Baptism of Discipleship (In the Name of the Holy Spirit Pt. 2) | 05-31-26

So, speaking of the Holy Spirit, we're continuing our series right now, Baptism of Discipleship.

We will talk about the Holy Spirit again this week, and then we will wrap up next week.

We'll tie a bow on this series, but in the name of the Holy Spirit is what we're talking about today.

Baptism of discipleship in the name of the Holy Spirit.

Our springboard text for this series has been Matthew 28, 18.

Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.

Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you, and be sure of this.

I am with you always, even to the ends of the age.

So we talked about at length, you can go back and listen to all of those messages, but we talked about at length.

We broke down each one of those words, baptized in the name means to be fully immersed, submerged under, and firmly fixed into the Holy Spirit's very own authority, character, and nature.

So you'd say the Father's very own authority, character, nature, the Son's very own authority, character, nature, and now the Holy Spirit's very own authority, character, and nature.

And so what I believe that Jesus was actually laying out for us here was a beautiful uh process or I don't want to say model because that's not the right word, but I think it's a principle of discipleship.

And he's not just saying, he's not talking about water baptism.

I believe he in it includes water baptism, but again, we spent time talking about the word, the concept, the spiritual reality of baptism, or to be baptized, and we talked about what that actually means.

And it's beyond just water baptism.

It has much, much more meaning than that, although it includes that.

And so to be baptized in the name of the Father, we talked about is about identity.

It's about origin, order, it's about your beliefs, it's a personal thing.

It's where you came from.

It's understanding the truth of who you are and how you were created and why you were created.

And there's so much uh identity that we get from the Father.

And then we talked about the Son is about acceptance.

It's about the forgiveness of sins, it's about imputed righteousness, it's about being grafted into the family of God, and it's a positional thing.

Now we've been talking about the Holy Spirit.

We talked about that on Mother's Day, and it is a baptism of power.

We talk about purpose, health, nurture, emotional health.

We talked last time about how the maternal uh characteristics of God are manifest through the Holy Spirit, and that if you have father issues, you tend to have identity issues.

The whole and and that baptism into the Father helps heal and solidify some identity issues.

If you had issues with rejection and loneliness or uh, you know, unrighteousness, unworthiness, things like that, Jesus, the baptism into the Son, helps cleanse and heal us of those things.

It's very specific in that way.

And then the Holy Spirit, again, if there was mother issues, it tends to result in emotional instability.

And if you have those things, they have to be healed or you cannot flourish and thrive.

You will you will always be limited by those issues unless there is healing.

And what I've seen is that the Holy Spirit comes in and helps heal emotional issues and comfort us and nurture us and teach us and lead and guide us.

So we're going to talk at length more about the uh the way that the Holy Spirit does that.

But I have some things that are on my heart I feel are important to share before we dive into all of that.

So the baptism of the Holy Spirit and operating in the power and gifts of the Spirit are absolutely essential for a follower of Jesus to live in personal victory and to carry out the will and mission of Jesus.

If it was possible without it, he would have made a way without it.

But he clearly, clearly instructed us to wait, to not go and do what he had called us to do until we'd received the promise of the Holy Spirit.

I think Pastor John Bosman did a fantastic job last week of breaking down the difference between the different kinds of baptism.

He talked about a baptism of repentance or uh born again or salvation.

He talked about the baptism in water, then he talked about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, three different baptisms, and I want to dive even a little deeper into some of that.

But you know, one thing I always like to say is it's the Holy Spirit, not the Hokie Spirit.

And some of you have maybe been around the Hokie Spirit a little bit, depending on your background, and it's not the hokey spirit, it's the Holy Spirit.

He isn't weird, but he is holy.

He isn't weird, but he is powerful.

If you ever experienced hokiness uh or weirdness, it was from people, not from the Holy Spirit.

People are hokey, people are weird, people are a little bit strange.

