The Holy Spirit’s role as Comforter extends far beyond mere emotional soothing. The Greek word “Paraclete” gains rich meaning from its Old Testament Hebrew equivalent, describing God’s comfort which includes forgiveness of sins, a fresh experience of God, and victory on our behalf. The Comforter convicts the world of sin (pointing us to Christ for cleansing), of righteousness (applying Christ’s life through us), and of judgment (demonstrating that evil has been conquered). These three ministries represent God’s love stretched out in its fullness—forgiving our past, transforming our present, and securing our future as we experience victory through Christ.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] It’s great to be talking to you this way. It’s reminiscent for me from the COVID days streaming from home and doing church this way. I’m sorry I can’t be there. We here up in the council area where I live on the Redcliffe Peninsula, we still have a stay at home order. It’s quite windy and rainy here still. I’ve got a tree down across the road. It’s all very exciting but I’m hoping things will wind down during the day and I’ll be able to be there live at five o’clock. It’s kind of exciting for me to be doing a series of just four sermons and it’d be such a shame to miss out. We are up to number three and next week we’ll finish with the fourth one. In the mornings we’re talking about love on the stretch from John chapter 13 verse 1 and before the feast of the Passover when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father. Having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end. Now we understand he’s obviously

[00:01:10] talking about laying down his life but we also see in his teaching and in the whole process of what’s happening over this last few days, his death, his resurrection and the stuff that he talked about in the upper room, we’re seeing his love on the stretch. We’re seeing the full extent of his love. Now the same kind of concept is expressed in 1 Peter 1 and verse 22. It says this, having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for us and seer brotherly love, love one another earnestly from your heart. Love one another earnestly from your heart. That word earnestly comes from a Greek word meaning, stretched out, the same idea. And so as we talk of Jesus’s love on the stretch, as we think about how his love has had him give himself for us, we should see our Christian love for each other stretched out too. We’re preparing ourselves for Easter and we understand that just as Easter is more than

[00:02:29] Good Friday, just as the Gospel is more than Jesus died, there’s a second phase to it if you like, there’s a resurrection to deal with. Easter is about Good Friday and about Sunday together and so Jesus’ love for us is expressed in His death on the cross and also in His resurrection. God’s love means so much more than just the forgiveness of our sins, as wonderful as that is, there is more. Last time we talked from John 14 about two fulcrums upon which the love of God is displayed. John 14 2 and John 14 23 both contain the same word and it’s used only in these two verses in the New Testament, so it’s quite unique and it’s quite special. In verse 2 it says, In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you. And I suggested to you that that should be understood as in my Father’s house are many resting places. Jesus was going to prepare it, that is He’s going to make propitiation or

[00:03:50] expiation for our sins and we in coming to faith in Him would find rest in the Father. All the anxiety and distress of sin taken care of by Christ and we find rest in Him. This self-giving for us is His love but there’s more. In verse 23, the other verse with this word in it, Jesus says, If anyone loves me he’ll keep my word, my Father will love him, will come to him and make our home with him. We find that Jesus didn’t just die for our sinful stop, He did it with a view to us becoming the resting place of God. If you remember we read Matthew 11 verse 27, it says, All things have been handed over to me by my Father and no one knows the Son except the Father. There is a unique relationship there and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. And then Jesus says those most famous words, Come to me all who labor in a heavy laden and I will give you rest. So there’s unique fellowship between Jesus and the Father.

[00:05:14] No one knows the Father except the Son and any to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. And so come to me and I will give you rest. So we understand that our rest is to be introduced to the Father and there becomes a reciprocal relationship of rest. We find rest in God through faith in Christ and God finds rest in us. On the day of Pentecost when Peter was preaching and the people were cut to the heart and they asked what should we do? Peter replied, repent and be baptized every one of you for the forgiveness of sins. Now that’s calvary but he didn’t end there. He said, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and that’s resurrection Sunday. When describing the resurrection of Christ, Paul compared it to the creation of the giving of life to Adam, the first man. He said the first man became a living soul but the last man, Christ, he became a life-giving spirit. And so we understand that in resurrection Jesus becomes the dispenser of the spirit or life.

