Leon Fontaine - The Comforter
Every one of you are called by God to minister. There's no such thing as I'm the minister and you guys are the rookies. I'm the clergy. You're the laity. I'm the professional. You're the rookies. No. I'm here to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. And if you wanna know how a good analogy is, is the coach the best player on any professional sports team? Never, not one. They all are there because of their ability to coach and to equip and put that team together and that's the five-fold ministry. We're not here to do all the ministry. We are here to equip you so wherever you go the miraculous, the wisdom of God, the opportunities, the things that you can do for God, become this amazing adventure.
And so, as we dive into this, I pray that you will just listen, allow God to teach you, prepare you. He's not looking for perfect people. He is not looking for somebody who's got the Bible memorized in seven years of cemetery. Seminary. He's looking for people who can operate in the real world and He'll guide you in this. So this is a very important series, and so I wanna just dive into it and I'm gonna start reading right now in Luke 24:49, Jesus speaking and He says, "And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry," Or the word means "wait". "But wait in the city of Jerusalem, until you be endued with power from on high".
Acts 1:8, "But you shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you and you shall be My witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, Judaea, Samaria, unto the uttermost parts of the world". All right, at this time Jesus is talking to the apostles. Now, when you follow these men and the things that they did. The power that was on their lives. They did not go out to do anything for God, until Holy Spirit came upon their lives. Did you know that Jesus is the same way? That Jesus for 30 years, I read a book by this person who wanted to kinda, the Bible is silent, silent about Jesus up until 30 years of age. Except for one example at age 12 when He kind of wows, so other than that we know nothing about Him. So one person or a few written books about how He did miracles when He was 12 and 15 and 17 and all of miracles that, but that's not accurate.
The Bible teaches us that Jesus did not do one miracle until Holy Spirit came upon Him at the age of 30. And from that point and on, everywhere He went people with crisis were attracted to Him. Everywhere He went was an effortlessness to see God's power flow. When He spoke to people, the persuasiveness. So Holy Spirit was upon Jesus, then He was upon the disciples. And there is this massive undertaking for denominations to rule out the miraculous. But today, I wanna show you that if God is gonna use you, you need to wait until you're endued with power. What is that? Well, there is a gift called salvation that Jesus provided for the entire planet and anyone who wants to get right with God can have the gift of salvation. It's a gift to sinners or it's a gift to the whole world. All 'cause we're all sinners. But then there is a gift to the saved. There is a gift for those who have given their lives to Jesus Christ and that is the infilling of the Holy Spirit.
And when that takes place in your life, you then are designed. You then are equipped. You're empowered to begin to move out and to do incredible things for God. The relationship is key. As you develop a relationship with Holy Spirit, that is when you begin to discover He's literally comforting you. I wanna go to another verse and that is in John 14:16. Let's read this together and I'm gonna jump into this one. It says, "And I'm gonna ask the Father," This is Jesus talking. "And He will give you another Comforter, Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby, and He is gonna remain with you forever". Why is that important? Because all of the miracles in the Old Testament happened through men and women when Holy Spirit came upon them periodically. For example, Elijah, the guy who got incredible miracles like calling fire from heaven and the things he did. He only had seven miracles in his ministry.
Now, for a guy who lives for decades and a miracle takes only a few minutes. That means seven times for a few minutes Holy Spirit came upon him and he did incredible miracles and then Holy Spirit left him. There was one time when he just did all of these incredible miracles, this miracle with calling down fire and then he's running from a woman who threaten him. So how does this guy go from this man of power calling down fire, now all of sudden he's running for his life because one woman threatened him. It says here that Holy Spirit coming upon you and I as believers. Now, He would never leave us. Now, this is very important because in the Old Testament guys like Samson, the Spirit of God will come upon him. He would shake himself and the Spirit of God would come upon him. He would do something like lifting the gates of the city out, taking out fifteen hundred soldiers with a bone.
Today, Holy Spirit, the same Holy Spirit on Elijah, the same Holy Spirit on David who killed Goliath, the same Holy Spirit that was upon Solomon to raise up those brilliant country with wisdom, the same Holy Spirit that was upon Elijah to call down a fire. This Holy Spirit is within you. He will never leave you and He's there to help you with your everyday life. Let's look at a couple of things that He does here. It says, "And I'm gonna ask the Father, He's gonna give you another Comforter". Let's talk about Comforter. Now, when I think about Comforter, the Canadian word for comforter is like a quilt. If your wife asks you, "Hey, is the comforter on our bed"? She's talking about a quilt. So Holy Spirit is a quilt. No, so that's why we gotta kind of dive in and go, "What He's talking about"? He's talking about a Comforter or one that brings peace, when there should be no peace.
