← Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
Lakepointe Church with Josh Howerton
Baptism & the Holy Spirit: What Every Christian Needs to Know | Boot Camp | Pastor Josh Howerton
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Hey, guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week we release a podcast that corresponds to the sermon. It's like a little bit of a deeper dive where we hit some things that didn't make it into the sermon, some theological concepts. We talk about things that are going on in our culture and how to think about them from a biblical perspective. We call that podcast Live Free. An episode releases every Monday that corresponds to the sermon. If you would like to check out Live Free, just go to the Lake Pointe YouTube channel and look for the podcast tab there. We'll see you at Live Free. Now enjoy this Bible teaching. All right, man. Welcome, man. Good morning, Lake Point family. Hey, if you guys got your Bibles, let's open up to Luke chapter three. Luke three is. We're gonna be today. Hey, while you're turning there, I do wanna just give a shout out to one of our junior Lakepoint members. So let me set this up real quick. It's a little 12 second video that somebody sent me this week. So let me. Let me set it up. If you've been around a lot of times when I'm giving people a chance to bend their knee to the lordship of Jesus and become a Christian, I'll do the. I always do the same thing. 1. God loves you. 2. You came here for a reason today. 3, raise your hand. I always do that thing. So what you're getting ready to see is little Caroline fighting a little medical issue, was a little scared, struggling, taking some of her medicine, and then she came up with a way to get herself to take the medicine. Check this out. God loves you 2. You are here for a reason. 3. Drink it. Lock that open. Come on. Come on, man. Give her a shout. Come on. Come on, Caroline. That's awesome. She even went shot chaser. That was amazing. That was medicine. Heads up. That was medicine is what that was. Mesquite campus. That was medicine. Okay, Heads up. Okay, here's who are. Today, we are in week two of a series we're calling boot camp Training for Team Jesus. Heads up. Here's what this whole series is. I'm gonna keep saying this. People a lot of times notice big crowds at Lake Pointless. And we are not in the crowd business. We are in the business disciple business. And what we are doing during this series is this like six or seven weeks. We are. Heads up. I didn't mention this last week. Essentially what we're doing is I'm coming up with like a little cheaty way to preach through the Gospel of Luke. So I'm Preaching through the Gospel of Luke. Why? Because we are disciples of Jesus. Luke is about Jesus. Okay? So here's what you got. On your way in, you got this little field guide. Here's what I want you to do. Every week of the series, I want you to bring a physical copy of the Word of God. Much grace. If you forgot that, ain't no thing. Physical copy of the Word of God. And then we created this field guide for you to use and pray through during this series to ask this question. What is the one thing Jesus is asking you to do in order to follow him more closely as a disciple? And then whenever he tells you what that one thing is, do it. Okay? That's what we're doing. Okay, so this week you got this little guy. I want to point out how this is gonna work. The next six weeks of the series are essentially this. This is how we make disciples at Lake Point. So what we say about Lake Point is that we are a movement for all people to know Christ, live free, and change the world for God's glory. Know Christ, live free, change the world for God's glory. And then this is how we do it. Now, you'll notice I started top left last week. You'll see where it says believe. Because listen to me. I cannot say this often enough. It's the most important thing you'll ever hear me say. Why did I start with believing and not behaving? Because we began with the statement that a disciple of Jesus believes it is finished. What do we believe is finished? Everything necessary to put us in a right relationship with God. It does not. Becoming a disciple is not about believing in your imperfect work and your unfinished work. It's about believing in the finished and perfect work of Jesus Christ that he did with his life, death, and resurrection. And that when he hung on a cross and pushed up on his nail pierced hands and cried out to tei, it is finished. He was saying that everything necessary for your salvation has been accomplished. It's not about trying. It's about trusting. It's all about Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's what it's about. Heads up. I also know this. It was really awesome. Last week, like, five church members sent me pictures of tetelestai tattoos they got. I'm jealous. You got a vicarious tattoo for me. That's great. Now this week, here's what we're doing. We are this week talking about this right here. A disciple is baptized in water and spirit. So after we believe, the first thing Jesus asks us to do is baptism. We're gonna talk about a disciple is baptized in water and spirit. Now I told you, my job is to teach us to read the Bible. So let me set this up. This passage we're hitting in Luke 3 is one of the most important passages in the New Testament. And it begins with a really important guy. His name is John the Baptist. Now I don't like calling him John the Baptist. I'll talk about that in a second. I like calling him John the Baptizer. Let me set this up. If you don't know who this dude is, he's a big deal. He's arguably, besides Jesus, the biggest deal in the New Testament. So a few things about John the