Filled with the Spirit

Hello, and welcome to the Salt Church Podcast. Thank you for tuning in to this week's message. Join us as we explore God's Word providing practical teaching for day-to-day living. The message you are about to hear was recorded live at our Sunday morning worship experience. If you would like to learn more about Salt Church, please visit us at saltchurch.

org. We hope that you are encouraged by today's message. Release. How does that feel? Well, that's what the Holy Spirit feels like when He sets our sails.

He gives us a breath of fresh air. And then last week, week two, we talked, or the week before last, we talked about Pentecost because this term Pentecost is often, you know, associated with the movement or denomination and we've taken human packaging and understood it as it is. For some of us, we might think it's wearing too much makeup on TV. Or for others of us, it's not wearing enough makeup, you know, or no wake up at all. Or, and you know, certain rules and things to be a Pentecostal, but that's not what it means at all.

When we look at the word Pentecostal, Pentecost, it was actually a holiday the Jews celebrated. And it was the giving of the law and the power of God and His sovereignty and things like that. They would have that celebration every year. And God strategically chose on that day to take from Old Testament where people were empowered by the Holy Spirit specifically at certain times and pour His Holy Spirit on the entire church, empowering the entire church for service and for commission. That was that day.

So that's what Pentecost is. But we've muddied that up because of things that we've experienced. And then week three, last week, we talked about charismatic. The word charismatic or charisma or whatever you want to term that. And we associate it with certain churches and certain movements once again.

And some of us probably had bad experiences in those churches. We probably saw whole lines of people fall out in the spirit and a guy in a white suit bounce around and charismatic, you know, you're thinking that. But charismatic in the Bible simply means grace gifts. And we talked about the spiritual gifts. The charismatic gifts are the spiritual gifts that God gives and empowers our church, each of us, with specific gifts that are our gifts and uses them for His kingdom.

We use them together to accomplish His purposes. This week, I want to talk about baptism. And a lot of you probably when you hear that word, the first thing you think is what? Water. You think of dunking somebody, you know.

Let's go to the river and let's go to the ocean. Let's get a pool and let's immerse somebody in water. And that's the first thing that comes to our mind. But did you know there's actually three baptisms that God talks about in the Bible? In fact, the word baptism means to immerse, to be immersed in, to be immersed in.

That's a big difference from just being dunked into water. And God talks about, or the Bible talks about, the word of God talks about three different baptisms. The first baptism I want to talk about is being baptized in the body of Christ. Being baptized in the body of Christ. This is the point in which one comes to know God, to know Jesus.

This salvation is what we call this. And at the point of salvation, being saved, coming to the knowledge of God, receiving Christ as our Savior, committing to Him, giving our hearts to Him, we are baptized in Christ and in His church. And it's not just, oh, I'm saved now, so I'll attend church once or twice a month, and I'll get my fix, and I'll do my thing, and so I'm a part of the church now. No, it means to be immersed in, to be baptized, to be immersed in the body of Christ, but completely immersed in Christ and together with this church. Saying, I'm all in.

I'm everything. God, immerse me with my church. Immerse me with you. I want to know you. I want to grow deeper.

I'm a fully devoted follower of Christ. Your first step is the immersion, salvation, coming into the body of Christ as a fully devoted relationship with Jesus. 1 Corinthians 12, 13 says, For we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body. What does that mean? We are all baptized under one Spirit.

Who is Spirit? God is Spirit. We are baptized. We are brought in. We are immersed under God because there is only one way to Jesus, and that's through the cross, right?

Through God is through Jesus. Excuse me. There's one way to God, and that's through Jesus and His cross, and there's no other way than one Spirit. All of us come to God through one Spirit, and we are baptized into one body. And I love how the church is symbolized as a body of believers.

We are a body. We are organic. We work together. Last week we talked about spiritual gifts, and God gives us all these different spiritual gifts. I have some that you don't have.

You have some that I don't have. And we organically, as a body, work together, and we are baptized. We are immersed in the body of Christ. We are an organism of believers. All churches, actually.

