Baptism & the Holy Spirit: What Every Christian Needs to Know | Boot Camp | Pastor Josh Howerton

Hey guys, thanks for checking out this Bible teaching. Every week, 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 Point 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. Good morning, Lake Point family. Hey, if you guys got your Bible, let's open up to Luke 3. Luke 3 is going to be today. Hey, while you're turning there, I do want to give a shout out to one of our junior Lake Point members. Let me set this up real quick. It's a little 12-second video that somebody sent me this week. 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 Lord, to the Jesus and become a Christian, I'll do the same thing. God loves you. Dude, you came here for a reason today. Breathe, raise your hand. God loves you, I think. So what you're getting ready to see is a little Carolina, a fight and 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. Dude, you are here for a reason. Sorry, you're getting locked that up. Come on. Come on, man. Give her a shout. Come on, Caroline. That's awesome. She even went shot chaser. That was amazing. That was medicine. Heads up. That was medicine. What's that? What? Mesquite campus? That was medicine. Okay. Heads up. Okay. Here's who our 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 going to keep saying this. People, a lot of times, notice big crowds are like pointless. We are not in the crowd business. We are in the disciple business. What we are doing during this series is this 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 like a little cheedy way to preach to the gospel loop. I'm preaching through the gospel loop. Why? Because we are disciples of Jesus. Luke is about Jesus. Okay. Here's what you got on your way in. Yes. We'll feel good. Every week of the series I want you to bring a physical copy of the word of God. Much grace if you forgot. 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 his 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 going to 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 your world for God's glory. Low Christ, live free, change your 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 when he hung on a cross and pushed up on his nail pierced hands and cried out to tell us that 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 to tell us that tattoos they got. I'm jealous. You got a vicarious tattoo for me. That's great. Okay. 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 going to 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 call him John the Baptist. I'll talk about that in a second. I like calling him John the Baptist. Let me set this up. If you 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 Baptist. Number one, John the Baptist 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 baller wherever they did in first century Rome. So as he and Jesus grew up together. Now here's a 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 it's saying someday there's going to 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 going to be a prophet that comes in the spirit and power of Elijah. Before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. Verse six, he will turn the hearts of the parents to their children 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 are you at? It's awesome man. I'm glad God uses weird people. Look to the... Never mind. I'm... Okay. Now here's a 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 I'll 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 know why that is. Some pastors are a little effeminate. Not John the baptizer. He walks out of the wilderness. He's camping out. He said, R.E.I all the time. He's got a big beard. The Bible says that he wears camels 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 camels 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. We're all 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 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 baptizer said, the only fear he has is a fear of the living God. That's the only fear he has. 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. He essentially goes, what you're doing is godless. And you need to repent and give bend your knee to Jesus. You're going to end up kindling for eternity. And listen, watch this. Hold 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 in 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. That's what he does. Now, here's a 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. Okay, 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 we're going. 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 me. Baptized by John the Baptist. So, with all that in mind, we got this guy walking out. He's preaching the pain off the walls, herod's tick, huge crowds are coming out to his sermons. And then comes the greatest moment in John the Baptist'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 week in at Lake Point. And John's just dunking folks. He's going, you're wicked, baptize. You're wicked, baptize. You're wicked, baptize. 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. 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 a motion when people ask me these questions. Here's a question 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 got to do it? I answer more questions of podcasts and I 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 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 1st century Rome is it was in recipes in cookbooks. I'm going to explain this here in a second. And here's all it meant, the word baptism, 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 while we're a dunking church at like point, we're all about to dunk in. We're all about to dunk in. America runs on dunking, like point runs on dunking. Okay, now let me explain why we're a dunking church. Number one, for three reasons. Number one, literally the word baptism in the New Testament means dip, dunk, or submerge. And it's often used in pickle recipes in 1st century Rome. Now here's how you don't make a pickle. You don't hold up a cucumber and go, what? And just sort of sprinkle a little water on it and, whoa, it just magically becomes a pickle. I didn't know how it works. You got to dunk it. Yeah, hold it down in there. So number one, it's literally what the word means. Number two, you're going to 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 remersion symbolize that. Now check this out. I'm going to show you this. Romans chapter six is the keystone passage that shows us theology of baptism is in the New Testament. Here's the passage. 