Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] What's up, you guys? Greetings from Shrevesport, Louisiana. We're setting up for a reboot live event that I'm going to speak at in an hour and 15 minutes. If you could pray for that, pray for all our work, that it's anointed by God. I'm going to give you some insights into the Holy Spirit that I guarantee even if you've been a Catholic for like 90 years, you probably have never heard the Holy Spirit talked about in this way. And a way to open yourself up to the grace and presence of God that also you may never have considered that can change your life. And it's actually fairly simple.
[00:00:28] Really excited to jump into this, but let's start by diving into the deep end of the pool, because that's where Jesus takes us this Sunday in the gospel reading. Check this out. This is John 14, where Jesus promises us the Holy Spirit. He says, if you love me, keep my commands. I will ask the Father. He will give you another paraclete to help you and be with you forever. The Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him because it neither sees him nor knows Him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. So basically, he was saying, look, I. I'm going to ascend to the Father. But I walked with you. The one I'm sending you will walk with you. But inside of you.
[00:01:01] I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. So you follow Jesus. You see him, even if the world doesn't. Because I live, you also will live. On that day, you'll realize that I am in my Father and you are in me, and I am in you. Guys, that is so deep.
[00:01:18] I'll tell you what Martin Luther said that the word of God is like it's shallow enough for a mouse to wade in and simultaneously deep enough for an elephant to drown in. There's only one who can speak to everyone with the same words and hit them where they're at. No matter where they're at, whatever depth level they're ready to jump into. And only God can do that with His Word. Thank you, Jesus, for doing that with your Word. But check this out, guys. Paraclete.
[00:01:39] What the heck does that word mean? There's the word Jesus used when naming the Holy Spirit and describing the Holy Spirit. And the word paraclete is not a translation, it's a transliteration. Which means it just takes the Greek word and just puts English letters on Them. And paraclete is what we read, but in the Greek, it's literally parakletos, which comes from two words, para and kleitos, which means alongside and called.
[00:02:01] And there's lots of ways that a person who received the gospel and read this in the original Greek would have received these words. And there's a couple different ways that you're probably going to see this translated not as paraclete, but something else. People are starting to walk into the events. I'm going to take this backstage. And all these different translations are actually kind of valid, but. But they don't get the full picture. But they're all worth talking through, because the word paraclete can't be summed up with one English word all that well. So the first translation you're going to see a lot of is advocate. What's that mean? So an advocate is someone in a court of law who's going to stand up for you, who wants to see you free. Now, the opposite of an advocate's an accuser.
[00:02:41] Revelation calls the devil the accuser. Now, it's good to know that name, that title for the holy Spirit of advocate. Because when you hear a voice inside your heart that wants to see you in chains, that's not God.
[00:02:53] That's the evil one. You got to learn how to distinguish the voice of God from the voice of the evil one. And the evil one will use truths to chain you. He will. He says things that are true. That doesn't make it from God.
[00:03:07] You need truth and love together. The Holy Spirit will say things that are true and sometimes very challenging. But he'll say those things specifically to set you free. Because he's an advocate. He's got your back. He's on your side. He wants to see you never in chains. So that's one advocate. Advocate. How else is Paraclete translated?
[00:03:23] Helper. What's this mean? That's your general assistant through life.
[00:03:28] The Lord actually takes that role in your life. How kind of the Almighty to do this for us. And a good image for a helper. That shows you how holistic this is.
[00:03:38] Let's say Batman's assistant, Alfred.
[00:03:41] This is a guy who's not just a hired hand who doesn't really care. He's just a helper. He's going to go home, check his box, punch his card. No. Alfred was always there with Batman. He predicted Batman's every need. If it weren't for Alfred getting the right equipment in place, Batman would have got his butt kicked in Gotham City countless times. He was in the cave with Batman. He was at the home, at his home, when he was done working, he's ready to take. Take Batman's shoes off and help him just relax and shell out. So your helper, he's predicting your needs. You could actually trust him.
[00:04:08] 3. A comforter.
[00:04:10] That's another great translation for Paraclete. A comforter. Somebody who's going to be there when you're down. He's not going to run for you in that situation, guys, he's got you even right there just to help you get through the hard times. And then finally, your counselor, that's a trusted voice that's going to tell you which way you should go. So which one of those is the best translation of Paraclete? I'd say all of the above.
[00:04:33] But here's the word that you've never thought of that I'm going to blow your mind with when thinking about the Holy Spirit. And possibly a fifth valid way to translate the transliteration.