[00:06:35] So when we come to Christ and find rest, your rest in Him and He in you, it is the Spirit who comes and dwells in us. He is the bringer of God’s life to us and the Spirit is God. So let’s just get the Trinity straight. We’re so used to talking about the three, we need to understand that the three are also one and when they act, when God acts and we identify one of the persons of the Trinity, we actually should be thinking of the one as well. So when we come to Christ, we’ve come to God. When we talk of receiving the Spirit, He brings God to us. He doesn’t add anything more. So you come to Christ, you come to God and they come to us in the person of the Spirit. Remember John 14, 23, if you love me, you’ll obey me and so on. And it says, my Father and I, both, we will come and make our home. And so we understand it’s actually the presence of the Spirit who brings all that God is to us. We don’t receive the Father at some stage after

[00:08:00] or we don’t accept Christ and then the Father and then have the Spirit later. We come to Christ and God, all that He is, comes to us in the person of the Spirit. And so it’s God’s absolute display of love. Us finding rest in God, think of that as Calvary, but also Him resting and living His life out in us. That’s the ministry of the Spirit. It’s the work of the Spirit to bring all that God is into our lives. And as we read John 14, leading up to that second occurrence of that unique word, it becomes clear. John 14, starting at verse 15, if you love me, you’ll keep my commandments and I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him for He dwells with you and He will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me

[00:09:27] because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father and you and me and I knew. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my Father and I’ll love Him and manifest myself to Him. Judas, not a scariot, just in case you thought that, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? How good question. Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he’ll keep my Word and my Father will love him and he will come to him. We will come to Him and make our home with Him. Now we believe that Jesus is going to physically return to the earth and we call it the Second Coming. Jesus is going to come again. There’s no doubt about it. It’s all through the Scriptures, but the point is everyone will see that when it happens, but here in the upper room, He’s talking about coming to the obedient and finding rest within them by the person of the

[00:10:45] Comforter. We’re talking in a more realized way. We’re talking about the Spirit coming, bringing God and a whole lot of stuff, God’s rest, a whole lot of stuff, His power and so on into our lives, and we understand that it happens when we come to faith. It’s a more realized understanding. When Jesus is talking in the upper room about coming to us, He’s not talking about the Second Coming. He’s talking about coming to us in the person of the Spirit. It’s a more realized understanding of what Jesus is talking about. We still believe that he’s coming again, but here in John in the upper room he’s talking about coming in the Spirit. So here we have the Spirit’s presence bringing life and it’s permanent. When Jesus said, because I will live, you will live, he was talking about completing his lonely journey to the Father, dying and then

[00:11:55] being raised again and then having sent the Spirit, he would bring us life. He became the life-giving Spirit. But let’s move on. Verse 26 says that John 14 26 says, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I’ve said to you. So this Helper says the ESV, he is going to indwell bringing God to us. He’s a teacher, he shows us how to live out the life of Christ and I also want to focus today on his ministry of witness in verses 26 and 27 of John 15. There it says, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me and you also will bear witness because you’ve been with me from the beginning. So

[00:13:07] this Helper, the Spirit comes, He has a ministry of witness. Witness to Christ. All that He taught and all that He is, who He is, He witnesses to Him. And chapter 16 goes on to describe this witness more fully, which is what’s going to occupy our attention this morning. It’s very difficult for me, I can’t read the room, I can’t see if you’re all asleep or not, and it’s hard to know if anyone’s even watching online at all. So I’m just going to go on at a rapid pace, otherwise we’re not going to get this finished. But before I start talking about John 16 and the ministry of the Helper or the Comforter in detail, I want to talk about that word, Helper or Comforter, because I think it’s important. The people who translate our New Testaments have obviously struggled with what word to