And what I remember seeing was the genuine power of the Holy Spirit that was in operation of people who had been baptized in the Holy Spirit before I was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I was intrigued by that, and I was curious about that.

And then I would experience some of the weird, the weird stuff, and it was I was repulsed by that a little bit.

I was I was like, eh, I don't know.

If that's if that's the Holy Spirit, I don't know that I want that.

But if that's the Holy Spirit, I want and then as I came, you know, to know some of these people better, I began to realize, oh, okay, I see what that was about.

There was some emotionalism, there was some weirdness there.

But the people that I began to watch them operate, they lived differently.

They had something that as a Christian I didn't have.

And I remember going, I don't know exactly what it is about that man, about that one, but I want that.

I want that.

I believe that there's more that God has for me, and I want all that God has for me.

And so I was open to that, but I always like to remind myself is that the Holy Spirit isn't weird, but he is powerful.

And sometimes when you're in the presence of something powerful, it can feel uncomfortable because it's a power that is is otherworldly, it's not it's not human.

We get we're comfortable around human stuff, and we get uncomfortable around stuff we typically don't understand or can't predict or can't control, right?

How many of you like to control stuff?

You like to control stuff, and and the Holy, you can't control the Holy Spirit.

The point actually is that the Holy Spirit controls us, that we are led and controlled by the Holy Spirit, that we are under the power of the Holy Spirit and influenced by that power.

And so we should be a peculiar people.

I want to say that, especially to the onlooking, unbelieving world, but it should spark curiosity, not repulsion.

We are a peculiar people.

The things that we believe, the way that we live, should make us a peculiar people, but not weird and not in a way that's going to turn someone off, but it should spark curiosity in people, the way that we live as Christians who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit.

But here's where I want to go.

Before I believe we can talk about the Holy Spirit, we need to talk about us, because I think one of the reasons and why so many people are undecided and uneasy about the Holy Spirit is because they don't know much about themselves.

They don't understand the true state of their self.

And so here's some here's some truth here.

We were created by a spiritual being as spiritual beings to live for eternity with other spiritual beings.

Life will never make much sense to the individual who doesn't understand or acknowledge that truth.

We were created by a spirit, as a spirit to exist for eternity with other spirits.

We can get so wrapped up into human life and human affairs and earthly stuff that we completely lose sight of the reality of what we are, right?

What we are, not just who we are.

I love the quote from the French philosopher and theologian Pierre Chardin, and he says this we are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.

In Genesis 2 7, the Bible says, Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living person.

So the God formed man of the dust of the ground.

So he was a man.

Then he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living person.

Job 32, 8 says, But there is a spirit within people, the breath of the Almighty within them that makes them intelligent.

So one of the distinguishing factors of human beings versus every other living thing, including angels and demons, is that we have this breath of the Spirit that makes us intelligent.

Intelligent is not that word there is not just talking about a mental intellect or aptitude.

It's more than that.

So you are created and born as a three-part being.

You are a spirit, you have a soul, and you live in a body.

You may have heard that before.

I don't know that it's 100% accurate, but I think it's a great way to understand how we are.

We also have a heart.

Our soul is mind, will, and emotions.

And when the Bible speaks of the heart, it also speaks of the soul, it speaks of them as different things, and also speaks of the human spirit.

So we have a human spirit, we have a heart, and we have a soul, which is mind, will, and emotions.

All of those things in our physical body make up who we are as a human being, who we are as a spiritual human being.

Think of the heart as the engine or the centermost part of the soul.

It's the thing that it's where your personality and your temperament and all of that, it's a part of you that is eternal.

Our soul is eternal, our spirit is eternal, our physical body is not.

So the Bible says we'll have new bodies one day.

We will have bodies, but they won't be these bodies.

So you are a spirit, you have a soul, you live in a body.

Think, you gotta stay there with me for a second.

Until, but listen to me, until you are born of the spirit, you are limited to operate through life, only able to access your soul and body for decisions and for the things that you need in life.