Baptizer. Number one, John the Baptizer is the functional cousin of Jesus. He was born six months before Jesus. He and Jesus grew up playing games together and throwing balls at each other and playing gaga ball or whatever they did in first century Rome. So as he and Jesus grew up together. Now here's the big deal, why he's such a big deal. If you go back to the last verses of the last book of the Old Testament, it's the book of Malachi. Some of the final verses in the book of Malachi, last book of the Old Testament says, see, it's a prophecy. See, I will send the prophet Elijah. So he's saying someday there's gonna come a dude that comes in the spirit and power of Elijah. Elijah was a rough prophet, walks out of the wilderness, big beard, yelling at people. He's like ripped from Yellowstone. He's awesome. And they're saying that someday there's gonna be a prophet that comes in the spirit and power of Elijah. Before that great and dreadful day of the lord comes. Verse 6. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children and and the hearts of the children to their parents or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction. So the last prophecy in the Old Testament is that someday a prophet's going to come like Elijah. He's going to prepare the way for the Messiah. It's going to come right before the Messiah. Then if you turn that last page of the Old Testament in your Bible, there's going to be a blank page between the Old Testament and the New Testament. That blank page represents 400 years of people waiting for this prophet to come who would set up the coming of the Messiah. And after 400 years, John the Baptizer steps out of the woods. Now he's a real eccentric dude. He's a weird dude. How many of us are real Glad God uses weird people. Where you at? Okay. It's awesome, man. I'm glad God uses weird people. Okay, look to the. Nevermind. I'm. Now, here's the deal about John the Baptizer. Sometimes I'll just be really. I'm allowed to say this because I'm a pastor. It's my team. Sometimes, to be honest, pastors can be a little effeminate. I've got a pastor friend who says there's three genders. Men, women and pastors. And sometimes that's true. I don't. It's just. I don't know why that is. Some pastors a little effeminate. Not John the Baptizer. He walks out of the wilderness, he's camping out, he's at REI all the time. He's got a big beard. The Bible says that he wears camel's robes. So stop and think about what that means. At some point in John the Baptizer's life. He saw a camel and he went, I'd like to kill that and wear it. And he did. So he did. He's wearing camel's hair, he's eating locusts, he's eating wild honey. He's yelling. His sermons are very short. Repent. You're wicked. You need to repent and bend your knee to Jesus. That's like his whole sermon. So here's what you got. You got robes, bugs, local honey. He's like Jesus rural homeschool cousin. This is what you got on John the Baptizer, okay? He's also got crowds. Two of the gospels tell us the entire region of Judea was coming out to be baptized by him. So his podcast is number one on iTunes. All his sermon clips are going viral on TikTok. They got posters with his face on them all over Israel. Make Israel great again. It's John the Baptizer. All the things are going on. Here's the other thing you need to know about John the Baptizer. Dude has zero fear of man. He is a fearless man. In fact, we'll get to this later in the series. The way that John the Baptist died, the only fear he has is a fear of the living God. That's the only fear he has. Okay? The way he ends up dying. We'll get to this later, is there was a violent, vicious political leader. There was a totally godless dude. Herod was sleeping with his sister in law. John the Baptizer walks up to this violent, wicked political leader and he essentially goes, what you're doing is godless and you need to repent and bend your knee to Jesus, you're gonna end up kindling for eternity. And he. Listen, watch this whole different sermon he tells a political leader in his nation. The people of this nation will never be blessed while the leaders of this nation lead them into open defiance of the living God. You need to repent and bend your knee to Jesus. And Herod does. He essentially goes, you're not living an alternative lifestyle, you're living a godless lifestyle. And Herod does what all the tolerant and affirming people do. He beheads John the Baptist instead of repenting. Very tolerant and affirming. This is what he does. Now here's the question. Why do we call him John the Baptist? Because some of you guys think, oh man, I'm Baptist. He was like the first one of us. That's not what this is. It's not like there was Luke the Lutheran and Mark the Methodist, Pete the Presbyterian, and John the Baptist. That's what's going on. What's going on is he's the first guy in the New Testament that's dunking. He's baptizing me like crazy. Like everybody's coming out to be baptized by John the Baptizer. So with all that in mind, we got this guy walking out, he's preaching the paint off the walls. Herod's ticked. Huge crowds are coming out to his sermons. And then comes the greatest moment in John the Baptizer's life. Okay, check this out. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus. Now I'm going to ask you to say that second white word at the bottom. And I want you to say it out loud like you're awake and you mean it. Jesus was baptized too. Jesus was baptized too. So think about this big old baptism line. It's like baptism weekend at Lake Point. And John's just dunking, folks. He's going, you're wicked baptized. You're wicked baptized. You're wicked baptized. And then he gets to Jesus, he's like, you're what? You're in the wrong line. I don't think you need to be here. And so John's doing this whole thing. Okay, now point number one, this is only a two point sermon. Here's a big idea. A disciple of Jesus. And I want you to say that all caps, yellow word out loud again. A disciple of Jesus must be baptized in water. Must be baptized in water. Now let's get real granular, put on our big boy pants and do some theology really quick. Let's ask the question, what is baptism? I want to answer this question. And when I'm answering this, I'm going to ask answer a bunch of. I call them frequently shouted questions because there's always emotion when people ask me these questions. Here's the questions I want to answer. And you don't answer out loud. I don't want you to embarrass yourself. I'm going to answer questions like, does baptism save you? If my parents had me baptized when I was a baby, do I need to be baptized again? If baptism doesn't save you, why is it a big deal? Do I gotta do it? I answer more questions on the podcast. I'm gonna answer those questions right here. Okay, so here's what it is. Let me say it and explain it. Baptism according to the New Testament is the way that God commands us, by the way, not the way that God suggests to us. The Lord Jesus Christ gets to issue commands because he's Lord and we're not. And the way that he commands us, it's the way he commands us to make a public declaration of a new association. Okay, now check this out. When you read the word baptism in the New Testament, the problem I've got is you think it's a churchy, theological, spiritual word. It wasn't to them. In fact, the most common way this word was used in first century Rome is it was in recipes, in cookbooks. I'm gonna explain this here in a second. And here's all it meant, the word baptizo. It means, it meant three things. It means dip, dunk, or submerge. Okay, now let me answer this question. Some of you are going like, hey, when somebody's baptized, should they be sprinkled or should they be dunked? Okay, let me explain why we're a Duncan Church at Lake Point. We're all back to Duncan. America runs on Duncan. Lake Point runs on Duncan. Okay, now let me explain what we're Dunkin Church number one for three reasons. Number one, literally the word baptizo in the New Testament means dip, dunk, or submerge. And it's often used in pickle recipes in first century Rome. Now, here's how you don't make a pickle. You don't hold up a cucumber and go, wha and just sort of sprinkle a little water on it and whoa, it just magically becomes a pickle. I ain't how it works. You gotta dunk it. You gotta hold it down in there. So number one, it's literally what the word means. Number two, you're gonna notice in this passage and in every passage where somebody's baptized in the New Testament, the language it uses is that Jesus came up out of the water. You don't come up out of being sprinkled. So Jesus comes up out of the water. Number three. Because baptism is a visible symbol of an invisible spiritual reality. And only submersion and reversion symbolize that. Now check this out. I'm going to show you this. Romans chapter six is the keystone passage that shows us theology what baptism is in the New Testament. Here's the passage, okay? It says, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. Now check this out. You may notice that when people get baptized at Lake Point, they got T shirts on. The T shirts always. I don't do. I'm not a graphic designer. The one thing I did tell our team is these are the three words I want on all our baptism shirts. Dead, buried, raised. The reason is. Cause we love the Bible at Lake Point. And these are the words that the Bible uses. I got it from this passage. Dead, buried, raised. That's where that T shirt came from. So all of us who are baptized in Christ Jesus have been baptized into his death. We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised, dead, buried, raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. Now check this out. This is telling you what happened invisibly in the spiritual realm. The second you placed your faith in Jesus Christ in the spiritual realm, the Holy Spirit of the living God immersed you, baptized you in Jesus. Watch this. So that in the same way Jesus, that when you get dunked in water, your body's covered in water, from that point on, in the eyes of the Father, you are covered in the perfect finished work of Jesus Christ. So that when God looks at you, he sees the perfect righteousness of Jesus, not the sinless life you have lived. Amen, Church. That's the best news you're ever gonna hear. So check this out. That's what's happening in the spiritual realm. It's a visible symbol of an invisible reality. The best analogy I got is like this little $8 workout. You know, it's a little silicone workout band that I wear. The best analogy I got is this ring. My wedding ring is a visible symbol of a personal relationship I have with Janna. Now check this out. If I take off this ring, it doesn't mean I'm no longer married. To Jana. Now, wait. While I'm saying this, I'm getting ready to answer all your the frequently shouted emotional questions you got about baptism. Pay close attention so you pick up what I'm putting down. If I take off this ring, it doesn't mean I'm no longer married to Janna. If I had never put on this ring, it wouldn't mean that I never got married to Jana. And if you put on this ring, it doesn't mean that you are now married to my wife. You wish, sucker. I will kill you. Doesn't mean any of those things. So it doesn't mean if I take it off, doesn't mean I'm not married to Janet. If I never put it on, doesn't mean we didn't get married. If you put it on, doesn't mean you are married. So that answers