Spirit 1: Advocate, Comforter, episode 60

0:00 If you love a prodigal, you can discover help and hope for your wilderness journey right here at When You Love a Prodigal. And also help and hope for your own life journey. Today we begin the most important series of all our times together. We will talk about the secret for surviving and thriving in your wilderness journey. Be sure to jot down ideas you can try and apply. No matter what human influence, pressure, or leverage, we may think we have to bring about change with the prodigals we love. God always reminds us that real change comes through the action of His own Spirit.

0:46 All that we have considered on this podcast to help us walk through our prodigal wilderness is impossible for us to have control over the outcomes. But the Holy Spirit makes it possible as He works through our prayers to touch lives, especially our prodigals. Zechariah tells us, It is not my power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty. We don't have the power, but the Spirit of God does. This Holy Spirit is the secret for living the Christian life. Jesus said it was better for Him to leave so the Spirit could come not to be with us as Jesus had, but to actually live in us.

1:34 Amazingly, we become the home of God Himself as His Spirit comes to dwell in us. And oh, what amazing things He does for us and through us. In His word, we find this very present Spirit is our advocate, a comforter, an encourager, truth, freedom, peace, a warrior, and our power. So join with me as we consider the ways in which the Holy Spirit supports and sustains us. We will look at two of those ways today.

2:14 The first is advocate. As a writer, I sometimes receive requests to endorse books, most often from friends. They want me to vouch for them to say their book is well written and worth reading. In a sense, my friends are asking me to be an advocate for them. Certainly, those of us who love prodigals understand this advocate role. How many times have we spoken for or on behalf of our wayward ones in their schools? Oh, in the courts, for a job, even to our friends. We are an advocate for them.

2:54 Since our son came to us at age nine with damage from lots of childhood trauma, I was often his advocate with the school. I made sure they understood his learning issues, his lack of ability to do cause and effect reasoning, his abandonment issues. I was on his side. I was an advocate for him. Yes, we desire and encourage appropriate consequences for their bad choices. Yet our love compels us to be on their side, an ally, to believe in and endorse them to be an advocate for them, even when they don't deserve it.

3:39 Gratefully, God has provided an advocate for us and for our loved ones. But the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you. The New Testament word for Holy Spirit is pericletos. In most recent translations, the meaning given is advocate. An advocate is one who speaks for or on behalf of or speaks up for, to give a character reference for. How often do we feel inadequate and unworthy to come to the Father with our desperate needs as parents and family and friends?

4:24 Yet the Holy Spirit is there. He speaks to the Father on our behalf because of what Jesus has done for us. He offers a character reference for us, the character of Jesus himself. He is also an advocate for our prodigals before the throne. He brings to our God's attention the fact that Jesus shed his blood for these we love, that there are children of God on their knees pleading on behalf of these prodigals. And this holy advocate does something else. He actually prays for us and for them.

5:08 In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness, we learn in Romans 8, we do not know what to pray for. We talked about that last week. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Just think, we're at our wit's end. We have no idea what to do next. We don't even know what to pray. And the Spirit of God living in us is praying for us, being an advocate for us and our loved ones. His prayers go much deeper with infinite understanding. What a comfort.

5:50 And as we pray for our loved prodigals, we can be assured that the Holy Spirit, our advocate, is standing with us, praying for us, praying with us. He's an advocate. He's also a comforter. I bet you can appreciate that. When you love a prodigal, a little comfort from somebody who cares about you is really wonderful. I've had several friends who walked well with me on my prodigal journey. They often played different roles. One was more a prayer warrior. One just listened while I blubbered. One would share words of wisdom, and one was very good at giving comfort in the darkest times.

6:37 I said the word Jesus used when introducing the Holy Spirit is periclitos. It is a rich word with multiple meanings or connotations. In addition to advocate, another way the word is translated, most often in older versions, is comforter. In the midst of the pain of walking through life with a loved prodigal, one of the best gifts we receive is someone who comes alongside us and walks with us to comfort and console. Hopefully most of us have a friend who does that for us, but we have this assurance. God is that friend.

7:18 He has sent us periclitos, who is called beside to comfort us, to soothe and reassure us. In John we read, I will pray the Father, Jesus said, and he will give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Human comforters are wonderful, but you know, they have a life too, and so we can't count them. They're always being there, but you can count on always that the comforter of the Spirit will be there. As we lived through the often difficult days with a loved one, God himself, by his Spirit, comes alongside us to comfort and console.

8:02 What a promise and provision. And as we walk beside our prodigals or with friends going through such a trial, we can receive comfort and be the conduit through whom the Spirit can come alongside our friends or our loved ones with the same comfort and consolation, who comforts us in all our troubles, we read in 2 Corinthians, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. Isn't it wonderful that God just takes the pain that another person has lived through and that can minister to us, and the Spirit of God works all that out and is there.

8:50 When our Josh had received Christ at the age of 14, and that night he was also born in my heart as my son. Before that he was this boy God had sent to us and we were doing our best, but all of a sudden he was my son. I entered into one of the most challenging times of our wilderness journey. He was in a Christian residential program that God had provided, but we could see him only once a week. It was as though I could rarely be with my newborn son. My heart ached, I wept, no one really understood, except for the Holy Spirit, who comforted me and walked through those weeks with me.

9:39 When I wept, the Spirit captured my tears, when I was angry, he calmed me with soothing words. When I asked, where are you God, and how long Lord, the Spirit, the Comforter, was right beside me. So I have a couple of questions for you. When have you been an advocate for your prodigal, and when do you think the Holy Spirit has been an advocate for you? And another, when was comfort exactly what you needed and the Holy Spirit provided, and how have you been a conduit of comfort in another's life?

10:27 Ask God to open your eyes to how the Spirit is both your advocate and your Comforter. Next week, we will look at the Spirit as encourager and truth. God bless you.