The broad church. When we are brought in, we are immersed. We are baptized into Christ, into the fellowship, into the church. We are immersed, and we are fully in with those who are around us and with us. Amen?

Whether they're at a church down the road or at a church here. But he also talks about a family of believers. The Bible talks a lot about family. And so there's individual families that, excuse me. There are individual families.

There are individual families of believers. Salt Church is one of those individual families. And the cool thing about a family is when you're baptized into Christ, he brings you into a family of people that help you. You help them. You work together.

We're equipped together. The Holy Spirit equips us together to do some amazing things. And the cool thing about a family, if you understand a family, because most of you know what it's like to be a part of a family, there's a blood kin. And even with that blood kin, even if you don't know the person well or you're disassociated with that person in your family, there's some kind of special connection there, right? I had a friend, one of my best friends growing up, that his mother and father divorced when he was very, very young.

And his mother was just not a good person. He left the family, left them, had nothing to do with them, only when she needed something. And we would talk about that, you know, like he would always, he would talk terrible about her. He's like, yeah, she's not my mom. She's not this.

She's not that. But anytime she needed a refrigerator moved around the house or she needed something fixed in the house, he was there. And I said, I said, Troy, why, why, why do you do that? He says, well, you know, she may not have been a mother, but she is still my mom. And I can't get rid of that.

There's something special about a blood kin. But through Jesus Christ, we have a blood kin with each other. We have a blood kin with the family. And we are immersed into our family. And, you know, the cool thing is about being in a family is that you can't get rid of them.

When you try to get rid of them, you still can't get rid of them. Listen, if it's legitimate, if it's a legitimate baptism, immersion into the family of God, you cannot disconnect from that family. There is something. There's nothing special about that. Even if they treat you bad, you're still my family, right?

Think about it. I mean, you can't divorce your family, your blood family, can't you? You can say, I don't want to have anything to do with you, but you can't disconnect from them. You're still connected with them somehow. You still wear the name.

In fact, you can get rid of the name, but the genes are still there. The blood's still there, right? And for so many people, especially living in a consumer culture, where we can just shop around. You know, I know people that actually attend a different church every Sunday, just so they can get this kind of experience. I want to get the Salt Church experience this Sunday, and then I'll go get the London Bridge experience next Sunday, and then I'll, you know, get the Wave experience next Sunday, and it just messes the whole point.

I love all those churches. They're great churches. Go and be a part of those churches if you're called to be a part of those churches. But man, look, find a family. You got to get into a family because you need to be a part of a family, and God calls us to be immersed into the family of God.

Be in the family. Be fully devoted to the family of God. Don't divorce your family when something goes wrong. We're called in marriage not to divorce, and so it is with our family and our group. So we are, so we got to take that very seriously, that we are baptized into a family under one spirit, one spirit.

Galatians 3 to 26, 27 says, you are all sons and daughters, if you want to interpret that that way, of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself in Christ. So he says, when we come to the knowledge of Christ, surrender our lives to Christ, we are immersed in Christ to the extent that we are clothed in Christ. I love that term clothed. That suggests that we look like Christ.

We act like Christ. We are like Christ. We aren't just living one life over here, and then living, you know, this is my home life, and this is my Christ life here at church, and when I'm on outreaches, and when I'm around my small group. That's not what it's about. It's about being immersed and clothed in Christ.

Now, I'm not saying that you need to start growing out a beard and wearing, you know, white robes and stuff like that, you know, to look like Christ. I'm saying, spiritually, you need to be, like when people see you, people, and when people are around you, they know that there's something different. See, the thing about Jesus, people gathered around him. There was something different about him. We want to be like him.

We want to be different. We want to be attractional. We want to be people that when someone sees us, they see the clothing. We're clothed in Christ. We are immersed in Christ.

We are baptized in Christ. So, what this means is that at the point of salvation, at the point of salvation, the Holy Spirit comes, and he dwells within you. No ifs, ands, or buts. He's in you. That's what that conviction is when you're changing your lives, when you're going here, going there, and God steers you, or you don't feel right about something.

