Truth.
There are times when I'm dealing with a situation where there's multiple ways that I could go, and I'm wondering what should I do? And if I know someone that can bring some wisdom, I'll talk to them. But I've discovered something very powerful. That when I rely on Holy Spirit and just quietly in His presence, pray, ask Him for help, read the Word. Holy Spirit will often guide me to a scripture. He'll actually take me back into my memory and to things maybe my dad taught me, my mom. Something that I've been through or I've seen before. And when I'm at peace, Holy Spirit will counsel me. He'll guide me. If there's something that causing pain and hurting my life because of what someone has done or said, when I spend time with Holy Spirit, He brings peace and He'll counsel with me. I can just sense the wisdom rising up from my spirit about how to deal with that situation.
I often teach pastors and leaders, pastors are leading a charity and they're leading a church. But there are people who lead their homes, people who lead businesses can often get to situations where it's like there's no wisdom, no one has ever taught them how to handle this. But you'll tend to know. People would often say, "How did you know to do that in that situation"? And I'd say, "I don't know. I just, when I walk into it, I've never been in that situation before. I've never read anything on how to handle a situation like that before so I walked in and it just seemed to rise up from within me. That, and you wanna call it common sense or let's call it spirit sense, a sense that I've not been taught in that so it can be common sense for me. But a spirit sense rose up out of my heart, out of that and I knew what to do and I just walk it out that way. And miracles moved or things calm right down or answers rose up or the person that was coming against me was handled efficiently and effectively".
Holy Spirit is our Counselor. He is always with you. When you deal with your five-year-old, He's trying to counsel with you and bring wisdom. When you're dealing with your marriage, when you're dealing with yourself. You're going through stuff and you're tempted, and things are going on and you don't feel yourself and you're wondering what's wrong with me. And your brain is in this big old, you know, tiff. He brings comfort and peace, but He also helps you to think your way clear. As you spend time with Holy Spirit, you literally will think your way clear in every area of life. What to finally do in business, marriage, family, health, when doctors are saying this and you got another expert saying that and everyone is in disagreement about how to handle what's going on. You need to know that Holy Spirit is your Counselor. And I like the fact that many of these words kind of overlap. Like Comforter or someone that brings peace and there's a peace. And if you can't figure things out, He'll always be there.
But then there's times we gotta figure things out. How do I raise a kid in a situation like this, in a society like this, where schools saying this, and TV's doing that? How do I what? Holy Spirit will counsel with me. He'll teach me. He'll guide me into all truth. One of the things as well about a counselor is that when you talk to someone in a situation whose been through it before. Man, the peace it brings when they give you wisdom or counsel. There's times I talk to somebody who's done what I'm trying to do multiple times and just a few minutes in their presence and one question and they'll say something and my entire direction is figured out. Often, people will try to get to me and talk with me and say, "I don't have time to spend hours with you. I'm sorry".
Counseling is something I had to put aside because of all the things that I'm doing now as a leader. But tell me what your problem is, and they'll go, "Well, back in 1962". No, I don't need the story. If I had to bring it down to one line, one paragraph. What do you wanna know? What would it be? And they, you see their brain that they really wanna spend hours now if they think that their problem is so complex. They say, "Well, it's this". And they've asked me the question without all of the background and all of the complexities that are in their mind. And I would just wait a moment and all of a sudden, Holy Spirit would rise up within me and I'd say, "Well, I don't know and I can't tell you what to do. But let me tell you a way to think your way clear and make a decision". And I give them one paragraph and it was like Spirit of God would rise up within me and you see their eyes getting big going, "Oh, that solves everything". Or I give them one line and how to prioritize in that situation. Holy Spirit is our Counselor. He'll help us to speak to others like your spouse, your kids.
But one of the things I really wanna get through to you, is that you don't have to live a life where Holy Spirit is your Comforter bringing peace while you learn nothing, do nothing, just kind of tiptoe to the tulips. I'm at peace. Everything's failing around me, marriage, family, home, my body, my car, my house, but I'm at peace. That's a crazy kind of peace. No, Holy Spirit is bringing peace. He is your Comforter, that He's also your Counselor. He is literally counseling with you, guiding you, increasing you, bringing you to a place of wisdom, bringing you to a place of knowing how to handle hard situations, how to walk through things that a normal man would fail, a normal man wouldn't know what to do. He is always there. In fact, He is so good that He literally says, Jesus says in the New Testament, open your mouth when you get into a situation and I fill it. You kind of go, "What? What do you mean"? He says, open your mouth.
I have found in situations someone will ask me a tough question and I'll just start to talk. And as I'm talking, I go on for 10, 15 and the things I'm saying, I'm amazed at myself and I've heard, literally, every Christians I've talked to says the same thing. You kind of go, "Wow, I was good". No, that was Holy Spirit counseling through you, teaching through you, helping that person. And even when someone has questions, and you think that's the issue. Sometimes they're beating around the bush. And as Holy Spirit speaks through you, you begin to deal with the situation and it begins to move from the question to some other area that touches the heart of that person. Holy Spirit knows our heart. He knows the heart of the people were talking to. He knows how to get to the very root of every problem. But I want you to know that as you get into God's Word and read, ask Holy Spirit to teach you as you begin to walk through situation.