a bunch of your questions. Here's a big point. Is that baptism. In the same way, baptism doesn't establish your relationship with God. It points to your relationship with God. Okay? So go back to this Romans 6 passage, and check this out. If you bend your knee to the lordship of Jesus at Lake Point, if you were, by the way, one of the 186 people who bent their knee to the lordship of Jesus last week in service at Lake Point and became Christians, excited about that. That's great. Okay, just a second. Okay. If you were one of those people, here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna get baptized in obedience to your Lord. And you're gonna walk out of one of our campuses, one of those little baptism pools, by the way, at all the campuses, they're heated little hot tub thingies for you. You're welcome. So you're gonna get out there, and then somebody's gonna ask you two questions. They're gonna say, have you accepted or do you believe in Jesus Christ? As both. Watch this. Your Savior and your Lord. Why? Because Jesus doesn't just save us from the penalty of sin. He is a Lord that frees us from the power of sin, and we obey his commands. So check this out. As Savior and Lord, then if you say yes, some dude. If Jerry Minx is baptizing you, you're going to hear Amen. Okay? That's what you're going to hear. That's Amen, Jerry. I call him Amen, Jerry. You hear somebody do that, and then check this out. What they're going to do. Think about this. They're going to dead, buried, raised. We're going to dip you backwards into the water. That's symbolizing that the old you is dead. That old you is buried with Jesus is symbolizing it. That old you is buried. And then we're going to raise you up out of the water. Why? As a symbol that now you're a new creation, you can live a new life. Check this out. That the you don't got to do the things you used to do anymore. Because in Christ you're not the person you used to be anymore. That there's a new you that comes up out of that water. And baptism symbolizes all of those things. Now here's a question a lot of people ask. But if my parents baptized me as a baby, do I need to be baptized again? Again, before I say this, there's a lot of emotion around this. Especially if you come from like, you know, a certain type of family. Check this out. I wanna answer this in a straightforward way. I'm in sales, not management. I'm in delivery, not manufacturing. So my job is just to tell you what the book says. The answer to that question is yes, you need to be baptized again. Now here's why. What your parents did when they baptized you as an infant, that was a noble thing. It was actually a wonderful thing. They were saying that out of an expression of their faith, they wanted to raise a child in a fear and admonition of the Lord. And they wanted you to grow up and to follow Jesus. That's a noble thing. That's a wonderful thing. That's awesome. But check this out. Your baptism as a baby was not an expression of your faith. It was an expression of your parents faith. And check this out. Literally every single time somebody is baptized in the New Testament, it's an expression of their personal faith in Jesus Christ. It's not an expression of anybody else's faith. So this is actually really easy to see your salvation. I cannot be more clear about this. It's so important. You are saved. Not because your mom believed or your dad believed, or because your godfather believed or your godmother believed. You are saved because you personally have trusted in Jesus as your savior and made him your Lord. In fact, you could stack verses a mile High. John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever. If you. That whoever believes will. Will not perish. But you will have eternal life. You, not mom, not dad, not godfather, not godmother. You okay? God doesn't save last names. He doesn't save families. He saves first names. He saves individual people who place their faith in Jesus Christ. The line into heaven is a single file line. It's about you placing your faith in Jesus Christ yourself. Okay? Now here's the other question, is people say, okay, man, well, if it's just a symbol, do I gotta do it? Is it really important? Okay, yes. Check this out. So in Matthew 3, it records the fact that when Jesus shows up in John's baptism line, John is embarrassed because he knows who Jesus is. And this is what it says John does. But John tried to deter him, saying, I need to be baptized by you. You're gonna come to me. And Jesus replied, let it be so. Now it is proper for us to fulfill all righteousness. If you're asking the question, if it's just a symbol, do I gotta be baptized? Yes. If you want to fulfill righteousness, if you wanna walk in obedience to the one that you are saying, is your Lord, then yes, you do need to be baptized. Okay? It's just like. Think about this. Just like a wedding ring. If when I proposed to Janna, I said, hey, babe, here's the deal. We're gonna get married. But I'm a little embarrassed of going public with the fact that we're getting married. So, yes, we're gonna get married, but I'm never gonna wear my ring out because I'd be a little embarrassed to be public about it. I'm gonna be 95% faithful to you. If I told Jana I was gonna be 95% faithful to her, Jana would say, I'm gonna knock out 95% of your teeth. That's what Jana would say. Okay? So listen, can I just. Let me say this and move on to finish this. Hey, church. If the world has the courage to come out of the closet for wickedness, disciples of Jesus Christ need to have the courage to go public for Team Jesus. Okay? All of us. All of us, man. So, yes, now let me get super practical. If you have never been baptized after placing your faith in