Okay, so before you were born again, before you were saved, you were separated from God by your sins, meaning you have no access to God.

You can't have communion with Him, you can't have connection with Him, you can't receive anything from God.

Life, peace, health, truth, wisdom, whatever it is.

You can't receive it from God.

Eternal life, it's you're cut off.

And so we exist essentially as a soul and a body.

Those things are your only resource until you are born again and then can have connection with God.

So let's look at that.

You have five senses: taste, touch, sight, hearing, and smell.

Uh you have personal preferences, you have opinions, you have personal desires, personal appetites, you have cravings, you have your personality, you have those type of things, right?

Your needs, your wants, uh how what how you feel about something.

You have your feelings, right?

Your emotions, uh, your will, what you're willing to do, what you're not willing to do.

You have all of those things.

You have some of the beliefs that you formed as a human being based on the experiences that you've had in life, uh, about people, about yourself, about the world around you.

And so here you are as a human being, um spiritually dead, disconnected from God, and that is all you have to live life, to make decisions.

Every major decision you make, every important situation you have to navigate, everything flows only from this fallen, broken state of your being.

Okay?

That was my story, and I ran my life into an absolute ditch.

Every decision I made was a bad decision.

Every relationship I had was broken because I was living life.

I did not have access to what I needed to flourish and thrive.

So, what's so important about understanding this is the difference that your spirit makes.

The difference that your spirit makes.

You are a spirit, you have a soul, you live in a body, and the problem, the initial crisis that we all have is that we are born spiritually dead.

So we only have a soul in the physical body from which to live life.

Until, until, and that's what's so important about hearing the gospel and responding to it with belief and surrender and those necessary things.

And then what we all know, for those of you who are born of the Spirit, you have communion with God.

You know the difference that that makes.

For me, it was a drastic change.

For some people, it was more uh evolutionary, but for me it was revolutionary.

I think evolutionary is the better testimony to have.

Testimony of the person that just says, I've always just loved God.

I've always known him, I've always walked in his presence, I've always heard his voice, his words have always been life to me.

That's the best testimony.

My testimony was going from darkness to light, from death to life.

It was a revolutionary uh encounter when I was born again.

But what I can tell you is that it changed everything in my life.

It changed everything.

Our bodies are, listen, houses for spirits.

God created us, created our body.

We're gonna look at some scripture here, but he created our body to be a house for a spirit.

And let me say this spirit's plural.

I said that on purpose.

So we have a human spirit, but he also created us to be able to have his spirit inside of us.

So human spirit, his spirit, then we have our soul, then you have your body.

That's the reality of the existence of how we exist.

Our bodies are houses for spirits.

God wants to be in us, listen, and on us and around us.

He wants to protect us and empower us from both the inside and the outside.

That's again pointing towards the importance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

We'll talk about the difference here.

Born again and filled with the Spirit.

I love that language, even though I don't love that language.

I, you know, have you ever heard someone talk about a church and go, well, that's a that's a church, but then this is a spirit-filled church, right?

Well, I I don't like that language.

I get it, and I use it just because I don't think there's maybe better language.

It's what people understand.

Um, but really what it is, is there's Christians, and then there's Christians that believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the operation of the gifts and the power of the Spirit in their life, and there are Christians that don't believe that that is something that is for us today.

Those are the two major distinctions.

So when you say spirit-filled church or not, it's not that it's not that there's no holy people.

If people are born again, they have the Spirit of God inside of them.

So we'll talk about the difference there.

I love this picture.

But I the language is born again and filled with the Spirit, or you could say baptized in the Holy Spirit.

It's probably more accurate.

This is one of the clearest pictures in the Bible of being born again and filled with the Spirit.

Ezekiel 36, 25 says, Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, that's forgiveness of sins, and you will be clean.

Your filth will be washed away, and you'll no longer worship idols.

There's repentance.

And, listen, and I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you.