[00:14:12] use in English to translate this word Comforter. It’s the word paraclete and it literally means to come alongside, to draw alongside, but I think there’s a richer meaning of the word that comes from the Old Testament. The more I’ve looked at this, the more I’m convinced that the word Comforter is the best word, but unfortunately in America a Comforter is a dummy, and we know it’s not that, but sometimes we think of a Comforter of somebody who puts their arm around us and says, there, there, there, keep your chin up, everything’s going to be okay. Maybe you’re picturing the Holy Spirit is coming and wiping away our tears and saying, there, there, you’re a good boy, you’re a good girl. No, I don’t think that’s what it’s about either. It’s because of that that many of our

[00:15:20] translations have swapped out Comforter and put in counselor, they’ve put in helper, they’ve put in strengthener, but I’m convinced Comforter is the best word because of the rich meaning of it in the Old Testament. I think it clears it up. The Old Testament, written in Hebrew, the Jews put it into Greek and so when we come to understand the New Testament, we find that the Greek there often gets its meaning from the Greek of the LXSEX or the Greek Old Testament, so we get the Greek of the LXSEX that comes based on the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and in there this word comforter comes to the fore. In the news a lot today is Israel. It was in 1947. Notice the year in 1947. Two Arabs were minding some goats. The goats were climbing up on hills rocks and it came time to gather them up and leave as they were up on the hills. These fellas

[00:16:35] discovered a cave. As teenagers do they threw rocks in to see how deep the cave was. You know you throw the stone in and you wait for how long until you hear it hit the bottom and then you know how deep it is. When they did that they didn’t hear the rocks hit the bottom. They heard the rocks break something and so curiosity drove them down into the cave and they discovered all these pots or jars and they were hoping for golden jewels and treasures but all these jars contained were old manuscripts. They went home and they took some of these with them and they sold them for a song. Until they discovered that they were precious they got chopped up and sold them for a lot more. Word got around about these manuscripts. Then the Jerusalem University found them discovered them. The United States people came in with all of their money to ensure their preservation. These manuscripts. The oldest extant manuscripts of the Bible.

[00:17:50] we know them as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now later that year in November the United Nations passed a resolution that enabled the founding of the State of Israel and on May the 15th 1948 that happened and on the first day of this new Israeli parliament called the Knesset placed in front of every member was a replica from these Dead Sea Scrolls with a verse in Hebrew written on it. The verse was Isaiah 40 verses 1 and 2 and it’s very significant for us. It goes like this, comfort comfort my people says your God speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her that her warfare is ended that her iniquity is pardoned that she is received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins you see for the Jews there on that day for the members of parliament God had dug up the Dead Sea Scrolls and God had also dug up the nation of Israel and when the words were read there was not a dry eye in that parliament comfort ye comfort ye says the old King

[00:19:19] James many of us have learnt these verses just because of the power of that word comfort but what does it mean the word comfort can be found here in Isaiah 40 but also in Isaiah 49 verse 13 also Isaiah 51 3 Isaiah 51 12 it’s a word of great prophetic significance as the comfort of the nation of Israel is in view written in Hebrew translated into Greek this word comfort is then brought into the New Testament and the meaning derives from its place I believe here in the Old Testament if you read about this comfort of God you find that there are three things involved with it just read all those verses from Isaiah I reckon if you put them into chat GPT and say summarize these and say what is God’s comfort from these verses you’ll find three things they are these that God will take away sin that God will bring joy and gladness there’ll be a fresh experience of God and three God will gain a victory on the people’s behalf and so when we

[00:20:50] come to the New Testament we have these three things involved in God’s comfort the forgiveness of sins a new level of daily experience of God in our lives and entering into the victory of the Lord in Luke chapter 2 it says there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and this man was righteous and devout waiting for the my version says the ESV says the consolation of Israel but that is the same root word comfort and the Holy Spirit was upon him and now we understand from Simeon’s words that this would happen through the Messiah it’s been been revealed to him verse 26 of Luke 2 by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he’d seen the Lord’s Christ and he came in the spirit into the temple and when his parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him according to the custom of the law he took him up in his arms he blessed God and he said Lord now you are letting your servant depart in peace

[00:22:05] according to your word for my eyes have seen your salvation that you’ve prepared in the presence of all peoples a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel and so the comfort he was looking for is linked to the salvation that the Messiah will bring So, the picture is God the Comforter sending Jesus the Comforter to die for sins and bring new life and victory, but then He, having ascended to the Father, sends another Comforter, just like Him, to apply all of this to us. John 14, 16, it says, I’ll ask the Father, He’ll give you another Comforter, another Helper, to be with you forever. I think a good synonym for comfort is salvation, and it operates in this Trinitarian way. What God the Father achieved for us in Jesus the Son is applied to us by the Holy Spirit.