Do you know how incredible this is? You know, when you've got peace in the midst of situations that are not peaceful. You look incredible. You look confident. You look, I mean, people wanna do business with you. They wanna follow you as a leader. When the Holy Spirit, that Comforter brings you peace in the middle of circumstances when nobody has peace. The world's peace it comes when you cure, when you fix the situation. You know, everybody's stressed out. Ah, we had an accident, someone's almost gonna lose her life. They're on life support. Pray, everybody's freaking, there's no peace. Or I just found out we're gonna lose our business. We got one week to meet payroll. I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like, all of these situations, business and relational and health and family and kids and you. That all of these situations cause stress. They cause us to be out of peace. We're freaking out. And so until we can fix it, we're living in this constant stress. But the problem with life is, there's always a problem.
So if you live in always stress out, the stress switch is on, means that you are in fight or flight. Which is great when a lion goes, You gotta run or kill him. But it's lousy when you're in stress day in and day out. Which is really a lack of peace. And so what happens is your body has a physiological change. It shunts all the blood that should be going to your organs and your bones and bringing health and vitality and rest and nutrients and taking off. It goes to your extremities so you can fight or run. Which leaves you on a place of sickness. And so when you don't have peace in your life, you literally begin to get sick.
I was talking to a doctor yesterday who attends in one of our churches. He was telling me how that, he was reading an article that close to 90% of all of the drugs that deal with anxiety, worry, stress, depression, that are needed for mood altering, etcetera, is all in America and Canada for the whole world, very little of it is use in other countries. And when they test other countries, they have better health. Even though we have billions and trillions spent on hospitals and professionals and all of these. They have way better and there's greater happiness in other countries with way less going on. We live in a world that needs the Comforter, Holy Spirit to bring peace into our lives. And when it does, this peace that passes understanding will affect your marriage, your relationships, your business.
A lot of people they try to bring stress on to their employees because they think they can make them work better, if they can bring some stress. Hey, you. Come on, get going. You get fired. Get going. If we can make, if we can bring stress into their life, they'll get going. The fact is that that's not a long-term fix. There are some people who like stress even to be creative. People who have to be, do creative things. Write songs, you know, whatever creativity they gotta do. That they find as they get closer and closer to the deadline, that that's when they get the most creative or if their life's in a real mess, they write better song from they're really down in the dumps. That's because they've wired themselves to do it that way. Did you know? That we know that you are at your most creative when you are at peace. Which is why they tell you that most people write new inventions and new ideas on a napkin, not on the stationary from their desk, not on their iPhone or iPad from work.
Why is that? Because they're at the boardroom table crunching on ideas and brainstorming and trying to be creative. And finally, okay, break for lunch. We're stressed out just trying to be creative. And while you're having a burger and a fry, laughing and talking and visiting and getting your mind off of the work. Boom! An idea comes and you're scrambling for a napkin. Anybody got a pen? You gotta write this thing down. That is literally the way most creative people say, "I wrote this amazing song in seven minutes sitting at McDonalds and I had to write at the back of the menu and I've got this thing now framed to prove at my desk 'cause it brought millions of dollars". Being creative is when you're at peace. If you wanna know how to make wise decisions, you gonna want this peace. This peace is so powerful, so phenomenal. That when everything around you is going wrong and even in your life.
There are times that a problem or a storm can go on in your life an entire year, with no solution in sight yet. It could be a job or any day you're gonna be fired. It might be a loved one fighting for their life for months with something. And what you gonna do? When you can't have peace until the problem is solved. You learn to walk in this incredible peace that Holy Spirit brings. He is our Comforter. It goes on to say Counselor. The Holy Spirit is our Counselor. Well, this is incredible because, don't get me wrong. But the church has moved into counseling as though it's the be all and the end all. I know churches our size that have entire hallways and wings set up with professional Christian counselors with their degrees. And they're booked up, I mean, a year in advance with all every day. People coming in for counseling as though counseling is gonna change them.
May I ask you a question. Any of your friends that you've counsel with, how many of them took your advice? Yeah, you're laughing already. We find the same is true in counseling office. We need counseling office and it's important for people. There some real needs for that. I'm not knocking that at all. I'm just saying that to see that as the be all and end all. You're making a mistake. Nowhere in the Bible can I find counseling taking place. Jesus and the twelve disciples walked into Jerusalem, each grabbed an office and began to counsel with the people that lined up. You don't find that anywhere in the Bible. Now, wise counsel comes from people which is a quick thing. So, but here it says Holy Spirit is our Counselor.