Okay, so God's saying that I'm supernaturally going to do something inside of you.

I'm going to regenerate your heart.

Again, that's the core of your soul.

It's the center of the center of who you are.

Right in the middle of your mind, will, and emotions, your personality, your temperament, everything that makes you, you, right in the middle of it, there's your heart.

It's kind of the control panel, if you will, of your life.

It's where it is where your mind, your will, your thoughts, your your uh internal dialogue, right?

The how you talk to yourself, how you think to yourself, uh that is that happens in your heart.

As a man thinks in his heart, the Bible says, so is he.

So it's not just thinking with your mind, with your brain.

It's there's a heart there.

Um, and so he's saying, I'll give you a new heart.

So there's gonna be something, he's he's regenerating you at the core of who you are.

Then he says, I will put a new spirit in you.

Again, I said you are a spirit, but when you're born initially, your spirit is dead or inactive.

And what he's saying there is, your spirit's gonna come alive.

You're gonna have a the the more correct language would be a renewed spirit.

Then he says, This, I'll take out your stubborn stony heart and give you a tender responsive heart.

And he keeps saying, and it's like an infomercial.

It's like, if you call right now, we'll add this and this and this.

This is amazing, this promise that God's saying, I'm gonna fix the stuff that has to be fixed in order for you to be uh my people and for me to be your God.

He says, and listen to this, and I will put my spirit in you so that you will follow my decrees and be careful to obey my regulations.

And you will live in Israel, the land I gave your ancestors long ago.

You will be my people, and I will be your God.

That's the goal.

That is the conclusion of what God's heart and desire is for us as spiritual beings, is that he is our God and that we are his people.

Amen.

And what he's doing is he's he's he's promising to do a work that will fix all the stuff that makes us rebellious and stubborn and sinful, and giving us those hearts that are prone to wander away from him and all of that.

He's saying, I'm going to fix the thing inside of you that's broken.

I'm gonna put something in there that's missing, and I'm gonna fix what's broken, and I'm gonna change you from the inside out.

So we have a spirit, okay?

So think about that as being born again, right?

And then he says, and I'm gonna put my spirit in you.

Very interesting picture there.

First Corinthians 6 18.

You may or may not have this in your notes.

I'm just gonna hit these quickly for time's sake.

Don't you realize, Paul says, Don't you realize your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit?

You don't belong to yourself, you've been purchased with a price.

So your Body is a house, a dwelling place, a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 11, 24, Jesus shares this story, and it's one of the times where he's speaking plainly with no parable, no interpretation necessary.

And he talks about when an evil spirit leaves a person, it goes into the desert searching for rest, finding none, it goes back to the house from which it came and says, what and finds it swept clean and put in order.

Says, I'll go find seven more spirits more evil than myself, and the last state will be worse than the first of that person, right?

So he interchanges the language, person and house.

Person and house.

We were created as a house, a temple for the spirits, just not for demon spirits.

Those are trespassing spirits, those are lying spirits, thieving spirits.

So we were created for our human spirit and for the spirit of God.

The moral of the story there, and even Ephesians 5.18 says, don't be drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the Spirit, right?

Um filled with the Holy Spirit.

If you really study this out, and in the future, I'm gonna do a series, maybe in the fall, I'm gonna do a series on spiritual reality.

We're gonna talk about angels and demons and spiritual reality and all of that, so I'm not gonna get distracted with it today.

Um, but essentially when you study it out and you look at 1 Corinthians 6.18, Luke 11, 24, Ephesians 5.18, what you begin to realize is that there's no such thing as an empty house.

No such thing as an empty house.

You are either filled with the Holy Spirit or or you're filled with other spirits.

And demon possession and oppression and influence doesn't look anything like the movies that you've seen.

It looks like what the Bible says.

So don't let Hollywood uh create your theology about that kind of stuff.

If someone is not filled with the Holy Spirit, their their life is filled with evil spirits.