Every day when you rise say, "Holy Spirit, today, be with me". He'll keep peace. He'll comfort you day by day, second by second, minute by minute, your every situation. And then what you do, He will be there and He will counsel. People will be an awe of the wisdom that you have for relationships. They'll be an awe of the wisdom you have in your career path about things that you've never been trained in. But Holy Spirit, by the way, knows everything about computer science. He knows everything about medicine. He knows everything about leadership. He knows everything about developing teams. He knows about how to handle your spouse, how to raise up kids, of family, how to stop the attack of the devil and his harassment of your spouse's mind, your kid's mind, your mind. There's nothing Holy Spirit doesn't know and He's here to counsel you. He said to bring you to a place of peace, of wise decisions, of how to handle attacks, how to handle situations, failures, heartache, hurt. Holy Spirit is here on this planet. He is God the Holy Spirit. That you need to know about, study about. You need to learn and you need to develop an ability spend time with Him.
Over the years, I've often, you know, sat down and talked with great pastors and great theologians and we'll talk certain doctrines from the Bible. And they'll tell me what they think and they'll tell me what they believed and doctrine. And I love that because I think it's important to have good doctrine. But often I can sense as they talk, they didn't know Holy Spirit. They will say beautiful men, brilliant men in doctrine but as I begin to talk because they had never learned to listen to Holy Spirit, experience Him as He empowers them, brings peace to their mind, as He brings counsel to them. I would often say to them, "Hey, bring that doctrine and what would you do in this situation"? And I give them a situation that I walk through as a pastor or as a paramedic. And you can just see their brain not knowing how to practically take that doctrine and apply it. Holy Spirit here is here to counsel with us as you read the Word, learn the Word. And it says, you are more than an overcomer.
The Bible says this is the victory that overcomes the world, even our faith. Well, it's two nice verses. But Holy Spirit will guide you with faith and how to be an overcomer when you're dealing with a physical situation, a mental situation, a relational situation. When you're dealing with just capacity where your life is going so big. But you gonna hardly hang on to your braincells as you have to handle greater and greater responsibility, which brings more and more stress, which brings more and more decision-making. Holy Spirit is the Counselor. He cannot only show you how set up your day as leader, but how to put together your team in a way that better suits you. And it might not be in the Trucker Book of Management or whoever you think is the latest guru. The Spirit of God can guide you and lead you in every area in your life.
I really wanna encourage you. Make sure that you're studying the Word. Make sure that you recognize that there's nothing Holy Spirit doesn't know and He wants to show you truth. He wants to counsel you. You know, there's nothing more beautiful than, I remember one time sitting and having a situation that was new to me and I sat down with a person who had already done this in leadership. He created this kind of entity. And so I say, "Okay, we're in a situation of starting up this. How did you handle? What did you do"? And I wasn't even asking the right questions. He smiles and say, "Well, you know, those things are actually minor. These are questions you should be asking. And in three or four sentences because he'd already done it. He brought incredible clarity to me as I was gonna start that organization.
Now, because he'd already done it. Holy Spirit was there when Jesus walked the planet. He saw Jesus heal that young boy. He saw Jesus walked on the water. Holy Spirit was there anointing Jesus and giving him the ability to do all those things. That same Spirit that was with Jesus. That was with Paul when he penned the epistles. That same Holy Spirit was there with Peter. He's here with you and I as you read your Bible. He wants to counsel you, teach you. You know it's interesting as I read the Bible sometimes I just slow right down. And, you know, when I read how that Jesus as He walked along the seashore did this, and when I just slow down, I just close my eyes and say, "Holy Spirit, teach me".
And you know, you can get so clear that you can hear the waves on the inside of you crashing on the beach. You can just literally see the sand as the sandals are walking through it and the crowds all along the hillside and then Jesus begins to teach. You can literally immerse yourself in God's Word because Holy Spirit was there. He was the one impressing upon Paul to write that. He was with Moses, impressing upon Moses to write those first five books of the Bible. Which no one was there when it happened. When the world was created, I mean, the God Head was, but we weren't. But Moses knew because Holy Spirit taught him, showed him what to write as he went through all of these incredible books.
So what about you? Maybe it's time for you to slow down and to stop thinking you it. The pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. It's just means relying on yourself. You think you got it together. You're good enough, bad enough, smart enough, together enough. I've learned I can't even take credit anymore. Because look what you've done, look what you've raised up. How did you handle that? How did you do that? I'll always say, "You know, there's some things I've learned, but really Holy Spirit was upon me, guiding me, leading me. His ability was flowing through me. I depend upon His favor, His grace, His ability". And let your life be taken to a place you've never experienced before while you live in a supernatural way, always empowered by Holy Spirit. God bless you.