Here's what I've discovered. I've discovered the peace because He comforts me in situations because I find I'm always in a crisis. Nobody calls a pastor because things are going good. Things are going great! Let's call the pastor. No, no. And so, He's our Comforter. He's our Counselor. And what I've discovered is that when you begin to fellowship with Holy Spirit, when you could begin to spend time with Holy Spirit, He becomes your Counselor. Literally as you spend time in the Word, you fellowship with Him. It's like the presence of God rises up and you begin to think yourself clear. You begin to find problems. You begin to figure out things as Holy Spirit teaches you.
See, the most important thing about Christianity is it all the rules and the do's and even the blessings and the promises. It's about the relationship. The relationship is key. As you develop a relationship with Holy Spirit, that is when you begin to discover He's literally comforting you. In the relationship with God is where you begin to find wise counsel on how to handle this on your marriage, this with your teenage girl, how to handle this with the discontent your feeling inside with the midlife crisis you're dealing with or this discontent feeling you've got with something going on. The wisdom of Holy Spirit, He counsels with you. And it comes from His quiet time with Him. It goes on to mention things like Helper, Intercessor.
Did you know that the word helper is incredible? Because a lot of times you need help. You're gonna move the fridge. "Well, honey, I'm gonna do by myself". Well, she's gonna rip up the boards, the linoleum. You can kiss your granite countertop goodbyes as that thing bangs and bashes everything. Which you get two helpers and you can dead lift that thing with a couple of straps, right another or slide another easy as pie. Holy Spirit helps you with things that you can't do on your own and He'll always be there to help you. But we don't have a relationship with Him. We're going to heaven when we die but we've never learned to be filled with Holy Spirit, to get to know Him and spend time with Him. One of the words it says, seven of this or seven words in this verse that I don't have time to go through each one. Another one is the word Advocate. Let's talk about that for a minute. Advocate means lawyer.
Now, have you found that most of you or everybody does, I know you do, has got this kind of lawyering in your head like attacking you all the time of what you're doing wrong. Almost like you watch this lawyer movies where that lawyer is walking in front of the jury and looking at the person in the defense box and saying, "You are a murderer. You are -," And this accusation after accusation. The Bible says Satan is the accuser of believers. What he does is trying to get you so fearful and worry and he's gonna accuse you of your sin, your problems. You don't measure up. You're not good enough. You don't fit in. We know what you're thinking about. God's gonna get you. And it's just accusation, accusation. Holy Spirit is our Advocate, our Lawyer. And as you spend time with Him, a wonderful thing happens.
Many people in this room just by laws of averages, you struggle with self-worth, you struggle with rising up in doing something in your life because the accuser of the brethren just keeps you feeling awful because you can't ever live perfectly, you can't live good enough, your self-worth is in the toilet, and you just go through life and what you reach for, what you try to achieve, who you try to hang out with, is all affected by these accusations. So Holy Spirit begins to rise up and all of a sudden, as these accusations come against you, Holy Spirit begins to do your case for you. You can just sense His presence going, "No, I'm more than a conqueror. I'm an overcomer. Jesus died for me. I'm so special. I'm gonna ride upon the high places of the earth. I'm gonna go run through a troop, leap over a wall. I can do all things through Christ".
All of these promises begin to rise up inside of you and instead of having this defeated mindset as the enemy, the accuser, meets the Advocate, the Lawyer, Holy Spirit on the inside of you. And just a peace and a strength as you know I'm righteous because of Jesus. His grace is in my life. Holy Spirit. If you we don't fellowship with Holy Spirit, how we're gonna make it? One of the things He does, He strengthens us. Let's talk about that for a second. Have you ever woke up and you just feel yuck physically? You feel yuck mentally. You feel yuck emotionally. You feel yuck relationally. And just in a, and all of a sudden, you begin to eat the right food, feed yourself the right word. You can just sense the strength rising up in you. Holy Spirit's job is to make you strong.
And so if you're not fellowshipping with Holy Spirit, spending time with Him, instead you see Christianity as just a religion. You are living your life in your own strength. In Romans 8 says that to do that is death. You're never gonna make work what God's got for your future on your own strength. You need to be spiritually minded. You need to be fellowshipping with Holy Spirit. And my time is up but I really want you to understand something that as I begin to teach you how to help others and minister to others. How to lead a life of adventure and excitement of seeing God do miracles and signs and wonders through you. You first need to wait till you are endued with power. You need to be filled with Spirit of God. You need to build a relationship with Him. Every day getting to hear His voice, getting to know Him.