"Led by Love" with Pastor James Winegardner - April 18, 2026

The disciples were struggling with Jesus' words. He'd foretold His death and was telling them what would come next. In the New Testament book of James (James 15:7-15), Jesus introduces His friends to the Holy Spirit—the Advocate or Helper (depending on your version) before laying out the Spirit's ministry roles. What are the roles of the Spirit, according to Jesus? And how do they apply to modern 21st-century Christianity, almost 2,000 years later?  Listen as Pastor James Winegardner shared the message on April 18, 2026, from the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists in Silver Spring, Maryland.

DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS ABOUT THE BIBLE?
If you're searching for a warm, welcoming place to grow your faith, Spencerville is the church for you! Have questions about studying the Bible? We want to journey with you. Reach out through our website at https://spencervillechurch.org/contact, and a team member will be in contact at your convenience. Yes! We offer in-person and online Bible studies.

LET'S CONNECT ONLINE!
If you're on social media, we'd enjoy the opportunity to connect! We want to hear your story, feedback, and how we can better serve you.

Spencerville Church website: https://spencervillechurch.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spencervillesda
...

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

I grew up in San Antonio in what era I'll call Peak King James Version. If people came into our church, in those days, you know, you didn't have all these portable devices or things that so people carried Bibles to church, and when people would carry an RSV to church, we thought those people were weird. So I grew up not with a Holy Spirit, but with a Holy Ghost. Now my little San Antonio childhood brain, when you say ghost, that's a figure with a sheet over him with two holes for eyes. So I grew up with that image of the Holy Ghost. As I got a little bit older, we got to the next translation, and we found out that Jesus said, I'll send you a comforter. Yes. So we went from bed sheets to comforters. The word spirit that we now recognize as spirit and the word ghost from the 1500s when this was translated, have absolutely polarly changed meanings. So everything you think of when we say spirit meant was used, the word ghost was used back then, and vice versa. It's important for us to recognize, and I think we all know this, that in the Bible there's an Old Testament word for spirit, Ruach, and a New Testament word for spirit, pneuma. And you can forgive my pronunciations throughout because I am from Texas. Ruach and Pneuma both have the same meanings. And they have three meanings: wind or breeze, breath, and spirit. I mean all three of those things at the same time. So every time you see any of those words in your Bible, some translator had to make a decision between those three words. So a fun exercise is to look at the Nicodemus story where Jesus says, and the pennuma blows where it will, and you don't know where it comes from, and you must be born of the pannuma. He's using the same word, the translators have to parse that out. And then go back and read the story of the dry bones in the Old Testament in Ezekiel. Because that's also a really interesting twist on whether it's wind, breath, or spirit. That one will keep you up at night. So Jesus is getting ready to leave his disciples, and here's what he says in John 15, 26. He says, But I will send you the, this used to be comforter, it's now advocate, neither are adequate. The word is perikletos. Perikletos is a compound word in Greek, and the first word para, you know, para-legal, paramedical, it means alongside, with, beside. And kletos means called. So perikletos is alongside called, called alongside. Now, we have a lot of words in English that'll work that way. Comforter is somebody that'll be called alongside. Okay, I can live with that one. Advocate is somebody that's called alongside in a special time of need, right? So there are all kinds of words that can mean that. But here's what Jesus said. I will send you the parakletos, the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. And you must also be a witness about me, because you have been with me from the beginning. And then he says, I am telling you this. I told you these things so that you won't fall away. Permit me another Greek word. This is a fascinating word. This one is called scandalizo. I tell you these things so you won't be horrified. But it's a really interesting word. So has anybody seen a sailboat and how they have uh sails that have three corners? They're triangular sails. Most sailboats these days, three corners. But but in an older day, in order to increase the sail volume, sails typically had four corners. And so they'd have the boom along the bottom, they'd have the mast on this side, they've got the loose side or called the luff, and then they'd have this other one that went up, and it was called the gaff. And that would give the sail a great deal more volume, but of course, a great deal more volume is a great thing when you're moving along, and it's a very bad thing when the wind gets too strong because the boat would get overpowered, and having a horizontal mast is a very bad thing. So, what they would do is they would take that gaff, and there's a line that pulls it up here, and they would they would just release that line. And the gaff would go down and it would make it into a triangular sail with much less volume and much less power. It would be a weak sail that you could use in a storm. And sailors called that scandalizing the rig to take the power out of it. I have told you things, these things, so that you won't be scandalized. And then he tells them some bad things that are gonna happen, and then in verse verse four, he picks up. Yes, I'm telling you these things now so that when they happen, you'll remember my warning. I didn't tell you earlier because I was gonna be with you for a little while longer, but I'm going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking me where I'm going. Instead, you grieve because of what I've told you. Well, of course, he's been with him three and a half years, he's telling him he's about to leave, and he's trying to get to him, he's about to die. And from that, they are wanting to mourn. And you would too, right? He's trying to tell them this is not an end, this is a beginning. I need you to recognize this is a beginning, and he says it in the next verse, verse 7. But in fact, it is best, that's not better, that's best for you, that I go away. Because if I don't go away, the parakletos, the comforter, encourager, advocate, counselor, won't come. Now, this is like your grandfather is in hospice, and he's laying there in the bed, and you know he hasn't got much time, and he says, Don't worry, it's a good thing for you to go because it's a good thing for me to go, because when I go, the chaplain will come and comfort you. You don't want the chaplain, no, nothing, no shade on chaplains, okay? But you want your grandfather, you don't want the chaplain. That chaplain can be comforted, like you know, and so the disciples were in this position where they're going, he's going away and he's promising this thing. The word was not comforter, that wouldn't be an extraordinary good news promise. But Jesus is framing this as an extraordinary good news promise. It's better for me to die because when I die, you're gonna get not a chaplain. Sorry, chaplains, you're gonna get something better, and if I don't go, he can't come. So we've got this concept of a persona. I grew up with bed sheets and comforters, and I don't know how you grew up, but I think we need to get clear on the role of the Holy Spirit in the modern church and in the modern life. That is yours and mine. 1966. Laurel Heights Church, San Antonio, Texas. Primary class. I'm in primary. I won't say that I was the best primary student. We had a primary teacher, and her name was Miss Jacobs. Miss Jacobs was a nice lady, she was stern, but she was a nice lady. So Miss Jacobs was uh she she had to put up with a lot of me. And then we fast forward almost 60 years, and I'm the pastor of the Keene Church, and who is my head deaconess?