Jesus, you must. You must be baptized in obedience to Jesus Christ. You can do that by texting the word life to the number 20411. You need to do it today before you leave church to hasten and not delay to obey his commands. We're gonna get a pastor with you. We'll hook you up, we'll dunk you, and everybody's gonna go nuts. We're gonna celebrate with you, right, Church? We're gonna celebrate with him. Amen. That's what we're gonna do now. So that's number one. Now, number two. Let me finish it off here. Point Number two, a little more controversial. Watch what happens right after Jesus is baptized in water. And as he was praying, heaven was opened. And the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven. You are my son, whom I love. With you, I am well pleased. Okay, now just let me say it. Some of you are gonna have some internal tension around this. Go with me. We are Bible believers if it's in the Word. Are we in church? Yes. Okay, check this out. Number two. A disciple of Jesus needs to be filled with the Spirit. A disciple of Jesus needs to be full of the Spirit. Now let me give a little homage to my papa. That was an old country preacher back in the day. My papa first heard this story from my papaw that when preachers will go preach at revivals, every preacher's got his fastball sermon. That's his fastball sermon. And he told the story about old country preacher who. His fastball sermon was on this passage, the baptism of Jesus. And what he would do is, before going to a church, he'd find a kid from the little town, and he'd pay him $5. And he would tell the kid, he'd give him a dove, and he'd pay him $5. And he'd tell the kid to go climb up. If you ever been in an old Southern Baptist church, right above the pulpit, there's always a little hatch right in the ceiling right above the pulpit, goes up in the attic. He'd tell the kid to climb up there into the attic with a dove. And he would tell the kid, when he gets to the pinnacle moment of the sermon, he'd say, when you hear me say, holy Spirit, come down, throw that dove down there into the sanctuary. So he's preaching a sermon, and he gets to the pinnacle of his sermon and he says, holy Spirit, come down. Then he pauses, and nothing happens. So he's like. He glances up and he's a little frustrated. He says a little louder. He says, I said, holy Spirit, come down. And nothing happened. So he gets real mad. He looks up and he stamps his foot and he yells. He said, I said, holy Spirit, come down. Kid peeks his head over and he says, pastor Cat ate the Holy Spirit. Want me to throw him down instead? That's it. That's a shout out to my papa, who's hugging Jesus right now. Okay, now can I say something? You need the Holy Spirit to come down on your life. You need that. How do I know that? Because Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to come down on his life. You may never have noticed this. Jesus never did a miracle, never preached a sermon, never healed a sickness, never cast out a demon until after being filled with the Holy Spirit. Let me waterboard you with some Bible verses real quick. You're going to get a lot of Bible right here. If you like the Bible, you're going to like this part of the sermon. If you don't like the Bible, why are you here? Okay, so here we go. Jesus said this. He said it, says this. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit. Luke, chapter four, Matthew, chapter four. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. I think back to the Gospel of Luke. Jesus came in the power of the Holy Spirit. The gospels say that Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite ones, one time, Jesus walks up into a synagogue. And in a synagogue there would always be a little functional Bible, a scroll. And they would have planned out weekly readings. So when they walked in, everybody knew what they were gonna be reading that day. Jesus rolls up on the synagogue and it quote, just so happens what they're gonna read that day is Isaiah 66. And so Jesus walks up and he's getting ready to read something that was written 600 years before he came. And it was a prophecy about somebody who had come. And Jesus opens his scroll and he reads this prophecy. The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and the recovery of sight, to free the oppressed and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And Jesus reads it and he looks out at the church and he says, today that prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing. I am the one that the spirit of the Lord has anointed to proclaim the good news to the poor, liberty to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, free the oppressed, year of the Lord's favor. And he sits down and essentially goes, I'm him. I'm him. I'm the. I'm the Spirit filled one that's to come. He's going, that's me. So what I need you to see is that everything in Jesus ministry was empowered by the Spirit. And if he needs him, then you need him. Sometimes people ask this question. They'll say, pastor, do I need the Holy Spirit to get into heaven? Brother, you need the Holy spirit to drive i30. You need a Christian needs the spirit for everything in your life. Okay, now I know there's a bunch of questions, so less deep dive. Let's Do a little theology and let's answer some questions. Here's the objection. If you come from a background like mine, what you're thinking right now is, whoa, Pastor Josh, I've already been saved and baptized, so I already have the Holy Spirit. Listen very close. That's true, but listen to me. That's true, but there's more, and God wants that more for you. Now, I'm gonna show you in the Bible that there's three experiences God wants in every one of his kids to have. And when I show it to you, you're going to see it immediately in the Bible. Check this out. Here they are. First of all, the Holy Spirit baptizes you into Christ. First Corinthians 12:14. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body. And the context of the passage is that the body is Jesus. So the Holy Spirit baptizes you into Christ. Number two, a disciple baptizes us in water. Matthew 28:19. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. But watch this. Number three, Jesus fills us with the Holy Spirit. Luke 3:16. John answered them all. I baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He, Jesus, will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Now, what some Christians say is, well, yeah, Josh, but he's talking about the disciples and what was going to happen on the day of Pentecost. Not all Christians. Wrong. Here's how we know that. Because this is Luke 3. The disciples aren't even called until Luke 5. So in this passage, Jesus is talking about what he's going to do to all Christians. Here's what he's saying. He's not speaking to the 12. He's not speaking to the 120 for you Bible nerds that are mentioned in Acts Chapter one. He's saying. John is saying, there's somebody that's coming after me. The one that's coming after me is greater than me. He's the Messiah. And one of the ministries of the Messiah is that he will continually fill his people with the Holy Spirit. And he wants to do that for you. So these are the three things. Watch this. Salvation, baptism, and being filled with the Spirit. Salvation, baptism, and being filled with the Spirit. Now, if you have the objection. Hey, no, Josh, there's not three experiences. There's only two, because we got the Holy Spirit at salvation. If that's what you're saying, listen real close. That's true. The Holy Spirit permanently indwells every Christian at salvation. And let me say something with a bit of an edge to it. And some Pentecostal Christians have turned off a lot of people to being filled with the Spirit by saying things like, if you haven't been spirit baptized, you don't have the Holy Spirit. Wrong. Okay? Wrong. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. That's wrong. We know that's wrong. Because check out what Romans 8, 9 says. If anyone doesn't have the spirit of Christ, they don't belong to Christ. Implication. Everyone that belongs to Christ has the Spirit of Christ. In fact, can I just say this? You would never even have trusted Jesus in the first place if the Spirit had not worked on you to bring you to Him. The only reason that you became convicted of your sin and realized your need for a Savior is because the Spirit of God pride scales off your eyes and prompted you to come to Him. So anyone that comes to Jesus, the Spirit of God is at work in them. So listen, that's how many Pentecostal people are wrong. But then some people who come from a background like mine, they read a verse like the Romans verse and they think, okay, well, that's it. I had the only encounter with the Spirit that I needed at salvation. God has nothing else left for me and it actually would be wrong to seek it. That's wrong too. And I need you to see this in the Bible. Now remember, we are Bible people. So if it's in the Bible, we're in on it, right? Church. Now check this out. Let me show this to you. First of all, I'm going to show it to you for all Christians, the example of the disciples and the example of Jesus. This is not a trick question. I'm getting ready to read you a verse from Ephesians now. Pop quiz class. Not a trick question. I want you to answer out loud. If Paul is writing to a church at Ephesus, is he writing to people who are Christians or people who are not Christians? If he's writing to a church at Ephesus, which one? Christians. Great job. Great job. So check out what Paul says to people who are already Christians. Ephesians 5:18. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit. He's saying to people who are already Christians. You need to continually your entire life be seeking a fresh encounter with with the Holy Spirit. You need to be filled with Him. Why? Because we leak we leak. Okay? Now, let me show it to you in the life of the disciples. So I'm going to read you a passage from John 20 you probably never noticed before. This is the end of Jesus ministry. He's finished his work. The disciples now know both that He's Lord, that he's the Messiah, and that he's the Savior. So now they've believed the gospel and they understand it and they're saved. So when they're saved, what Jesus does in John 20. Listen, it says, on the evening of that first day of the week when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and he stood among them. So he, like full Harry Potter, he apparates through the door. And then the first thing he says is, peace be with you. Which you would need to say to somebody if you just went through a door. And then he says, as the Father sent me, I am sending you. Verse 22. Check this out. And with that, he breathed on them. Now, check this out. The Greek word for spirit is the word pneuma. And it means spirit, breath or wind. So Jesus, who is God. Jesus Christ is God. And when Jesus Christ, who is God, breathes on them, he says, receive the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Spirit of God is the breath of God himself. Now, he says this. Watch this. The disciples, now, they have received the Spirit at salvation. Now, wait. You might be going. Well, good. They have everything they need. They never need another filling or encounter with the Spirit ever again. Okay, here's your problem. Check out what Jesus says to the same disciples in Acts chapter one. This is 50 days later. Do not leave Jerusalem. But