[00:23:19] He brings witness to Christ. Now, chapter 16 outlines this spirit’s role as Comforter, fills in the details for us. Verses 5-7, it says, Now I’m going to Him who sent me, and none of you asks me where are you going, but because I’ve said these things to you, Sarah, who’s filled your heart, nevertheless I tell you the truth is to your advantage that I go away. If I don’t go away, the Helper, the Comforter, will not come to you, but if I go, I will send Him to you. So it’s the spirit’s job to bring us the ministry of salvation. It is for our good that Jesus go and the Comforter comes. He doesn’t come to condemn us.

[00:24:12] He comes to save us. But if you reject His ministry, you will continue being condemned. He Himself won’t condemn you. Verses 8-11, and when He comes, He’ll convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they don’t believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you’ll see me no longer. concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. Now often these verses are taken to mean that the spirit is going to make non-Christian people squirm, to bring conviction to them, make them feel guilty.

[00:24:59] But I believe it’s better to have the Old Testament background of the Comforter in the picture in our minds as we’re understanding these three things that the Comforter is going to be doing. And so we’re thinking of this big ministry of comfort, the taking away of sin, a new level of daily living or the experience of joy and God’s presence in our lives and God achieving victory on our behalf. And when we find that, the work of the spirit ties all of these things together. So I want to talk about these three things, the conviction of sin, the conviction of righteousness and the conviction of judgment in the light of this Old Testament picture. The Comforter is going to come and convict of sin.

[00:26:01] The Holy Spirit doesn’t need to tell thieves that they’re thieves and that it’s wrong to be a thief. I don’t know if you’ve ever stolen anything. I can tell you that I’ve written off my father’s car. I need to be careful talking about this stuff. Not because my father can hear me, he’s passed away, but because my son Joey can hear me and I need him to not hear some of this stuff. But I wrote off my father’s car and I remember very clearly that feeling. And I thought I was the world rally champion at the time, but mistakenly went too far and wrapped my dad’s car around some trees.

[00:26:51] I can tell you the spirit didn’t need to tell me how foolish I was and that it was wrong. The same is true. People who commit adultery don’t need the spirit to tell them that they’re wrong. Murderers know that they’ve killed someone and that they shouldn’t have, they don’t need Holy Spirit to remind them those things. We do have a conscience that will tell us, but what the Spirit does need to do is to convince a man or a woman that they’ll be kept from heaven and continue on the road to hell simply because they don’t have a proper connection to Jesus Christ. That’s why it says He’s going to come and convict us concerning sin because they don’t

[00:27:47] believe in me. The truth the Spirit needs to bring to us is that all of our problems with sin are to be handled by Jesus. And so it’s the work of the Spirit to apply the power of the blood of Christ to our life, to lead us to bring our sinful selves to be cleansed by the blood of Jesus, which cleanses from all sin. You know, there is a sense, and we’ve talked about this a lot, in which we are cleansed once and for all when we get converted. But we still sin, we still have greed, we still have pride, we still have envy. The works of the flesh are just one disobedient step away from all of us.

[00:28:42] And it is the Spirit who wants to lead us and have the power of Christ’s blood applied in our lives to not only forgive these ongoing sins, but also to have victory over them. Roy Hessian in his book, Beefield Now, tells the story of a British missionary in Africa during revival days. And this missionary was walking to a convention meeting and on the way bumped into an African pastor. They exchanged pleasantries as they walked. And the missionary then had to confess, you know, I’ve been having a bad day. I lost it. I lost it with my maid this morning and I blew my top and I was angry at her and said

[00:29:39] some wrong things. And it’s just the days not going well because of it. And the pastor asked the question, has the blood of Jesus lost its power? Has the blood of Jesus lost its power? You see, your anger should have been dealt with by the blood. From time to time in our lives, evil and sinful things come to our minds. Does the devil put them there? No. No, we’re capable of producing them. Things like anger, inappropriate anger can come out of us all.