[00:04:43] Paraclete. Parakletos. And I got this from Father Brian Kavanaugh, legendary priest, who was a priest at Franciscan University when I was a student there. And he's still there ministering to the students. And that word is coach.
[00:04:55] And Gerard Manley Hopkins, he said this in a speech in 1882 in Liverpool asking what the word Paraclete means. He said, for God, the Holy Ghost is the Paraclete. But what is a paraclete? Often it's translated comforter.
[00:05:09] The word's Greek. There's no one English word for it. Comforter is not enough. A Paraclete is one who comforts, but also one who cheers, who encourages, who persuades, who exhorts, who stirs up, who urges forward, who calls on what clapping of hands is to a speaker. How cool is this what a trumpet is to a soldier that the Paraclete is to the soul?
[00:05:32] That's a great summary of what a coach is.
[00:05:35] A coach is clapping for you. He's on the sidelines and he's pushing you on dude. He's meeting you at the mat when your face hits the floor because you just got punched in the face and he's telling you to get up, not because he's merciless, but because he wants what's best to be brought out of you in that moment. If you're bloodied and exhausted, he's saying, dude, go get it, Chris. That's your coach.
[00:05:56] And a good coach takes it next level. And he's doing all this because he actually loves you.
[00:06:01] This is what the Paraclete is to the soul. Now let's apply that to Pentecost Sunday. Let's apply that to how to prepare our hearts to receive the gift of God, the Paraclete. All right, sorry, guys. More people are coming to the event, so I have to go even further backstage. This is the backstage of the backstage.
[00:06:18] Here's where I want to blow your mind with something you probably never even considered before. It's simple. Will totally change your life. If you want to be more open to the grace and power and presence of the Holy Spirit than you've ever been, consider this. We talk about imitating Jesus, and we should. That's the pillar of the Christian life. It's the foundation of it all. To imitate Christ.
[00:06:36] If you're a dad, especially you think about imitating God the Father. I want my kids and my grandkids, when they pray the Our Father, to think of me and to think, okay, I like fatherhood. I can relate with what it means that God's my father. And it feels good to say that word because I know a father is someone who loves me, sacrifices for me, protects me, provides for me. But have you ever considered Christian imitating the Holy Spirit imitating the Paraclete? Because if you want to open yourself up to his presence more than ever before, think about actually being like him so that your soul can be a dwelling place that he easily inhabits and works through. So how do you do that? How do you imitate the counselor, the helper, the paraclete, the coach?
[00:07:20] I want to dig into another word. This is word day.
[00:07:23] Encourage.
[00:07:24] Because that's what a coach does. That's what an advocate does. That's what a helper does. Encourage. Okay, this is a beautiful word, guys, and the root of it is core, which in Latin means heart. And a thousand years ago, this is not something we add age in words anymore. But if you add the suffix age to a noun, it turns that noun into a state or condition of itself.
[00:07:47] Kind of a tricky suffix to add to a word. So the original, before courage came to mean bravery, what it meant was the condition of your heart. It basically meant spirit. So to encourage is to give more spirit, more heart to someone than they had before because of your presence and your words. To discourage is literally to take someone's heart away, to take someone's spirit out of them.
[00:08:12] Guys, the way you present to other people when you walk in the room, the way you correct your kids, the way you interact with your spouse, who sometimes feels taken for granted. Bosses, the way you act with your employees, do you encourage them? Are you imitating the Holy Spirit? Or without intending to, do you discourage them? Do you suck the life out of the room? Because so often we could do this without even meaning to. Listen, if your wife has this beautiful calling to be a housewife and has responded to that with grace, you have no idea how much she's sacrificing just to make it through each day with little children around her. When you come in the door and the dishes aren't done, Do you talk about how she could have done stuff better? Man, I hope not. I hope you're not that stupid.
[00:09:03] Or do you encourage.
[00:09:05] If your husband is going to a job that he doesn't even like that much for 20 years, do you take it for granted that, well, no, this is where the bar is set, so we expect him to meet that bar?
[00:09:13] Or do you pause every once in a while and realize that person might be getting tired? They need a word of life. I want to be like the Holy Spirit. I want to breathe a word of life. Dude, I. I don't have one of those jobs that I don't like. I love my work. I thank God for my work, but it gets very tiring sometimes. This week, I had to leave for two nights instead of one because of a snowstorm in Denver. Yes, a snowstorm on Mother's Day week. It's crazy. But as I was leaving the house, my wife said, hey, thank you for working so hard for God and for your family.