wait for the gift my father promised which you have heard me speak about. For John. Baptized with water. But in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The same disciples who had already received the spirit of their salvation. He's saying to them, I need you to seek more. I want to do more for you. And he uses the word, this word, baptized. Okay, now check this out. I alluded to this earlier. So, a little while ago, an archeologist dug up an old pickle recipe from a Greek poet and doctor named Nicander that he wrote in 200 BC. This is how he wrote his pickle recipe. Okay? He said to make a pickle, the vegetable should first be dipped. And when it uses the word dipped, it's the Greek word bapto into boiling water and then baptizo ed into a vinegar solution. Now, bapto is a temporary short dipping baptizo is an immersion for such a long time that it produces a complete change in the vegetable. It takes a cucumber and turns it from being a cucumber into a pickle. Okay, let me put it this way. You need to be pickled. You need to be pickled with the Holy Spirit. Every one of us, we need to be so immersed in the Holy Spirit that it produces a profound change in us. We're different. We act different, we taste different, we want different, we feel different. Why? Because the Spirit of God falls on the people of God and changes us. For the glory of God, all of us need this. This is what he's saying. Now, I've showed this. Let me finish the sermon like this. So I showed you for all Christians, I gave you the example of the disciples. What if I could show you that Jesus Christ himself had all three of these experiences? Saved, baptized, filled with the Spirit? Okay, now here's my point. There are, if you do a little homework, there are very, very few things that are recorded in all four gospels. There's only like five. Okay? The birth of Jesus recorded in all the gospels shows us the incarnation. The death of Jesus shows us how he saved us. The resurrection is recording all the gospel shows us that he was God. The feeding of the 5,000 is recorded in all four Gospels, shows us that carbs are good for us. And then the baptism and filling of the Spirit with Jesus is recorded in all four gospels. Okay, now, church, not a trick question. Is Jesus our example? Yes. Okay. Did Jesus have all three of these experiences? Now you may be going, okay, and you'd be right, number one, did Jesus experience salvation? Okay, this is a trick question because you know, Jesus didn't need to be saved. Let me rephrase it. Was Jesus born again? Jesus wasn't born again because he was born right the first time. Okay, so in one sense, Jesus was born. Right? Jesus did have this one. Okay, now, was Jesus baptized in water? Yes. Now, was Jesus in this passage, was Jesus filled with the Spirit? Yes, he was. Okay, question. If Jesus Christ needed the Holy Spirit for his life, how much more do you need the Holy Spirit for your life? You need him. Okay, so here's the pattern again. This is a very, very. I'm just giving you tons of Bible today. Here's the pattern in the scriptures. Saved, baptized, then filled with the Spirit. Now I'm going to show you. Let me finish. Sermon like this. I'm going to show you this in the Bible and you're immediately going to see it. And now you're going to see it everywhere, these three things. Acts 2. 38. Peter replied, Repent. That's salvation. When we are saved, it's repentance and faith that saves us. Repent. So saved. And number two, be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will, number three, receive the gift of the Spirit. Saved, baptized, filled with the Spirit. There it was. Let me do another one. Acts 8. Philip is preaching. Here's what happens. But when they believed their salvation, Philip, as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were number two, baptized, both men and women. And then Philip left because they had everything they needed. Oh, wait, that's not how the verse goes. Next verse says this. And when the apostles heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. When they arrived, they prayed, and the new believers there that they might, number three, receive the Holy Spirit. Saved, baptized, filled with the Spirit. Now let me do one last one. I could do these all day. I'm just giving you a few. This is the one that convinced me that I needed to ask God for a fresh filling with the Spirit. This is Acts 19. I'm going to show it to you on the screen because this is the one that convinced me. Now, this is Paul. Paul's walking around preaching the gospel all over the place. It says there he found some disciples. And he asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Now, not a trick question. If they're disciples who have believed, are they saved? Yes, they are. So we got salvation. Now he asked them, okay, so they're all, watch this. They're already saved. And yet he asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Now, I think they went to some of the same churches I went to in college. Cause they answer like this. We haven't even heard there's a Holy Spirit. So then Paul says, well, then, what baptism did you receive? John's baptism, they replied. Now watch what happens next. Paul said John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told people to believe in the one coming after him, that is in Jesus. Now check this out. Hearing this, they were baptized. There's number two. So we have people who are saved and baptized. Question, are we gonna see the third thing? Watch this out. They were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Watch this very next verse, number three. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. Saved, baptized, filled with the Spirit. There it is. There it is. Now let me just tell you how this happened in my life. Because listen, I. This is in my notes. I didn't do this in the other service. So Max Lucado, super famous Christian author. In the last few years in Max Lucado's life, he had a radical encounter with the Holy Spirit that changed him. He was hanging out with a pastor buddy of mine recently and he asked that pastor Buddy, he said, said. He said, ed, do you open all the gifts that have your name on them at Christmas? And Ed said, well, of course, who doesn't? And his response was, Christians. Christians, you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, a fresh filling with the Holy Spirit for the rest of your life. Here's what happened in my life 11 years ago. I began studying the New Testament's teaching on a Christian's relationship with the Holy Spirit. And I was reading a book. If you're a super Bible nerd, I'm going to give you some assigned reading. I was reading a book by an old dead Presbyterian named Martin Lloyd Jones called Joy Unspeakable about Christians relationship with the Holy Spirit. The longer I read this book and what the Bible said, the only way I know how to describe it is it was as if agony began to well up inside of me. An agony. And I just began. I'm not a big crier, but I just began to. In seasons of prayer, just my eyes got real leaky. And here's what I was doing. I was just going, God, if there's anything you have on offer that I have not experienced, I want it all. I don't want to get to heaven and find out I missed on anything. And so I just began crying out, father, I want to fresh encounter with your spirit. I want a new filling with your spirit. And so I entered into the season of prayer. There was one day where I was driving circles around Cool Springs Galleria Mall in Franklin, Tennessee and listening to Bible teaching about this. And the only way I know how to say it is it was like a dam burst inside of me. And I'm there in my little Nissan and I just start literally cry, like yelling in my car like, God, give it to me, Give it. If there's anything you have. I don't want to miss out on anything. It's like a dam broke. And the only way I know how to describe it is the presence of God filled my little Nissan and it felt like I was being attacked by love. Now two things happened to me from that moment on. Actually three. One. One. I got freedom from a sin that I had struggled with for decades that I'd not been able to get freedom from. Number two, if you've ever heard me tell stories where sometimes I don't know how to explain it. There are supernatural things that will happen while I'm teaching. I won't tell the story. I've seen a woman healed of total deafness in the middle of my preaching. Sometimes God will give me prophetic words that actually come true and he'll tell me to put them in a. That never happened until after that moment. And then here's the other thing I don't know how to else explain. And this I'm not trying to put attention on me. Listen close. It's glory to God. Before then I'd been in ministry and honestly it wasn't going that well. I had grown a Youth Ministry from 170 students to 140 students. It went great, went real great. And it just wasn't going that well. And I was a. I was a senior pastor of a little church, like 125 people. And church honestly wasn't doing that well. It's growing by just few people per year. All I know how to say is that after that moment I have not been able to preach the Bible without thousands of people coming to Jesus. And it all goes back to that moment. I've never been able to. Now listen. Why is that? Acts 1:8. Because you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Can I say something to you? Every Christian everywhere, do you know what you need? You need the power of the living God at work in your life. You need it at work in your family. You need it at work in your life. We need it at work in our world. How do we get that? By the presence and filling of the Spirit of the living God. You need to continually be filled with the Spirit. So heads up. I'm just giving you. I'm gonna shoot you super straight. I'm asking you from now to what I believe is the single most important day in the entire year for our church. Not a prayer and worship on January 21st. I'm asking you to enter into a season of prayer and just say God. It doesn't matter if you're eight or you're 80, Father, if there's anything you have on offer, I want it all. Please fill me afresh with your holy Spirit and power. And that night we will beg heaven for a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit of God. Okay? So right now I want to pray that that would begin to be birthed in your heart. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes with me? And Father, I pray for these men and women, these sons and daughters of the living God. Your word specifically gives us a promise. Well, a father among you, if his son asks for a fish, is going to give him a stone. And if his son son asks for a scorpion for bread, is going to give him a scorpion. And then you promise. How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? So, Father, we ask. We ask. We seek, we knock. If there is anything you have for us, we want it. Pour out your spirit in supernatural ways. We need divine power to tear down strongholds. We cannot solve supernatural problems in natural power. Lord, we need you. And so, Father, I pray for these men and women that they would bend their knee to Jesus. They would be baptized in water. And then for the rest of our lives, we would continually seek to be filled with supernatural, otherworldly power. I pray it in Jesus crucified, risen name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.