Windstorm III: Spirit Spilled & Mission Magnetism - Windstorm: A Study In Revival

Tonight I got a lot to cover, so I'm gonna move along fairly quick.

I've probably got two messages that I've molded into one.

Um I'm calling this a spirit spilled and mission magnetism.

This is uh windstorm part three.

Uh Monday night, we talked about two kinds of windstorms.

We talked about the rise of the windstorm of evil on the earth, and then the empowered church.

I don't think I called it that, but as I increasingly gave the message, of which I haven't given these messages before, so this is all inaugural for me, um that the phrase the empowered church kept coming into my heart in mind when I was speaking.

I think it's a good phrase.

I think God's going to be raising up what I'm gonna call empowered churches.

At the same time, we are going to see empowered works of evil maturing.

So we're gonna see the maturity of the empowerment of evil.

Let me give you an example from today.

Today, I get home, I had a lot of appointments today.

Man, there's gonna be some, I'm gonna be sharing some cool stuff coming with uh Easter sunrise service.

I was in a meeting with a guy that I'm trying to negotiate a deal for Easter sunrise service.

It's gonna be really fun.

And I'm looking at a fun men's retreat.

So there's a lot of cool stuff.

So I was in neg in in meetings today.

So I hadn't had time yet.

So I get home and I'm really tired because I got to get ready for night, something I want to take a nap.

So I put on uh the five on Fox News just to kind of you know zone out and everything.

So I'm sitting there and I'm not zoning out because you know what happened in France and the whole thing that happened in France.

Well, here's what's amazing about that.

What's amazing about that is how many people, how many political leaders and journalists are actually criticizing the journal like they caused the terror attack and not saying anything about those who committed the terror attack.

Folks, that's the maturity of evil.

That's what I'm talking about.

That's that's a that's on a level 10 years ago we would have never seen.

No one would have, I mean, everyone, especially in in kind of liberal France and in liberal Eastern and Western Europe, the idea of free press has historically been very, very important to them.

And so to come against a free press who is exercising their freedom and almost giving a pass on the Muslim fundamentalist, uh Al-Qaeda-link, probably ISIS-linked terrorist.

Who would have thought that five years ago?

But that's what's happening.

That's what I mean by the maturity of evil.

We're gonna see more and more demonic activity like that, and we're just gonna be, we're gonna be flabbergasted at where people are siding and what they're siding with.

What do you do with that?

You have to be and have to be growing in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and be able to understand what's going on and then be able to stand strong on truth.

So we talked about that on Monday night, and then Tuesday night.

We talked about two aspects of a move of the Spirit is burning desire and divine disruption.

I hope God's gonna divinely disrupt your life this year.

I hope divine disruption.

I'm not talking about demonic disruption, I'm talking about divine disruption of the Lord.

So turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 2, and like I promised, we're just gonna keep marching through Acts chapter 2, and then we're gonna relate that to where we are and what God's done in the past.

Acts 2 · chapter mention Acts 2 · chapter mention

So tonight, this is kind of a hard one tonight because everything that we're talking about really relates to this.

This is kind of the mother of all of our points.

Um, Acts 2 3.

Acts 2 3.

Then there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire.

So remember last Tuesday we talked about this divine disruption.

We see this move of the Spirit, this wind blowing through, and one sat upon each one of them, and they were filled, underline that, they were filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

So, number three, in the move of the Spirit, in the windstorm, I'm not gonna call it spirit-filled life.

I'm gonna talk, call it spirit spilling.

So, spirit spilling, not spirit-filling.

And I'll explain in a minute why.

So, this is the promise of the coming of the spirit that Jesus talks about.

Look in your Bibles at Acts 1 4.

So, in so there in that period of 40 days, when Jesus had risen from the grave before he ascended to heaven, during that time he's telling them, he's going to lead them, and then I'm gonna send my the promised one.

So he says, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait.

Now, if as you know, as we're going through the Gospel of Mark, to see how what idiots these disciples are, you can see why he said, wait until you're filled with this power that's coming.

And that's true for you guys.

I mean, you guys are idiots.

You are.

That's right.

Jay knows.

Jay's the king.

Jay, Jay's a lieutenant colonel in idiocy, and your pastor is an idiot.

Listen, without the Holy Spirit.

If we don't have the Holy Spirit, we're up to no good.

Every one of us are.

You know you are.

And so Jesus knew that.

He says, wait, for the promise of the Father, you have heard from me, for John truly baptized you with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

So that's what they're waiting on.

He continues in verse 8 to say, You shall receive power, dunamis, where we get the word, root word for dynamite, you shall receive spiritual dynamite when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So when we look at the context, this is really important because it gets lost sometimes in our present-day church.