That's the Holy Spirit dwelling in you. Dwelling in you. In Luke 20, 19, 22, it says, on the evening of the first day of the week, when the disciples were together, and this was when Jesus had already been crucified, and he rose from the dead. He's going here and there, and I love how Scripture says he's just kind of manipulated dimensions in some way, shape, or form, because he was risen. He was there, and then he would disappear.

He'd be eating with people, and when they recognized him, they'd turn around, he's gone. You know, he was like, he was just, he just, he was the resurrected Christ, and here he is kind of going around, and the disciples are scared. Why? Because Jesus just died on the cross, and they've heard rumors, but they don't know. They're hiding.

They're hiding from the government, you know, because they wanted, they just took out Jesus. We thought he was God. I guess he was, and he's gone now, right? He's been crucified. He's no more.

He's in the grave. So what are we going to do? So they're in this house, and they're just like, you know, because here's the truth of it. Everything hinges on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. If it's not, if we throw out the resurrection, then he's not God, and if he's not God, he's not just a good person, right?

Because he's a lunatic, because he was crazy and told everybody that he manipulated all these people, or he's a demon himself. He's a deceiver, because he's deceived thousands and thousands of people to follow him. So he can't just be a good person. He has to be the resurrected Jesus, and these guys were in their house, and they had the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, and Jesus came and stood among them and said, peace be with you. I love how it says that.

I mean, he just probably pops in, like shows up like a ghost. Peace be with you, you know? They're probably freaking out. What's going on? Peace, peace, peace, man, peace, you know?

That's not probably how we would do it. It's kind of funny. And he said, peace be with you. And after he said this, he showed them his hands and his side, because he wanted to prove to them, look, look, I'm not just a ghost. I'm not some kind of weird, I'm not just a guy pretending to be.

Look, look, put your finger through my holes, man. Like, this is me. This is me. This is exactly what happened, you know, on the cross. So I'm here.

And the disciples, they were overjoyed. He showed them his hands and side, and they were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. And again, Jesus said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And with that, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.

So he breathed on them at that moment to receive the Holy Spirit. What is this showing us? This is this salvation. You need the Spirit, because I'm getting ready to go away. Because at that point, they had not necessarily experienced this Spirit of God that comes and lives, the Spirit of Jesus coming and living inside of them that we have today when we have that experience.

Because they had been followers of Jesus, but Jesus was with them. Now Jesus was going away, and he's breathing the Spirit on them. So this is the Spirit of salvation. But it doesn't stop there. In fact, this isn't in your handouts, but in Luke 24, 49, it says, I am going to send you what my Father has promised.

And he talked about this over and over again. But stay in the city, talking about Jerusalem, until you have been clothed with power from on high. And on down in Luke, or Acts, which is Luke's other gospel, he says this. He says, after his suffering, he presented himself. And I love Luke, because Luke always wanted to, he was a smart guy.

He was a doctor. He wanted, people were questioning whether the risen Jesus was real, and what all these events had happened, all these miracles had happened. So he's kind of laying out his case. He says, after his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. So after the resurrection, he showed a lot of people that he was alive, and he appeared to them over a period of 40 days.

So he was over a month, guys. This wasn't just, I'm, I'm ready, I rose from the dead, guys. Okay, I'm out. I'm in heaven now. You know, it's like he didn't pop in and pop out.

He walked around. Lots of people saw him. He taught. He spoke about the kingdom of God. And on one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command.

He said, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my father promised, which you have heard me speak about over and over and over again. And I'm just reminding you once again, for John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So we see two more baptisms here, separate from this clothed in Christ, salvation type experience of being baptized into him and in the church. So the second point I want to make, if you're following your notes and jot this down, is water baptism. What is water baptism?

And what's the point of water baptism? Water baptism is a separate experience from salvation, okay? It's really, really important that we get that. It's a separate experience from salvation. You don't have to be water baptized to be saved.