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've been talking about. These are the three words I want in all our baptism shirts. Dead buried raised. The reason is because 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 were baptized in Christ Jesus had 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 they're in the same way that when you get baptized, 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, sure as the best news you ever go on here. 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 work out, 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 Janet. Now check this out. If I take off this ring, it doesn't mean I'm no longer married to Janet. Now, wait, while I'm saying this, I'm getting ready to answer all your frequently shouted emotional questions you got about baptism, pay a 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 Janet. If I had never put on this ring, it wouldn't mean that I never got married to Janet. 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. Does it mean any of those things? So it doesn't mean if I take it off, it doesn't mean I'm not married to Janet. If I never put it on, it doesn't mean we didn't get married. If you put it on, it 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. So go back to this Roman 6 passage and check this out. If you bend your knee to the Lord, Jesus at like point, if you were, by the way, one of the 186 people who bent their knee to the Lord, Jesus last week, in service at like point, and became Christians, we're excited about that. That's great. Go ahead. This is a second. Okay, if you were one of those people, here's what's going to happen. You're going to get baptized in obedience to your Lord. And you're going to 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 beings for you. You're welcome. So you're going to get out there. And then somebody's going to ask you two questions. They're going to 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 the Lord that freezes 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 makes his baptizing, you're going to hear, hey, man, that's what you're going to hear. That's a man Jerry, I call him a man 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 symbolizing that the old you is dead. That old you is buried with Jesus, 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. You don't have 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 baptize 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 a certain type of family. Check this out. I want to 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 feared ammunition 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 in Mahai, John 3.16. For God's sake of the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever, if you, that whoever believes will not perish, but you will have eternal life. You, not mom, not dad, not godfather, not godmother, you. 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. Now, here's the other question. Is people say, okay, man, well, if it's just a symbol, do I got to 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 going to 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 got to be baptized? Yes. If you want to fulfill righteousness. If you want to walk an obedience to the one that you are saying is your Lord, then yes, you do need to be baptized. It's just like, think about this. Just like a wedding ring. When I proposed to Jana, I said, hey, baby, here's the deal. We're going to get married. But I'm a little embarrassed of going public with the fact that we're getting married. So yes, we're going to get married. But I'm never going to wear my ring out because I'd be a little embarrassed to be public about it. I'm going to be 95% faithful to you. If I told Jana, I was going to be 95% faithful to her, Jana would say, I'm going to knock out 95% of your teeth. That's what Jana will say. Okay. So, and listen, 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 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 2041. You need to do it today before you leave church to hasten and not delay to obey his commands. We're going to get a pastor with you. We'll hook you up. We'll dunk you and everybody's going to go nuts. We're going to celebrate with you, right, Church? We're going to celebrate with him. Amen. That's what we do. Now, 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 going to 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 filled with the Spirit now. Let me give a little homage to my papal. It was an old country preacher back in the day. My papal, I first heard this story from my papal that when preachers will go preach it, where the Bible is, a lot of people preachers have a fastball sermon. That's a fastball sermon. He told the story about old country preacher who is fastball sermon was on this passage to the baptism of Jesus. And what he would do is before going to church, he would find a kid from the little town. And he would pay him five dollars and he would tell the kid, he would give him a dove. And he would pay him five dollars and he would tell the kid to climb up, if you are in an old southern Baptist church right above the pulpit, there is always a little hatch right in the ceiling right above the pulpit goes up in the attic. He would tell the kid to climb up there and the attic with a dove. And he would tell the kid when he gets to the pinnacle moment of the sermon, he would say, when you hear me say, holy spirit come down, throw that dove down there into the sanctuary. So he is preaching a sermon and he gets to the pinnacle of the sermon and he says, holy spirit come down. And he pauses and nothing happens. So he is like glances up, he is a little frustrated, he says a little louder, he says, I said holy spirit come down. And nothing happens. So he gets real mad, he looks up and he stamps his foot in the yellows. And I said holy spirit come down. Kid peaks 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 papal who is hugging Jesus right now. 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 are going to get a lot of Bible right here. If you like the Bible, you are going to like this part of the sermon. If you don't like the Bible, why are you here? There we go. Jesus said this. He said it says this. Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit, Luke chapter 4. Matthew chapter 4, 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 gospel say that Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit. One of my favorite ones, one time Jesus walks up into a synagogue. In a synagogue, there would always be a little functional Bible, a scroll, and they would have planned out weekly reading. When they walked in, everybody knew what they were going to be reading that day. Jesus rolls up on the synagogue, and it quote, just so happens, what they are going to 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 would come. And Jesus opens this 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 the blind. To free the oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And Jesus reads it, and he looks out of 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 the spirit-filled one that's to come. He's going to ask 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 I-30. A Christian needs the Spirit for everything in your life. Okay, now, I know there's a bunch of questions, so less, 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, I've already been saved, and baptized, 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 going to show you in the Bible that there's three experiences God wants 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 and 19. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of 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 are not 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 1. 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 where Romans 8 and 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 prides 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 is 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. Okay, that 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 all out. 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? Great job. Great job. So check out what Paul says to people who are already Christians. Ephesians 5-8, 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 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 believe 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-haired pottery, apparaced 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 Numa 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 1. 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. Now check this out, I alluded to this earlier. So a little while ago an archaeologist dug up an old pickle recipe from a Greek poet and doctor named Nacander that he wrote in 200 BC. This is how he wrote his pickle recipe. He said to make a pickle, the vegetables should first be dipped. And when it uses the word dipped, it's the Greek word, Baptou, into boiling water, and then, baptizzoed into a vinegar solution. Now, Baptou is a temporary short dipping. Baptizzo 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? 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 this 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 very, 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 recorded in all the gospels, 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, aah, okay. And you'd be right. Number one, did Jesus experience salvation? Okay. This trick question, because you're going, aah, 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, let me finish 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. Okay. 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 the Spirit. There it was. I'm going to 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 this 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 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. That is just Paul. Paul's walking around preaching gospel over the place. It says, there he found some disciples and he asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believe? 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 believe? Now, I think they went to some of the same churches I went to in college because 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. On hearing this, they were baptized. There's number two. So we have people who are saved and baptized. Question. Are we going to 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. Now, let me just tell you how this happened in my life because listen, listen. I, this didn't in my notes. I didn't do this in the other service. So Max Lucato, super famous Christian, I think. He was a very famous Christian author. In the last few years in Max Lucato'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, 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. 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 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 an agony began to well up inside of me, an agony. And I just began, I'm not a big cryer, but I just began to in seasons of prayer. This is my eyes got real leaky. And here's what I was going to go on. 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 a 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, Galilee, Amal in Franklin, Tennessee. And listening to Bible teaching about this. And the only way I know how to say it is like a damn burst inside of me. And I'm there in my little Nissan. And I just start literally crying like yelling in my car like, God, if it do. If there's anything you have, I don't want to miss out on anything. It's like a damn 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, 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 have 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. I sometimes God will give me prophetic words that actually come true. And he'll tell me to put a minute. That never happened until after that moment. And then here's the other thing I don't know how to 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. And it just wasn't going that well. And I was a senior pastor of a little church like 125 people. And church honestly wasn't doing that well. It was growing by just a 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. I've never been able to. Now listen, why is that? X1A 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 needed at work in your family. You needed a whole lot of work. You needed at work in your life. We needed at work in our world. How do we get that by the presence and feeling of the spirit of the living God? You need to continually be filled with the spirit. So heads up. I'm just going to 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 on 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 a fresh with your Holy Spirit and power. And that night, we will beg heaven for a supernatural outpouring of the Spirit 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, father among you, if his son asks for a fish, is going to give him a stone. And if 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 strungles. 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 other worldly power. I pray it in Jesus crucified, risen name. Amen.