The Holy Spirit: Our Companion W/Pastor Ericka White

In this Mother’s Day message, Pastor Ericka White explores one of the most personal and comforting truths Jesus ever spoke: the Holy Spirit is not merely a force to understand or a doctrine to debate, but a Companion to know.

Drawing from John 14, Pastor Ericka invites us to see the Holy Spirit as “The Friend” Jesus promised would never leave us or abandon us. Before Pentecost brought public power, Jesus first prepared His disciples for personal relationship. The Spirit comes alongside us in grief and joy, in parenting and ministry, in uncertainty and everyday life.

If you have ever wondered whether God is truly near, this message offers this reminder: through the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus continues with us today. You are not alone. You are not abandoned. And you are never sent alone.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We've been in this series on the Holy Spirit, and we will continue there today. Um, there is probably no person of the Trinity more talked about and yet more misunderstood than the Holy Spirit. We can often explain God the Father, we can picture Jesus the Son, but the Holy Spirit, He can feel mysterious, hard to define, hard to explain, and just the right words. And if we're honest, the Holy Spirit has become one of the clearest lines of division among believers. This is why I chuckled when um you said, Lord, heal the whole bride. I couldn't had a belly chuckle because yes, you are concerned, Lord, not only about this denomination or this denomination, but your whole bride. And his desire is that we would be in unity about the things concerning him. He's not confused about himself. And he wants us to be unified. But this topic of the Holy Spirit is a line of division that the enemy has used among believers. If you believe this, you must be Pentecostal. If you don't practice that, you must not really believe in the Spirit. If your church emphasizes this, you're too emotional. Oh yeah. But if you and your church avoids that, you must not really believe and you must be rigid. And before we know it, the Holy Spirit becomes a debate, a denomination, a theological category that we like to plope in, a spiritual litmus test instead of being a person that we are invited to know. Some people are fascinated with the Holy Spirit, others are fearful of him. Some have seen manipulation in his name. Others have grown in traditions where the Holy Spirit was barely even mentioned beyond a doctrinal statement. Some chase manifestations, others just avoid the conversation altogether to hopes of not getting it wrong. And as we continue through this series, walking toward East in Easter tide, toward uh Ascension Day and toward Pentecost, I want us to just name that in this room because I believe it grounds us in the assumptions, in the expectations, in the fears, the experiences that each and every one of us in our diverse uh lenses and backgrounds bring into the conversations about the Holy Spirit. So can we just name that and own that? Before we talk about being filled with the Spirit and the work and the demonstration of the Spirit, before we talk about manifestations and the power that is ours was ever publicly expressed, we need to just stop and begin where Jesus began. And that was in relationship. The Spirit is not something that we hope to get right. He is someone that we walk alongside. And where I believe the Spirit is leading us today in this series is especially appropriate where we are in the church calendar. This coming Thursday is Ascension Day. It is the 40th day after Resurrection Day. And of course, Ascension Day is the day that we commemorate when Jesus ascended into heaven. And sometimes ascension can feel like it is an event that is overlooked in the movement between Easter and Pentecost, but it matters deeply. And it mattered deeply to Jesus because before Jesus ascended, before he poured out publicly from himself in Pentecost, he was having conversations of preparation with his disciples. He was helping them to understand you are not being abandoned. You will not be left alone. My physical departure does not mean the end of my presence with you. And it is in these conversations we're gonna hear that Jesus keeps talking about another. Another, another helper is coming, another advocate is coming, another companion. And so I want to lead us into the text today. And our main text is gonna come from one of those intimate conversations between Jesus and his disciples. Last week, and even when we started this series, we started at John 20 when Jesus was resurrected and breathed and said, receive the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit. I want to take us back a little further in John 14. And I'm reading today from the message translation, which I don't usually do. That's usually Lamar's jam. But because it captures some of the relational tone and the emotional movement that Jesus' words meant to his disciples. I want to go this direction. And I'll try to read fast. But you'll hear what Jesus emphasizes over and over is again not merely what the disciples will do, but who will be with them. Reading John 14 and 15 to 27. If you love me, show it by doing what I've told you. I will talk to the Father, and he'll provide you another friend, so that you'll always have someone with you. This friend is the spirit of truth. The godless world can't take him in because it doesn't have eyes to see him, doesn't know what to look