And some would teach that that is the case, that you have to be water baptized. Baptized to be saved. And then others argue that it needs to be a certain method or a certain way of saying it. I baptize you in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then the other categories, no, it's just in the name of Jesus.

You baptize in the name of Jesus. And then there's those, you know, for us, we're just like, I baptize you in the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus. We just do it all. Because there's no indication, there's no system. And what people have done, they tried to package this idea into a human system.

But why is it that we separate this act from anything else? Because salvation is a free gift separate from baptism. We have to be very careful with that. But it's important that you take the next spiritual step. Acts 2.

41 says those who accepted the message were baptized. I mean, they were, people were getting saved and they were immediately baptizing these people. There was an Ethiopian on the road. And Philip and the Ethiopian, you know, he saw this Ethiopian and he shared the message of Jesus and they went immediately out and baptized the man. You know, it was like immediate.

Baptism was a very important. And at some point, the private decision to have a relationship with Jesus has to go public. Yeah, it's private. It's personal for you to receive Jesus, but we have to go public at some point. The reason is, it's like marriage.

Marriage is a perfect example. I left my wedding ring at home today for the example of this. And that's not a good thing, but it kind of turned, I could turn it around. I do not have my wedding ring on today. Does that not mean, because I have that wedding ring off, does it mean that I'm no longer married to Miranda?

Absolutely not. I've, in the same way, baptism is not something you, that, that require, is required for salvation for a marriage to Christ. However, when I wear that wedding ring, it tells people I'm taken. And I need that, that wedding ring says, I, this is, I'm hers and she's mine. We've got, it doesn't represent the vows that were made on that wedding day.

It has nothing to do with that, but it, because that's there and that's solid and that's the commitment. But that wedding ring says, hey, look, everybody, look, I'm married. I belong to Miranda. Everybody, I'm, I share it. So, so that's baptism.

Baptism is our wedding ring. And we show it off and we tell everybody and we celebrate and we're baptized and celebrate together. I had a guy come to me, um, uh, a few years back and, and asked me to baptize him, but he wanted to do it privately. And I said, no, man, we're not going to do it privately. This is a public display of what God has done in your life.

The whole point of baptism is to say, hey, everybody, let's celebrate together. And those who accepted his message were baptized and people saw that. Matthew 10, 32, 33 says, whoever acknowledges me before man, I will also acknowledge him before the father in heaven. But whosoever disowns me before man, I will disown him before the father in heaven. So let that be a really strong statement, people.

Let's be excited about who our savior is and share our savior. He says, be open, be public, wear the wedding ring, show it off, tell people about the goodness of Jesus Christ. Amen. Come on church. Come on.

Are y'all excited today? Are y'all good? Okay. Okay. Help me preach here.

I like, I like response. You know, response is good. Feel free to do that. And then there's the third baptism that we, that was mentioned in that statement that I read earlier. And that's the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Now, remember the disciples received the Holy Spirit when they were saved, but there is a next step in your spiritual journey where you are immersed in the Holy Spirit. You are baptized in the Holy Spirit, not the salvation where Holy Spirit comes and dwells in you, but there's an infilling that takes place. And there's a ton of scripture that supports this. Here's, but I'm going to just deal with one today because I could just go on and on. Acts 8, 14 through 17, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, meaning that they heard the word of God and received it and, and were saved.

They sent Peter and John to them. And when they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. What does that mean? Well, it means that the Holy Spirit needed to do something special, needed to take them to the next level. And they had simply been baptized into the name of Jesus.

Then, then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now, some people might be asking, well, why doesn't God just give it all to me at one time? I mean, why does he do this? Because again, he wants to make sure that that gift that you received when you gave your life to Jesus was completely separate from anything else. He wants you to understand that, but he's at, but, but he does have this second work he wants to do in you because he has something to do for you, for, for, for you to do, right?