unknown 9:23

Ms.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Jacobs, I want to raise my hand every time I wanted to talk to her. What do you do when your primary teacher becomes your head deaconess? It's a role change, isn't it? I'll bet it was a worse role change for her. What happened to this six-year-old kid? We can adjust to these role changes, and Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for a role change. He says, I'm giving you a comforter, advocate, guide, and I want you to work with this. I want you to be happy about it. Now, advocate is a hard word, comforter is a hard word. Advocate, we know what advocate means, right? There are two senses we use advocate in. One is the obvious legal sense, and the other is kind of the cheerleader, the person you put on your resume as a reference. This is somebody who advocate for me. If they call them, they're gonna say, oh yeah, great, great person, great person. I want you to know that the advocate in my theological framework comes from 1 John 2, 1. My dear children, John writes, I'm writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, he will have a parakletos with the Father, who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who's truly righteous. He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins, and not only our sins, but the sins of the world. So I see Jesus in the position of that advocate. We've all studied this and we all know this. There has to be more for this Holy Spirit role. So we go back to John 16 and we see what Jesus says about this Holy Spirit role. He says, If I do go away, then I'll send him to you. And when he comes, first job description role. Here it comes. When he comes, he will convict. And this is a hard word, convict. The Greek word is elencho or elencho, I don't know. Greek word means bring to light, expose, condemn. Means a lot of different things. In modern English, it's call out. He will call out the world of its sin and of God's righteousness and of the coming judgment. The world's sin is it doesn't believe in me, he says. Righteousness is available because of me, he says, because I'm going to the Father and you'll see me no more. And judgment is because it's already judged. The ruler of this world has already been elentio. It's already been judged, it's already been called out. And then he says, There's so much more I want to tell you, but you can't bear it now. Remember that old line? You can't handle the truth. Here is Jesus arguing in favor of a modern concept that we call just-in-time learning. In healthcare, you know it. You can't just take a book learned nurse and put them on the floor. They have to have that nursing training tied to actual actions. It's like if a ski instructor on the way up to the mountain says, Listen carefully. He says, What's going to happen is when you want to turn to slow down, you need to bear your weight onto the tip of the uphill ski, and you will slowly turn around and then you'll lose speed. That's what you need to do. You ready to go skiing now? No, you'll fall right down the mountain, or else you'll be petrified. It's not going to work that way. The Holy Spirit is our just in time teacher. Jesus says, when the Spirit comes, he'll guide you into all truth. He'll not speak on his own, but he'll tell you what he's heard. He'll tell you about the future, and he'll bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me, all that belongs to the Father is mine. This is why I said the Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me. So Jesus is saying there's a direct pipeline from God through me to the Holy Spirit to you. And that is not old news because they already had three and a half years with him, but it wasn't just in time. They had three and a half years and they still didn't understand the plan. They were not clued on the plan, they were not ready for the plan. And he says, But when I go, I'm going to give you it just in time. He's going to remind you of all the things I said about the plan, and it's going to become clear to you what the plan was and why all this makes sense to you. And that's why we have ministries in our church called Secret, Unsealed, and Amazing Facts and Truth 2.0. Because there's a concept that you could take from this scripture that says we need more truth. We haven't got enough. But the good news is that at Seventh-day Adventists, we have a person named Ellen White who gave us the right term for what the Holy Spirit is giving us. She called it the present truth. If I were to paraphrase Jesus, I would say, Jesus is telling them, look, I'm going to go away, but I'm going to send you somebody who's going to lead you into the present truth. That is the truth you need for the time you live. The things that you need to know, he'll remind you of the stuff that you've read in the Bible. Bible's a big read, isn't it? You're not going to read the Bible in the afternoon. It's going to take you weeks. And when you read through it, most of it's not going to hit first time. Most of it's just, it's going to go. And so the next thing you do is you rely on the Holy Spirit to bring back what you've read, bring back what you've memorized at the time that you're ready to receive it. So, Jesus says, I'm going to give you the Spirit. He's another helper, teacher of truth, a reminder of my teachings, a witness about me, and a convictor