for. But you know him already because he has been staying with you and will even be in you. I will not leave you orphaned. I'm coming back. In just a little while, the world will no longer see me, but you're going to see me because I am alive and you are about to come alive. At that moment, you will know absolutely that I'm in my father and you're in me, and I am in you. The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that's who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him. Judas, not Iscariot, said, Master, why is it that you're about to make yourself plain to us, but not to the world? Because a loveless world, said Jesus, is a sightless world. If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word, and my father will love him. We'll move right into the neighborhood. Not loving me means not keeping my words. The message you're hearing isn't mine, it's the message of the Father who sent me. I'm telling you these things while I'm still living with you. The friend, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you. He will remind you of all the things I have told you. I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. And I don't leave you the way you're used to being left, feeling abandoned, bereft, which means like you're lacking something you need. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Jesus continued this conversation later in John 15, saying that the Spirit would testify about him. And then we'll pick up in John 16 in a moment what he said as well to his disciples. But of course, depending on the translation, maybe you wouldn't have chosen the message. Jesus, depending on your translation, would have used words to describe the Holy Spirit as advocate, helper, comforter, counselor. The message translation, Eugene Peterson uses the phrase, I find it especially beautiful, the friend. I love that. It helps you to feel the relational uh nearness that Jesus is trying to communicate. And it this morning had me thinking about Proverbs. I had to go search, where is that at? Because I could hear there is a friend. I felt like as I was praying over us today, I could hear the Lord reminding me there's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. That's the friend. Well, Jesus says he is another advocate, not just the friend. He's another, another helper, which means that this before the spirit would be the disciple's helper, Jesus already had been. For years, Jesus had walked beside them, he had taught them, comforted them, corrected them, he had strengthened them, and then he remained near to them. So when Jesus says, I will send another helper, he's promising the continuation of everything he had been amongst and alongside them. The Greek word that Jesus uses, parakletos, it's often rendered in English as the paraclete. As its core, the word means one called alongside, not distant, not detached, not occasional, constant alongside you. The friend, the companion, the third distinct person of the Holy Spirit, present and sent to come alongside you and remain with you. I love that language. I just want it to soak in for us this morning. Because sometimes what becomes a source of division, I think, in the body of Christ is regarding the Holy Spirit when he's reduced to just dramatic moments or uh emotional experiences or manifestations. But Jesus introduces him relationally, not just as fire, not just as wind, but as presence, as a companion, one who comes alongside you. And it makes me wonder if sometimes the struggle with the Holy Spirit that we have, I wonder if it's because we're more comfortable with God at a distance, a God we visit occasionally, that maybe we reference on Sunday. And I'm speaking, of course, none of these, none of these brothers and sisters in this room, but I'm talking about the Bixie church, right? Those that reference him only on Sunday, those that are inspired by him from afar, God that is afar from me. But Jesus says the spirit is personal, he's near and present, he is abiding. He doesn't just merely visit us, he abides and dwells with us. Before the spirit was poured out in Acts, Jesus is showing the disciples that he was already being the helper with them. And Jesus makes this even clearer in John 16. He says, Of the Holy Spirit, he will take what is mine and declare it to you. For all that belongs to the Father is mine. Jesus is saying, everything the Father has, what does the Father have? He has love, his truth, his wisdom, his authority, his glory. It belongs to the Son. And Jesus says the role of the Holy Spirit is to take all of that that I have received from the Father and to make it real in your life. So this relationship with the Holy Spirit, as he comes alongside and he shapes us and he forms us and he convicts us and he cleanses us, he then begins to form all of those things so that they flow out. It is an overflow of abiding with the Spirit. And then that, if we believe that and we hold to that, it changes the whole tone of this conversation. Because now the Holy Spirit is not merely an experience to pursue or something that we can point to and say, oh, that must be the Holy Spirit. Is that the Holy Spirit? No, that not, it's not just, he's not just evidence. He is the nearness of Christ continuing among his people. One of the things that I love about backing up further into John 14 is that Jesus begins to talk about relationship before he even mentions the spirit. Jesus says, I am in the Father, the Father's in me. And then inviting the disciples to