He, that, that's why you need the Holy Spirit. Salvation has an eternal, eternal purpose, an eternal purpose, but baptism in the Holy Spirit has an earthly purpose. He needs you to be baptized in the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit so that you can do the work that he's called you to do that you could otherwise not do if you didn't have the Holy Spirit empowering you and in filling you. First John 5, 7 and 8 says this, for there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, John liked to use the Word in place of Jesus. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, and then later he said the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

He's talking about Jesus, so he says the Word and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Trinity, and there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and these three agree as one. Spirit, water, and blood. The Spirit being the Holy Spirit bearing witness, water, water, baptism, and the blood, salvation. All three bear witness. And salvation, water, baptism, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is all part of your spiritual journey.

And all of us are on different journeys and in different places, but God wants you to have all these. He wants you to experience all he has so that he can do all you were made to do. And you need that. Everyone is on this journey to experience God and experience what he has for you. Let me just share my journey.

Let me just share my journey with you real quick here. I was raised in a Pentecostal church. Pentecostal and holiness was on the name too. So some of you are thinking, oh man, snakes and and buns. No, that wasn't that kind of church.

I will, I will, I will, you know, save my church from that, the church I grew up in. But at any rate, there were many different types of churches within that fellowship, you know. And some of them were quite an experience, I'd say the least. Um, uh, swinging from the chandeliers was an understatement. People were, you know, you'd walk into church, people were dancing around and, and, uh, you know, things were going on and, and it was quite an experience to say the least.

Uh, but, uh, in a lot of cases, it wasn't very profitable, profitable to be honest. And I was too young to really understand. Um, and and, uh, as I grew up. I was in youth camps, and I remember some of those youth camps, just these kids would, you know, wild things would happen, and a lot of it was legitimate. I'm not saying that the Lord wasn't involved, but there was a lot of it that was packaged in a human kind of package, you know.

In fact, they were, you know, speaking in tongues was like the big thing, you know. Everybody needs to speak in tongues, and we emphasize speaking in tongues over and over again. Last week, I talked about some people overemphasize certain gifts and underemphasize others. That's exactly what was happening, you know. It was like, you need to speak in tongues to the point where we were five, six, seven-year-old kids in a camp, and they were trying to tell us how to move our mouths in order to receive the Spirit.

I mean, this is how bad it got, right? I mean, you need to receive the Spirit. And it just was something that made me very cynical about God, the gifts, the Holy Spirit, and I even had a guy come over one of the chairs one time to lay hands on me and started pushing me over the chair. I mean, I'm literally like falling over the chair, and then I fall on the ground. He's like, hallelujah, hallelujah!

You know, it was like that, you know. No, man, don't hallelujah this. You just pushed me over a chair. I fell down, right? I mean, that's how that was, you know.

And a funny thing a friend of mine shared with me, he was at a conference or something, and there was a group of old ladies on the front row many years ago, Spirit-filled ladies. We use Spirit-filled for the sake of understanding, you know, Pentecostal. But they were in the front row, and he was there, and he and his friends, and they were kind of cutting up. And then he took a pin and poked the side of his leg, and he said, oh! You know, and he jumped up, and the whole front row was, oh, hallelujah, hallelujah!

And everybody just started, like, jumping up. But I was like, man, you know, I just got poked in the side of the leg, you know. And sometimes that can happen. Now, not to condemn those people, man. My grandmother, Spirit-filled believer, loved the Lord, man.

I'm telling you, Spirit-filled lady, empowered lady of God. I could just talk all day long about her. My mother, Spirit-filled woman that often prays over me, and the power of the Holy Spirit is so real when she prays over me. Just this Spirit-filled people. Just that we had a lot of things going on that we were trying to figure out.

A move of God happened in the early 1900s, and we couldn't figure it out, so we tried to package them in human understanding and couldn't do it. Instead of going to the Word of God and balancing this out. So we go to God, and we see this. And, you know, for me, I became very cynical about those things. But later on in life, God got a hold of me.