[00:09:44] And I gotta tell you guys, those words were a breath of life into me when I was feeling really tired, working out, walking out the door to yet another trip. Even though I love my job, it can get tiring. But I needed those words of life. If you have employees, I guarantee, if you're a driven guy with. With employees and you're a boss, you see problems you're trying to fix at your workplace all the time.
[00:10:08] And you can overlook the micro victories that your employees that go to work and have every day that no one celebrates. Could you just stop looking at the problems all the time and look at the gains? Look at the little tiny microvictors and call those out. Because if you don't do it, I guarantee you're burning everyone around you out. You're correcting your kids, pull them aside and praise them two times more than you correct them.
[00:10:30] I'm talking to myself right now. It's easy to forget to do this because we're managing life, but people need words of life, and you need to imitate the Holy Spirit, for your own spiritual good. St. Paul wrote this from 1 Thessalonians 5, 11, Encourage one another and build each other up. Basically, he was saying, be like the Holy Spirit. That's what he was saying in that moment. Imitate the Holy Spirit. So that's, number one, be like him. And number two, let others be that for you. Because if you want to get good at receiving the encouragement that the Holy Spirit wants to breathe into you in your daily life, you know, practice by letting other people breathe it into you guys. We all need encouragers. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're a bishop. I don't care if you're a priest. I don't care if you're the boss of the company or the parent.
[00:11:10] We all need it. And it's a beautiful way to build vulnerability and real relationships when you admit that need and you ask for it. And I gotta tell you, when you don't admit that need, when you're getting tired and burnt out and you don't say, hey, I need an attaboy right now. I just need your encouragement. Like, say that to your wife. Send it to your husband. Kids, say that to your parents, the employee. Send it to your boss. Give them a chance to rise up. And when you don't, what happens is that your burnout becomes resentment because other people didn't see the need that you didn't let them know.
[00:11:46] It's totally dumb. It really is. You gotta articulate it and then receive it.
[00:11:52] This happened with me the other day. I was recording for CORE for, like, six hours straight, man. And my team is intense, and they're beautiful, man. They do their job so well. I have a makeup person who's staring at my face.
[00:12:02] Oh, there's some shine. Let's get it. I have a person behind the camera. I have a person taking notes, directing, making sure I'm not missing any lines. They're all just intentionally watching me quietly for six hours as we're talking and doing script after script after script and redos and retakes. And that night, I felt so tired, and I thought about why. I thought, oh, yeah, wait, because I'm a human, and I needed some pats in the back. I was running a marathon, and I needed someone on the sidelines saying, go, go, go, go. In addition to being competent and making sure we were doing it all right and measuring twice and cutting once and all that stuff. So instead of stuffing that and thinking, no, I'm the boss. I don't need Anything from anybody. I'll just get that from the Lord and from my wife. I just called my COO bro. I was running a marathon today. I love that you were so on top of it. But when, when it's going well, I need some verbal feedback of that. I need you to say, high five, man. However that looks for you.
[00:12:56] And here's the beautiful thing, that moment of vulnerability to give him the chance to rise up and say, well, of course I want to do that.
[00:13:02] Because usually, guys, that's what people are going to say when you tell them that need.
[00:13:06] And it made me humble and a little better at receiving grace and upbuilding that I need. I gotta tell you, that makes me better at doing that with the Lord. Lord, I need you. I think it's the song playing in the background right now as people come in the room, actually. Lord, I need you. I need your grace, I need your encouragement. And I'm going to be humble enough to receive it because I'm not God and I can't do this life on my own. And thanks for also building up through your people. Encourage one another, guys. You have a superpower in your ability to encourage people. You also have a superpower in your ability to build vulnerability by showing people that you need to be encouraged. And when you do that, you imitate the Holy Spirit and you help bring that imitation of the Holy Spirit, the encourager, the counselor, the advocate, the coach, out of other people. So join me in preparing for Pentecost Sunday this year by being more intentional than ever. Not just in asking for the Holy Spirit to fill your heart, but imitating the Holy Spirit.
[00:14:04] Amen. Guys, there's so much more to say about the Holy Spirit that I can't possibly fit into this video. So click below the video. Sign up for the Daily Anchor. We're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit for the next two weeks leading up to Pentecost and following Pentecost. I hope you let us inspire you. You inspire me. Keep living the Christian life. Hey, I want to encourage you. I'm proud of you. You are kicking butt. If you're just being a generally faithful person, you're showing up after work, being faithful to your bride, being faithful to your kids, working hard, the little stuff that no one else is noticing. The Lord sees it and you're awesome.
[00:14:34] God bless you, friend. We'll see you next week.