understand that now, because of the Spirit, because what is coming, you are in me and I am in you, living in perfect union with the Father. And this is why the Christian life was never meant to be about information. It was never meant to be about facts, it was never meant to be about uh division or denomination or doctrine or just attending services. Because when faith remains only in our heads and it never reaches our heart, our faith life becomes dry. It becomes lifeless, but we have a God who is life. And the Christian life is an invitation to new life, fresh breath, an invitation to commune with the living, living God. One of the most tender lines in this passage is when Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. Again, deeply relational. Jesus understands their fear. He understands the ache of transition. They've had someone they could touch, and now he's leaving. What does this mean? He's the one that has held them together. And he speaks to the ache and says, You are not being abandoned. And later in the New Testament, I love that we can actually see that the disciples are living inside of this promise. Paul writes in Romans 8, saying that we have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry, Abba Father. And it's beautiful. Look at that. Jesus says, I will not leave you as orphans. He ascends, he goes, Pentecost comes, Acts comes, and then later the apostles testify: the Spirit has made us sons and daughters. The promise was fulfilled. And I don't know who needs to hear this today personally. But some of us know what it feels like to be spiritually alone in seasons of life, to wonder where is God? Is he distant? Why does he feel like he has forgotten me? But Jesus wants to remind you today: I will not leave you. The Holy Spirit is not simply just an abstract spirit or force floating off somewhere in atmosphere. He is the ongoing presence of God with his people. And through the Spirit, Jesus is still fulfilling that I will not leave you nor forsake you. He is remaining near. And it's it's my prayer that in the simplicity of remembering that, of going back to that, we would reclaim the ordinary beauty that He is with you. Do me a favor, look at your neighbor and say, Neighbor, the Holy Spirit is with you. In grief. He's with you, parents in parenting. He's with you in difficult conversations. He's with you in your uncertainty. He's with you in your exhaustion. He's with you even in seasons of obedience when nobody else sees. Not just in revival moments, not just in charged worship services, although I love them so very much. And they were here today. He's not only with you in public demonstration, but in everyday companionship. Now, if you know me, you know that I was formed in a Pentecostal faith background, and I never thought that I would say that. So I'm not dismissing demonstrations of the Spirit. And we should not be afraid of what the Holy Spirit desires to do. And in fact, I just want to make this statement and say that this is a church where the Holy Spirit has the freedom to move, and we are open to his leading. Amen? So if you want to speak in tongues, speak in tongues. And if there's tongues and you have the interpretation, give the interpretation. If the Lord has gifted you with healing in your hands, would you please allow him to move you to the people that need healing? We will not be a church that just talks about him in a six, seven, eight-week series theoretically, and not welcome his active presence among us. Holy Spirit, you are welcome here. And must I also say though, if we rush too quickly to Acts two, without sitting long enough in John 14, we're also missing it. Jesus knew that the disciples, before they could even carry his power, before they could even allow and trust the Holy Spirit to move through them, they needed to trust his presence. Before bold witness in Acts, there was intimate preparation in John 14 through 16. Before the wind, before the fire, before the demonstration, there was relationship preparing them for what was coming next. And I don't want us to have. Saying all of that. We will be a church that welcomes the Holy Spirit. I don't want to say that and say that we will be people that just pursue moments more than we pursue God Himself. Because gifts without intimacy, we've seen it, they can turn into performance. Power without formation can become a spectacle. But when the spirit is known as a companion, then what flows through us publicly is the natural overflow of what happens in our private life with him. It's not something that we force. And I recognize that people become nervous around conversations about the spirit because we've seen unhealthy expressions like that. We've seen spectacle in the name of Christ. But Jesus says the spirit's ministry is not that. It is deeply Christ-centered. In John 15, he says the Spirit will testify about him. The Holy Spirit is not interested in showing off. Not to just look, but to be Christ-like. And he's always drawing us back to his words, drawing us back to the character of Jesus, the mission of Jesus, the heart of Jesus. And honestly, one of the litmus tests, Pastor Andrea said, if you're wondering, do I have the spirit? One of the litmus tests of the spirit being active and moving, and you're yielding in his light to him to him in your life is more love, more humility, more courage, more holiness, more compassion. Have you been obedient? Holy Spirit is working on you. Have you been surrendering? Holy Spirit is working on you. This