And I rededicated my life to the Lord. In fact, I never really had a relationship with God like before because I just thought, you know, hell scared me, and I went to the front, and I gave my life to Christ, you know, because I was scared of hell, you know. No, it wasn't anything about a relationship with Christ. Anybody told you you're going to hell, you're going to go run into the front, you know. And that's just what happens.

But I had an experience with God later on that changed my life. In college, when I was, you know, kind of doing my own thing, God really changed my life, changed my heart. I connected with a group of people, and God just changed my life completely when I completely surrendered, and I was immersed in Christ, and I was immersed in the church, and just changed my life completely. And then the next step came when I'm still being quite cynical about Pentecostalism and charismatic church because I've just had so many bad and weird experiences with it and not God experiences with it. I just was determined that, you know, I'm just going to stay away from that for a while.

But I knew that God had more for me, and there was something in me, you know, that said, God wants to empower you to do more for his service. So I noticed, you know, among the believers I was with that those who were spirit-filled, not that they were better than anybody else, but it just seemed like they had something. They were happy. They were joyful, you know. It was like they weren't the sour Christians, you know, like I was.

I was kind of sour and cynical. Maybe it was the teacher in me. I don't know. But I was just, you know, and they had this joy I couldn't explain, and I wanted that. And they said, well, you need to be, you know, received.

Well, I'm Pentecostal. I know all that stuff, you know, and that's just not for me. But God kept pulling me towards that. And then one day in my home, before God, obviously people praying for me, my mother praying for me, and everybody to receive this gift, I said, God, if this is the real deal, let's do it. And I opened myself up to God, and this fire poured over me.

It was like a fire, literally like the Acts 2 moment, this flood of joy that overfilled my heart. And it excited me and it empowered me for ministry. It wasn't that I was any different than I was before as far as my Christian life and my walk and my faith, but there was something different when I came out of that room, when I came out of that room filled with the Holy Spirit. I began to speak in other tongues. I began to worship Him.

I began to praise Him. I began to do, it was just something special happened at that moment. And God did and empowered me for service. And when I walked out of that room, I'm like, life, life is different now. Everything's different now.

It's almost as if God placed glasses, what do you call those things, glasses over my eyes, and I saw the world differently. Everything was different. Now, I know for some of you, this is kind of, okay, wow, yeah. This is, some of you are still like, I don't know about that. You just used the tongues thing, you know, there.

And some of you are like, whew. But do we, the question is, do we overemphasize or underemphasize any of the gifts? Absolutely not. We want everything that God wants for us. In fact, Dwight L.

Moody, a lot of people don't know this, but he had this similar experience in his life. He had these ladies that were in his church. And if you know anything about D.L. Moody, back in the late, I mean, he was the greatest evangelist of the late 1800s.

I mean, it just, just hundreds and thousands of people got saved under him. He was Billy Graham of that age. Many ministries, and we've even got, you know, schools and Bible colleges and all kinds of things that are still operating today through his ministry. Just an amazing man of God. But he had these ladies in his church that would come every week, and they'd be praying for him.

Just praying for him, praying for him, praying for him. And he asked him one day, he said, why are you praying for me? Shouldn't you be praying for the unsaved? He says, well, we want to pray that you receive the Holy Spirit. And he's like, I have the Holy Spirit.

Don't you see this church? Don't you see the ministries that are going out? I preach and teach every day. People are getting saved. And they're telling me that I need to receive the Holy Spirit.

But it intrigued him. He began to pray about it, pray with God about it, begin to seek it, begin to understand it better. And then he explained that one day while he was visiting New York City, he was going down the streets, and something overwhelmed him. It was a flood of joy. An empowerment that he had never felt before in his Christian life.

It was so heavy on him. He ran to his friend's house that was on one of the streets, went into a room, locked himself in there. And he was so overwhelmed with joy. He was overflowing with the Spirit of God. He could not restrain himself.

And he said this, It's just... He said this, it was filling my soul with such joy that at last I had to ask God to withhold his hand, lest I die on the spot from very joy, from that very joy. I don't know about you, but I kind of want that, right? Amen. And he wants to do that for you.