of the world. That sounds pretty great. That sounds pretty exciting. As the old commercials used to say, but wait, there's more. Come along, guide. So, my brother. He used to work for Utah, Wildlife Resources. Now, up in Utah, they've got a specific animal that's very coveted as a hunted mount. Do you know what a hunted mount is? It's where you cut the front half of the animal off and you put it on your wall. The bighorn sheep is the mount. Everybody wants a bighorn sheep mounted on their wall. That is hunters, right? I personally know, but there are hunters that want that. Because they're a little bit rare, Utah would have a lottery. And if you entered the lottery, there was a substantial fee to get into the lottery. But if you got into the lottery and you won the lottery, then you got to hunt one. Now, I don't know if you've ever done anything like this. My brother had been in the Marine Corps, he'd lived some hard times, he'd lived some easy times, but he told me that the wealthy people who won this lottery would hire what are called outfitters. And these outfitters would bring the helicopter, they would bring the weapons, they would bring the chefs. How many chefs do you need to go sheep hunting? You don't want to know. And they would bring all the camping gear and all the other things, they bring the trucks and the jeeps, they bring it all. My brother said, I never ate so well as on the bighorn sheep hunts. Because you get to be part of the party that is overseen by the outfitter. The Holy Spirit is Jesus' outfitter for the adventure that we're on. Here's the more part. This is Paul writing now in Galatians 5, 16, but I say, live by the Spirit, and you'll never carry out the desires of the flesh. Because the flesh desires against the spirit and spirit against the flesh. So these are in opposition to one another, so that whatever you want, you don't do these things. But if you're led by the spirit, you're no longer under the law. When you follow the desires of your flesh, the results are very clear. Sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousness, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, and wild parties. All things like these, let me tell you again, as I've told you before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the kingdom of God. So Paul is describing a dichotomy. He's describing all these bad ways of living. And he's going to tell us the better ways, but first he tells us, wait a minute, what are the opposites of these? Have you thought through his list? What are the opposites? What's the opposite of sexual immorality? It's respect. What's the opposite of impurity? It's self-respect. Opposite of lustful pleasures, fidelity. Idolatry, the opposite is knowing your place before God. Sorcery, the opposite, God reliance. Hostility, obviously the opposite is peace. Quarreling. Oh, that's a hard one. Anybody here married? So your spouse says to you, you always leave the keys in the car. And your response? Two weeks ago last Tuesday, I did not leave the keys in the car. It's the right response, isn't it? If you want to quarrel. The Holy Spirit would lead us to accept that we have a problem and not quarrel about it. Jealousy, the opposite is gratitude. Anger, the opposite is joy. Ambition, the opposite is satisfaction. Dissension, the opposite is support. Factions, unity. Envy or malice is love. And drunkenness, self-control. Carousing is the last one. It's funny. Wild parties, it's really? I guess the opposite of carousing is fellowship. Paul says, but the Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There's no law against these. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the flesh of their sinful nature to this cross and crucified it there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, provoke one another, and be jealous. Now, this word follow becomes really important here. What does it mean to follow the Spirit? This word in Greek is stoicho, I think. Stoichheo is a military term meaning march in company with, march in unison. Now, you've we just broached on something I know a little bit about. In high school, I was part of an award-winning marching band. Okay. I know it's weird, but other people played football, and that's weirder. So when you're gonna march and play and all that sort of thing, you don't start marching and playing. In Texas in 1974, this meant going out onto a practice field and Now, in the summer, it's called summer bandcamp, believe it or not, and in the summer band camp, it starts the morning at 6 a.m. at 87 degrees. By noon it's 100, and in the afternoon it's 103. So our job was to learn to march. Now you say, oh, marching looks like walking, surely that's easy. Absolutely, it is not. It's really important when marching on football fields that everybody line up and have the same length of step, and that their steps actually look alike. Now we had what we called show band marching, and that's eight steps to five yards, 22 and a half inches per step. Seems a little arcane because it is. And the step had to be thigh at 90 degrees, vertical calf, 45 degree angle on the foot. So every step we took had to be just like that. I see you nodding, you've done this. And you had to be able to hit the next five-yard line marker with the middle of your foot blindfolded. Then you get to try it with your instrument. Now, this is sort