is where I think the Holy Spirit really wants us to lean in today. He is not just a worship experience, not just a doctrine, not just an emotional movement. He is our companion. He walks with us in ordinary life, in conversations and in loneliness, in obedience, not just being present in revival moments. And some of us have unintentionally treated him as if he is only active when there's some evidence around. But the truth is the Holy Spirit is already at work before we even see the evidence of him. He is with us, he is even in us, and he is abiding. I thought about this question this week. Imagine how different our lives would be or how they would be lived with a greater awareness of his companionship. How differently would we enter conflict? How differently would we enter conversations? How differently would we enter decisions and ministry and parenting and even suffering. If we truly believed, if we would remember, I am not alone. He abides with me. And I wouldn't be a good witness if I didn't add in my testimony for a second. I, yes, am your pastor. And I regularly need to be reminded of this too. I needed this preparation time this week to be reminded I am not alone, that he will never leave me nor forsake me. And that I have a companion walking with me in this life, in this ministry. I have support, I have a strengthener, I have an encourager. And that flows from God and it takes, he takes the words of Christ. And sometimes when I'm singing a song, it's because he's singing a song over me, reminding me what the Lord says about me. And listen, I am grateful for the gift of community. As precious as these human relationships are, they were never meant to carry the full weight of our soul. We need a companion that can. Your closest friend cannot bury the carry the weight. Your spouse, I love you, honey, but you cannot. Your mother, Mother's Day cannot. Where the limitations of human relationships are insufficient, the presence of the Holy Spirit is all sufficient to carry you. And because he's with you, the reality is you're never alone. And that matters for us deeply as a church to think about as we go. Because as a church, we often talk about being a set people. We talk about a lot of things here. We talk about outreach, we talk about reconciliation, being good neighbors, prayer walking. Thank you, Sister Gloria, for telling us Brother Al needs some other people. We talk about all of the work, the witness and joining God in this world, the ministry that God has selected us here specifically to do. But hear this clearly, church. Jesus knew that before he sent his disciples, the way that they were sent mattered as much as the fact that they were sent. He knew they needed to be formed. They needed to be shaped. We, before we go, need to be shaped. We need to be formed so that we don't take our own performance and lead from that, but we go from the overflow of how the Holy Spirit is leading us. Amen. And remember that when the Holy Spirit does send you, he's already gone ahead of you. And we get to participate as an overflow of the life that we are living with him called alongside. And this is why Jesus spent so much time preparing his disciples. Not for fascination with power, but hunger for his presence. Here's the invite. I believe the Lord wants us to leave here today seeing, or perhaps being reminded to see the Holy Spirit as companion. So what is this practical invitation? Maybe it's just walk with him, become aware of his nearness again, speak to him and wait and listen for him to respond. Invite him into the ordinary places of your life. Our sister Mary Booz this morning, as I was sharing with her, shared with me that she was reintroduced to the Hebrew word hinae, meaning, and I hope I got this right, Sister Mary, here I am. Use me, she said. Before you even ask, my answer is yes. So maybe to borrow from Benny Hinn, we start practically in the morning and just say, Good morning, Holy Spirit, Hinaini. Here I am. Whatever you want from me, before you even ask, my answer is yes. And because we need our companion to even have the grace to do that, let's pray, Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Hinani, here we are. With all of our wonderings, questions, tender hearts, here we are. Forgive us for the ways we have reduced you in the body of Christ to arguments, to categories, to fears, or to even performances. You're so much more than that. You are the friend who never leaves. Holy Spirit, teach us again what it means to walk with you. And I thank you for not abandoning us. I thank you that your presence is constant and abiding. And even when we do simple things like drive down the street and we don't even acknowledge you in the car with us, you're still near us. You still cover us, you still protect us, you still lead us into all truth. I ask that you would form us as you use us, that you would shape us as you send us. Would you root us and teach us what authentic relationship is with Jesus? So that our hearts are prepared to trust and obey whatever it is you desire to pour out of us and among us. We welcome your presence. Yes, in power, but not only in power. We welcome your power and your presence in companionship. Be our closest friend. And when we're tempted to return, we may do this well for a couple weeks, when we are tempted to wander away as we naturally do. Would you remind us that you're still abiding and call us back into deeper fellowship? It is in your powerful name, Jesus, that we ask these things. Amen. Amen.