It's a joy, it's an overflowing joy. Now, I'm not here saying that there's any kind of system to it. I want to be careful how we handle it, but it's there for you. It's biblical, and he wants you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5.

18 says, do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. Hey, you want to get a good fix? Be filled with the Spirit.

Amen. If you've ever experienced anything, substance abuse or anything like that, and you get fixes on that, I'm telling you, this right here, there is no equivalent to being filled with the Holy Spirit. Do not be drunk with wine, do not be strung out on drugs, do not be any of that. Would you really need to be filled with the Spirit? Being filled with the Spirit.

Being filled with the Spirit. And here's just a few things I want to say about being filled with the Spirit. Hopefully, this will help you. Just some practical advice so that you can open up your life and open up your heart to more of this. And I get it.

Some of you are probably from other, we're a non-denominational church, we're an inter-denominational church, and there's a lot of people from different walks of life, different understandings about it, so I get it. This night, you might not be ready for this, but I challenge you, I challenge you to consider it. To go to the Word of God, to review everything I've said, and to explore it. So first of all, you've got to remove all barriers. Number one, if you want to jot that down.

Remove all barriers. Be open to it. But first of all, you have to have, and this is not for the non-believer, this is for the non-believer, you have to have that free gift. That free gift. You have to allow God to cleanse you of your sin, so that you can make room for Him to come in.

And guess what? When He comes in, and He fills your heart, and He fills your life, the sin just kind of pops out. It's like a container full of balls, and you pour the water in, and the balls just start, the ping pong balls just start flopping out. That's kind of a demonstration. I guess I should have just used that as a demonstration here in front of the service, but it popped up in my head.

And that's exactly what happens when the Spirit fills your life. But you have to be baptized in Christ first. Acts 2, 38-39 says, Peter replied, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So you've got to repent. You've got to believe.

You've got to be willing to change, so that He can do a work in you. Some of you have been praying for a feeling of the Holy Spirit, and it's not happening. Maybe first go back to first things first, and figure out where your heart and where your life is. So, the promise is for you, and your children, and for all who are far off. For all whom the Lord our God will call.

It's for everyone. It's for all of you. So, we need to remove our misconceptions, the human packaging that has been involved with the things of the Holy Spirit. Number two, request the gift of the Holy Spirit. Just like salvation, it's something that we ask for.

It's available to all of us. Luke 11, 13, if you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in Heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? It's available for you. You just have to ask Him. Don't be afraid.

He's got something for you. Ask Him. And then number three, receive Him by faith. You have to take, it requires a leap of faith. It requires a step of faith, stepping deeper in the water.

I love how the prophet Ezekiel puts it. He's talking about going ankle high and waist high. Read this with me, if you'll follow me here. As the man went eastward with a measuring line in his hand, he measured off a thousand cubits and then led me through water that was ankle deep. Ankle deep.

He measured off another thousand cubits and led me through water that was knee deep. And then he measured off another thousand and led me through water that was up to the waist. And then he measured off another thousand. But now it was a river that I could not cross because the water had risen and was so deep. It was deep enough to swim.

And the river that no one, and a river that no one, no one could cross. And he goes on in that scripture to talk about, but that river that was so deep that no one could cross. It ran to a, it was flowing and it teemed with life. It was teeming with life. It brought life to an environment.

It brought, brought crops. It brought plant life. It brought trees. It brought animals. It brought all those things.

That's where God wants you to go. And we need to step out in the river. And you hear those songs about the river, the river. You know, we talk, let me just give you some, some understanding of what that really means. Because, you know, unchurched people or people who haven't been a part of church, what are you talking about dancing in the river?

Let me tell you about the river that God has for you. There is an ankle deep river. And he's asking us, okay, come on, come on, experience me a little bit. A little bit of faith, come on. Just a little bit of faith wall.