Period.

Period.

So we'll talk again, we'll talk more about that at another time.

John 20, 21, we've got this on the screen there.

Again, he said, Peace be with you.

This was Jesus after the resurrection showing up to the disciples.

Again, he said, Peace be with you, as the Father has sent me, so I am sending you.

Listen, then he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit.

If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven.

If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

So we see here Jesus breathes on them and says, Receive the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you remember what we read in Genesis when God breathed in Adam, it's the exact same language.

It's actually identical.

This is identically paralleled to when God breathed in Adam and he became spiritually alive, a spiritually alive being.

So then what Jesus does is he explains the measure of the Spirit they just received by speaking about the forgiveness of sins that they are now born again and have connection restored to the Father, and consequently the power to lead others into the same forgiveness of sins and reconciliation to God.

So he he breathes on them.

He says, receive the Holy Spirit, and then he explains what measure they just received.

Jesus breathes on the disciples, says, receive the Holy Spirit.

The Greek word for receive means immediately or right now.

This was not a foreshadowing of what was going to happen or anything like that.

The disciples actually received the Holy Spirit before Jesus ascended into heaven, but they were not clothed or endued with the promised power until they had been baptized with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

It's clearly a separate and vitally needed event or gift, if you will.

So two two separate things.

Receiving the Holy Spirit in the sense of Ezekiel, what Ezekiel said in Ezekiel 37, I will, you will get a new spirit and I will put my spirit in you, versus the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

So then Jesus tells the same group of people that he breathed on and said to receive the Holy Spirit, he tells them this in Acts 1, verse 4.

Acts 1:4

Once when he was eating with them, he commanded them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends the gift he promised you.

As I told you before, John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, or baptized in the Holy Spirit.

So that's an interesting conversation there because these were the same people he had breathed on and said, receive the Holy Spirit.

So it's clearly a different thing that he's talking about.

It's a separate event or dispensation of the Holy Spirit in us and to us.

Now here's something to go back.

If you just look back through the history of God interacting with human beings, in the old covenant, in the old testament, the Holy Spirit would selectively, randomly come upon people and then depart because of the finished work of Christ.

We can be filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit will remain in us and upon us as we continue to live in the truth and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

But this is only from being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

So in the again, the old covenant, Holy Spirit would selectively randomly come upon people and anoint them to do certain things, to prophesy or to do miracles or to do that, but then he did not remain on them.

When Jesus was baptized in water, he comes up, the Holy Spirit descends on him as a dove and remains, the Bible says.

So that promise of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that same promise that the Holy Spirit will come upon us and remain.

So when we are born again, the Holy Spirit fills and indwells us.

He is put inside of us.

This is important.

When we are baptized in the Holy Spirit, we are put inside of him.

So we'll talk about that language.

He is now in us and around us.

He is in us and we are in him.

Remember Jesus' language in John and John 14, 15, 16?

Jesus was I am in the Father and the Father's in me, and we are we are one.

So it puts us in that state.

He is now in us and around us.

He is in us and we are in him.

We are filled and clothed with the Holy Spirit.

So those are different things.

Filled with the Holy Spirit, born again.

We have a new spirit and God's Spirit, and we are clothed with the Holy Spirit.

An outpouring of God's Spirit on our spirit that results in an overflowing of our spirit out of our mouth in life.

So listen to Luke 24, 49.

Jesus said, And now I will send the Holy Spirit just as my Father promised, but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes in, fills you with power from heaven.

That was the new living translation, and that word fill there is a poor translation.

So I want to show in some other translations what that actually more accurately means.

Luke 24, 49 in the New King James says, Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.

Now, endued is not a word that we use commonly in our English language, but it it literally means to be permeated and filled.

To be permeated and filled.

Luke 24, 49 in the NIV says clothed with power from on high.

Clothed.

So you have filled or endued or clothed.

It's really different.

And that's why I want to point that out.