of like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit doesn't start out having you do it all. The Holy Spirit invites you to start walking, marching in unison with Him. And that means listening and doing. I don't know how many of you are parents and you have a situation in which you're speaking to your child, but you can tell they're not hearing anything you're saying. I know there's only a couple of us here probably that have that happen. But if they're not hearing a word you're saying, good parents usually stop talking. Right? The Holy Spirit is like that. When we're not listening, sometimes he stops talking. The fact is that when we listen, it's my experience that he talks more. When we're following, he talks more. When we're marching in company with him, he talks more. Now, Jesus says that the gifts of the Spirit are for those who belong to Christ Jesus. That's you, that's me, that's all of us. So Jesus gives us in his bequest, his will, he gives us a comforter, a guide, an outfitter, a convincer, and a corrector who leads us into present truth, and then he equips us with these basic things. These things like love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control are what I call OEM. Does anybody know the abbreviation OEM? Original equipment manufacture. The Holy Spirit is restoring us to the way we would have been had we not fallen in sin. These are basic for everybody. Everybody needs love, patience, goodness, kindness, etc. And the Holy Spirit is the path to that. As we walk with Him, we are transformed into the image of Jesus and we believe and live, and our hearts work out these, as we call them, fruits of the Spirit. When you go whitewater rafting, the outfitter says, Remain calm, hold on to your paddle, and follow instructions. The Holy Spirit says, Remain calm, hold on to your paddle, and follow instructions. But wait, there's more. We've got this outfitter who leads us into the present truth, who gives us these base OEM kind of experiences, the paddle and the and the and the boat and the helmet and all the rest. And then in 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says, now, dear brothers, regarding the spiritual, I don't want you to be uninformed. He tells them some things that uh you used to do in the past. And then in verse 4, he says, There are different gifts, but the same spirit is the source of them all. There are different roles, but we serve the same Lord. There are different implementations, but the same God works in all. And here's the promise: a manifestation of the Spirit is given to each to benefit all. This is the what, who, and why of the Holy Spirit's gifting. What is a manifestation of the Spirit, a gift? Number two is who? Everybody gets a gift. Every person, each of us gets a gift. And what's the gift for? All of us. So a gift for each for all. Really important that we recognize why we get the gifts. The fruits are the basic equipment, the OEM, and the gifts are for special roles. So if we're going on the rafting trip, the navigator gets the compass. The cook gets the stoves. The campsetter gets the tents. And we have these special gifts to make the adventure work for all of us. And then Paul kind of starts listing them. But I think they're really important to recognize in our modern context what they mean. One is a message of wisdom. Second is a message of knowledge. And those are two different things, right? Wisdom and knowledge. Okay. The next one is super reliant faith on God. The next one is the restoration of health, miracles, interpreting the will of God, judging the source of words and deeds, and then the language of others, and interpreting or translating the language of others. And it says that we now have a guide that's been given to us that not only outfits us with basic equipment, but all the rest that we can use for everyone else. Now, the last line is really important. It is the same Spirit who distributes all these gifts to each. I think I've got a typo there, to each as he wants. The Holy Spirit is not simply an emanation of the Father. The Holy Spirit is an entity with agency who gives gifts as he wants to each individual. He chooses. Paul says someplace else, covet the greater gifts. Look for more than one. And so here is the Holy Spirit who has agency to give the gifts, but why? Because he is one with the divine. And because the Bible is abundantly clear that God favors you and wants the best for you, He chooses these gifts for you out of that wellspring of love and care and desire for you to do well for all. Today, my desire for each of us is that we will each receive the Holy Spirit. Present truth plus the fruits of the Spirit, plus a gift of the Spirit. Please forgive us our sins to make us worthy recipients of your Spirit. And then we ask that you'd lead us into truth. Cast away from us all the error that we've collected. Please give us your spirit as promised, as an outfitter, guide, comforter, advocate. Change us into the image of Jesus through the Spirit's work and give us the willingness, as we pledge to follow the Spirit, to walk and march in company with the Spirit, to be all that you would choose for us to be through the work of your Spirit. Please help us now to not leave this room without your spirit and to retain that spirit for the benefit of all of us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.