Come on, come on down a little bit more. Come on, come on down, ankle deep, ankle deep. Now we're going up the waist deep. Let's go waist deep. And he's calling us on our spiritual journey to go further and further and further.

But he wants us to experience it all. He says, you've got to release it to me. You've got to let go. You're trying to stay grounded in this area. But you're not allowing me to do the things I want to do in your life.

So we stay on ankle deep and we kind of tiptoe around. I don't know, God. I don't quite trust you. I don't have enough faith. I don't know if I can do this.

God's like, come on, come on, because there's a river teeming with life on the other side. Amen. He's got something for you and he's asking you to begin to take those steps of faith. The Holy Spirit has something for you. He's calling you.

The problem is we don't want to lose touch with our old life. The things that draw us back to here. I want to go here, God. No, no, no. Come over here.

Trust me. I don't know, God. You're telling me to downsize my house and start living so that I can serve others. No, I can't. I can't do that.

I can't do that. I don't know, God. You know, you've got a ministry here for me. But, you know, man, there's waves over in Puerto Rico. I want to spend like five months over there, but there's people over here you're calling me to, you know.

But, God, trust me, because it's teeming with life. It's teeming with life. I don't know, God, you're calling me to move? You're calling me to move? I've been here my entire life.

My family's here. I'm comfortable. I've got a great job. I've got everything I want. You're calling me to move to somewhere I don't want to move, and I don't even know if I, I'm not even comfortable with the area.

I don't want to. It's teeming with life. If you just listen to me, God's possibly calling you to make a big change in your life, and you're not willing to do it, in the same way he's calling us to walk deeper into his Spirit, so that you can do this, my final point, relate to him daily, so that you can relate to him daily, because you need an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. 2 Corinthians 13, 14, the message says this. I love how the message puts this, kind of condenses it down for easy understanding.

The amazing grace of the Master, Jesus Christ, the extravagant love of God, the intimate friendship, friendship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. That was his prayer. That was, that was Paul's prayer for the people of the Church of Corinth, is that they would have an intimate relationship with the Apostle. Because most people understand, you know, the Master, Father, the one who loves me. A lot of people understand, you know, Jesus and that he gave his life, but people never make it to that place where they can actually experience an intimate relationship with God now, who is the Holy Spirit, who lives within us, that first baptism, who wants to and fill us and empower us for service, and lead us to a river that is teeming with life.

I'm asking you today to open up. Open up. Consider. Consider. Consider what God has for you.

Let's pray. Father, in the name of Jesus, I pray over every person here. So you know my heart, my love for the people in this room, God. But your love is so much greater for them. And you have a desire that they would experience all that you have for them.

All the love, all the joy, all the hope, all the passion, all the empowerment of living within what they were called to do, that even when trouble comes, it doesn't hinder what God's doing in their life. They can rise above it. They can live above it. Today, I pray that everybody here would open up their hearts to receiving your Spirit, Lord Jesus, in a new and fresh way. Not in some type of system, or some kind of organized theological construct, Lord, but that you, God, in your power, do what you want to do in our body, in the church as a whole, Lord Jesus, so that we can be empowered to do everything that you've called us to do here in Virginia Beach.

Amen. And we receive your Spirit now, Lord Jesus. In faith, we walk into the light of your Holy Spirit. Give us everything that we need. Strengthen and empower our spiritual gifts for your service, Lord, so that we can be effective and demonstrate your presence through us, your body, through miracles, signs, wonders, in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior.

And if there is one here that does not know you, God, and we do not want to leave this out, come to know you today, because there's a journey ahead of them that they're going to experience that will change everything, that will change eternity. So help them see that, Holy Spirit. If that's you today, I want you to just pray. I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to ask you to come up to the stage.

We're not going to do a big hand clap, because we do believe it's a private, it's a private decision. But we do want to celebrate with you. So if you, if you, if that's you today, if you're like, I'm ready. I'm ready, God. I'm ready, Pastor.

I'm ready. If you would just gently lift your hand and say, I'm in. I'm in today. Amen. I'm in today.