Because again, if you are clothed, that means something is coming upon you.

Something is coming upon you.

So they do use the word filled, but it really is the word endued or clothed, to be covered with power.

I am going to send you what my father promised, but stay in the city until you've been clothed with power from on high.

So let me break it down to you like this: born again equals the Holy Spirit into you.

Baptism in the Holy Spirit is you into the Holy Spirit.

Into equals born again, onto equals baptized.

When you're baptized in water, what are you doing?

You're being baptized into the water.

When you're baptized into the Holy Spirit, you're being baptized into the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit, you're literally putting on or being clothed with the Holy Spirit.

So let me say it like this: into equals eternal security, onto equals earthly power.

Into equals spiritual transformation, onto equals physical transformation.

Into is spiritual power, onto is physical power.

Now we'll talk at length more next week about the gifts of the Spirit, but we're going to go over them briefly here today.

The baptism into the Holy Spirit is about power.

As a Christian, you can take it or leave it, but I would submit to you, listen, I would submit to you that the cost of leaving it is much more greater than you realize or can afford to pay.

What you will lack from refusing to surrender to God at that level is the difference between Christians who are able to bring the kingdom of heaven and the will of God into people's lives and Christians who cannot.

How many of you know there are cars and then there are powerful cars?

Come on, guys.

There are cars and then there are powerful cars.

How many of you know there are planes and then there are powerful planes?

Here's a good one.

There are guns and then there are powerful guns.

Listen to me.

There are Christians and then there are powerful Christians.

The difference isn't what they are, the difference is in what they can be used to do.

The gifts of the Spirit are the power to do certain things well, the Bible says.

That power manifests itself in the gifts of the Spirit.

Pastor Jamie, you guys can come back up.

You can do them without power, or you can do them with power.

The gifts of the Spirit are the special abilities the Spirit gives you and empowers you to do.

So the gifts of the Spirit is the supernatural power or special abilities, as the Bible calls it, of the Holy Spirit.

Again, we're going to talk at length next week about the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit, the way that the power of the Spirit works in and through our lives.

The spiritual gifts identified in Romans 12.6 are prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leadership, and mercy.

The list in 1 Corinthians 12, 4 through 11 includes words of wisdom, words of knowledge, the gift of faith, the gift of healing, the gift of miraculous powers, prophecy, discerning of spirits, distinguishing between spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

The list in 1 Corinthians 12 28 includes healings, helps, governance, governments, and diversities of tongues.

1 Corinthians 12 4 says, There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all.

There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord.

God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us as spiritual, uh, a spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.

So what are the gifts of the Spirit?

What's the power of the Spirit for?

So we can help each other.

To one person, the Spirit gives the ability to give wise advice to another.

The same Spirit gives a message of special knowledge.

The same spirit gives great faith to another.

Someone else the spirit gives the gift of healing.

He is he gives one person the power to perform miracles, another the ability to prophesy.

He gives someone else the special ability to discern whether a message is from the Spirit of God or from another spirit.

Still, another person is given the ability to speak in unknown languages, while another is giving the ability to interpret interpret what is said.

It is one and only, the one and only Spirit who distributes all these gifts.

He alone decides which gift each person should have, or if you if you understand that in context, or which one they should operate in.

But then in order to have his power, we have to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

So here's what I want to say.

I want to make sure we understand ourselves better, what we are, not just who we are, and then the role that these the baptism of the Spirit plays in our life.

We don't wholesale reject something that we don't understand.

We have to understand what we are and then what God wants us, needs for us to have in order to be who He's called us to be and do what we're called to do.

So we'll pick up here next week.

We'll dive more into the gifts of the Spirit, some of the fruit of the Spirit, the how the power of the Holy Spirit manifests in and through our life.

And then we will close out that uh series.

I've got some very important things that really kind of tie this baptism of discipleship series all together.

So I'm excited about that.

Let's stand.