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ADVOCATE: For Us, With Us, In Us
2025-4-29 | Pastor Stacey Littlefield
Fifty days after Easter Sunday, we celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Church. This event takes place in the Book of Acts, chapter 2.
The Holy Spirit is essential for the life of faith—for us as individuals and as communities of faith. The Spirit is the third person of the Trinity and the One who convicts us of sin, draws us to Christ, gives us new life and assurance of our salvation, comforts us in difficult times, transforms us into the image of Christ, and guides and empowers us in our desire to live lives pleasing to God and faithful to God’s mission.
We first read of the Spirit in the second verse of our Bibles (Genesis 1.2), hovering over the chaotic waters of creation. We last encounter the Spirit in Revelation 22.17, just five verses from the end of our Bibles, inviting us to come to Jesus and drink of the water of life. Everywhere in between, the Holy Spirit is active in the world, among the peoples of Israel and Judah and their leaders, and inspiring the prophets of God.
When we get to the New Testament, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, something unexpected happens. God pours out his Holy Spirit on us all. In a sense, the Spirit is set free like never before and made accessible to us all.
This Sunday, we begin a new sermon series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit, which will take us to Pentecost Sunday, on June 8, when we will celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit together.
We will begin by looking at five brief teachings Jesus gave us in the Gospel of John on the nature and work of the Holy Spirit, whom he names “the Advocate”.
Sometimes that word is translated as “Comforter”, “Helper”, or “Companion”. It’s the Greek word, paraclete, which literally means “one who comes along side another”.
In the weeks that follow, we look at other ways the Holy Spirit works in us and through us: drawing us to Jesus, convicting us of sin, assuring us, renewing us, transforming us, praying for us, empowering us, and uniting us.
In John 14, after promising that if we ask the Father, he will send us “another advocate to help [us] and be with us forever,” Jesus adds these comforting words in v.18: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
My prayer as we embark on this six-week series on the Advocate is that we not only come to know about and understand the Holy Spirit better, but that we come to experience and know the presence of the Spirit at work in our lives and in our community.
As the breath prayer we practiced a few weeks ago says so well: Let us become more aware of your presence; let us experience the glory of your goodness…