[00:30:26] It’s the Spirit’s job to lead us to bring them to the only place where they can be dealt with. That is to Christ. We need to pray, search me, oh God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts. And when the Spirit comes and highlights our sins and our weaknesses, some of the view to destroying us, He’s the comfort of bringing the salvation of Christ to bear in our lives. He wants these things dealt with. He wants these things finished with. He wants the power of His resurrection to bring Jesus’s life to us. Leads me on to the second, the conviction of righteousness.

[00:31:16] Verse 10, He’s going to convict concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you’ll see me no longer. Now I hope you’re understanding this going to the Father now, what He’s talking about. And God set the standard of righteousness in Jesus by raising Him from the dead and the ascension to His right hand. And Christians, because of what Christ has done, have access to righteousness in two basic ways. There is a righteous standing or a righteous status that is conferred upon us when we come to faith. We call it justification.

[00:32:12] Amen. Amen. Amen. I think I’m back now, Cameron. Someone tried to ring me up. That’s what happened. Good to go. So we’ve got this conviction of righteousness happening. Sorry for that. Yes, someone tried to ring me up, so it’s messed me all up.

[00:33:06] The righteousness that we’re talking about is not the status we receive by justification. I think it’s talking about the righteousness of sanctification. It’s a process that we should pursue. In other words, it’s the work of the Spirit to reproduce the life of Christ in us, to give me a new level of daily experience. God’s presence with me, the fruit of His Spirit, the joy. Can I have victory over my anger? Can I forgive as I have been forgiven? Can I love unlovely people? You know, the ones who get under your skin?

[00:33:50] And the answer to all of that is yes, you can, because Jesus’s power is available to us through the ministry of the Spirit. Let’s get this straight, though. It’s not that we copy Jesus and try to emulate Him. It’s not that we ask Him for His help and struggle to live how we know He wants us to. We’re struggling, so we say, can you give us a step up? No. What we’re saying is you let the Spirit bring Christ’s love, bring Christ’s victory into our lives. That process, that happening, is something that the Comforter is wanting to do.

[00:34:51] Heaps of stories I can tell. I can talk of Corrie Tamboon having to forgive German prison guards and finding in her heart that she lacked that forgiveness, but feeling the burden from God that she had to in obedience. And so, in faith, she held out her hand and said, God, you know I have hate in my heart. You must love these people. You must love this man. She holds out her hand and shook his hand. I don’t believe they became best of friends, but God’s power, God’s love, flows through. I know in my life, I’ve had a, I don’t know, I seem to attract people who are a little bit mentally ill.

[00:35:52] I always have at least one in every church. When I was at Brivy Church, there was a young lady who lived a few doors up from us who was schizophrenic. It’s a tragic story about her life, but she used to come and visit. And she was, you’d use the word annoying, and people would give you advice about her and say, you know what, she’s someone that you need to set boundaries about. She’ll suck all of your time. She used to borrow books, theology books, but not bring them back. She used to come and smoke, she, oh, she was annoying. But every now and then she’d have a complete psychotic breakdown and her mother would call

[00:36:41] the police or an ambulance, they’d come and take her away and they’d give her an injection and she’d just be a zombie for at least a week. It was horrendous what would happen to her. One evening, she was knocking on the door. I didn’t know it was her initially, but it was late at night, I was in my pyjamas, and we here knocking on the door was a two-story house, and I became aware that it was her. I think she called out and everything in me was saying, here’s a time to set the boundaries. Here’s a time to let her go. But no, inside of me, there was another voice that said, no, you need to go, you need to show her my love.

[00:37:47] It’s not in you. And so I asked the Lord to change my attitude towards her, and I was so shocked, quickly got dressed. I went down to the dive-and-dawn letter and she was extremely lucid. She said, can I stay, can I stay? I’ve just had an episode at home. I’ve thrown stuff in the kitchen and mum, mum has called the police. They’re going to come and take me, give me an injection. Can I just hide here at home? And I said, yes.

[00:38:23] She said, if they come, if they come, I’m going to run and kill myself, is what she said. And so I sort of felt, I felt that there was something from God to enable me to love someone who truly was unlovely, the same principle you can use to all of the lacks in our lives. Jesus’s victory, it seems so elusive at times. Understand it’s the ministry of the Spirit. He’s the comforter and he wants to convict us of righteousness because the Father, Jesus has gone there and his victory can be applied to us by the Spirit. You understand? Let’s talk about the third one.

[00:39:24] There’s a conviction of judgment. Verse 11. He’s going to convict concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. Notice it’s not judgment to come, but judgment past. In Jesus, evil was conquered and we stand on victory ground. We’re going to be talking more about this tonight if you’re free. It’s often difficult for us. I know people who are into deliverance ministries and so on. And the ministry of Satan, I don’t want his ministry the right word. The activity of Satan is very real and perhaps we underestimate or we’re not even aware of

[00:40:13] what he’s doing half of the time. But the truth is he is active, but he’s also defeated and we don’t often, we’re not aware of just how defeated he is. Let me explain once. When Joe was a little baby, I’m telling you this story because I know you all know Joe. When he was a little baby, a baby in arms, he was the fourth of our children. And so we were virtual experts in parenting. You can check with my wife and I, we are experts that anyone with more than three kids should be an expert as the Gibson family, for example, anyway. We have a baby Joe and there he is inconsolably crying.

[00:41:09] Now my wife would have been looking after him and she knows all the things nappies is, is he got, has he got tummy issues, whatever it is. And she in desperation on this particular occasion brought him to me and said, Reg, I don’t know what to do with him. And so I took him, I didn’t, what have I say? I just asked her all the stuff. Have you checked the nappies? And of course she’s done all of that plus. And I took him into our bedroom and I held him in front of a big mirror and I was rubbing his tummy thinking that maybe he had a pain inside and he was really crying.

[00:41:54] He, he had tears. He, he was, you know, little babies. He was letting rip and he was absolutely horrified at something. And then all of a sudden it dawned on me. We haven’t prayed, need to pray for him. And I rubbed his tummy and I prayed and I asked Jesus’s victory to be applied. If there was any evil attacking him, that Jesus would, would take it away, that the victory of Christ would be real. And I learned a big lesson because he stopped crying immediately and was asleep. I think there was a spiritual oppression.

[00:42:53] There was something that was evil that was trying to upset him, upset us. And now I’ve learned the big lesson, pray first, then save yourself a lot of hassle. You know, it’s the job of the spirit to convince us that evil has been conquered, that we stand on victory ground and we don’t need to fight. It’s the message of Isaiah 40, isn’t it? Comfort, comfort, my people says your, your God speak tenderly to Jerusalem. Cry to her that her warfare is ended. My struggle with sin, my struggle with the devil has been completed. It’s the spirit to convince me that Jesus has conquered sin, its guilt and its power. He’s conquered evil and death.

[00:43:57] He’s conquered Satan himself. It’s all been achieved by Christ, the comforter, and he will send the comforter to convince me of the same thing. This my friends is love on the stretch. Jesus gave his life for us. There’s forgiveness. He ascends to the father and he from there sends the comforter who brings to bear, who applies the salvation that he achieved into our lives. And this three fold thing, these three fold activities of the comforter, the convicting us of sin to bring it to Jesus to be dealt with, to convict us of righteousness, to bring

[00:44:51] us to Christ for his life, to outwork through us in our daily experience and to convince us that evil has been conquered. Let’s love on the stretch. Let me pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for this day. And I pray that you would bless us as we understand the wonder of your comforter living within. We do want to remember that we’re in this crazy weather event and we pray for those who may be impacted and ask that you’d help those who are bringing assistance and helping. We just ask that you’d oversee all of those things, but Lord, help us to know the depth of the wonder of the application of the comfort of Christ into our hearts by the comforter, the spirit. Lord, we pray and thank you in Jesus name. Amen.