The context is a spirit-filling, a baptism of the spirit that results in mission.

It results in the purpose of, the direction of the spirit-filled life is witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, or most parts of the earth.

Not just that they experience Jesus in their life, as important as that is, but an experience of the spirit that actually catapults them into mission.

And so what we see is what I'm calling spirit spilling.

I like that term.

Because I think it describes this river of living water that Jesus spoke of in the feast that we're going to cover later.

He talks about this filling of the spirit that's going to overflow out of your lives like a river.

It's going to be like a river.

And let me tell you, when you find people that are truly spirit-filled, you know.

It's obvious who they are.

But most believers are not filled with the Holy Spirit.

They're not.

Most believers are have the Holy Spirit, all believers have the Holy Spirit.

We'll cover that in a moment.

But they aren't filled to the point of spilling with the Holy Spirit.

So listen, this is important.

The central hallmark of a windstorm of the Spirit is the coming of the Spirit.

So it's not, it's not just burning desires, not divine disruption.

It's not going to be other things we're going to talk about like tomorrow and we're going to talk about on Saturday.

Those things are the effects of the Spirit moving.

So like in a windstorm.

So we see trees rocking.

We might even like on uh black on uh up there at uh Black Forest Regional Park, where I go and do my prayer walks most days, there is a large tree, about this big, pine tree, that is over the trail, and wind knocked it over.

And you can see where the roots were, and it's been upended on a really windy day.

And so and so we don't look and go, well, you know, the key to the weather is that there's a tree that fell down in Black Forest Free Department.

No, the key to the weather that knocked the tree down was the wind that came.

Well, the wind that we're talking about, that's the Holy Spirit.

Remember?

Rua.

Old Testament, Hebrew, Ruah, Numa, New Testament, 438 times.

We talked about that on Monday.

That's the coming of the Spirit.

The coming of the Spirit, don't miss this, is the coming of Jesus.

The coming of the Spirit is the coming of Jesus.

In John chapter 14, Jesus is preparing his disciples.

John 14 · chapter mention

And he says, This in my father's house are many mansions.

If it were not so, I would have told you.

I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I am, there you may be also.

So he's speaking that he's going to lead them, but he's going to come back and take care of them.

I don't believe he's speaking of his second coming here because of what I'm going to read next.

I think he's speaking of coming at Pentecost.

He goes on to say, and I will pray the Father that he will give you another helper.

That's the Holy Spirit, that he may abide with you forever.

You guys, you can't lose the Holy Spirit if you're born again.

You cannot lose the Holy Spirit.

Now you can lose the manifest presence, you can lose the manifest power.

You can lose the fruit of the Spirit by not being spirit-filled, but you can't lose the Spirit.

He promises here, He'll be with us forever.

The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you, and he will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.

So this is what Jesus is speaking of.

I'm gonna come.

This is a promise.

I'm gonna come back.

I'm not gonna leave you as orphans.

Some of you are new to the Lord here.

You're new.

You're new to walking with the Lord.

Jesus is not ever going to leave you or forsake you.

His love is always with.

Now you can still wreck your life.

You can still make choices that get you so off track that the enemy can get strongholds in your life that destroy your effectiveness, and you miss out on experiencing eternal life.

Because eternal life's not just heaven.

Eternal life's right now when we get saved.

We're experiencing everlasting life right now.

So not just being filled with the Spirit for personal enjoyment, but being spirit spilled, we make an impact.

So Jesus said on in a feast, he said, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

And the commentary by John is that he was speaking of the Holy Spirit.

John, James Alexander Stewart said this about revival.

There can be no revival apart from the Holy Ghost.

He is the author of every heaven-sent movement.

So, church, we can't know when God wants to come with awakening and revival power.

We don't know that.

We can't make that happen.

We can cry out for it, we can pray for it, we can set up circumstances so that God's Spirit is moving, but he chooses in his sovereignty of when he's going to come.

But listen up, we can quench what he wants to do.

We can get in the way.

And I believe when the Spirit of God is hovering over Colorado Springs and He wants to do a mighty work, he's just looking for vessels.

He's just looking for He's not looking for talent, He's not looking for gifting.

He's not looking for skill.

Heaven forbid that he look for anybody who goes to seminary.

But I mean, he's not looking at that.

He's looking at hearts.

Y'all understand what I'm saying?

He's looking for hearts.

I mean, look at 120 in Jerusalem.

That is a ragtag, fearful, uneducated, just a motley crew.

And that's who he comes on.

He didn't come on the Pharisees, he doesn't come on the Sadducees.

He doesn't come on the priests.

He didn't come on any scribes.

He comes upon this motley crew that's sitting there waiting on him, crying out to him, zealous for him, waiting for the promise of him.

He'll use you.

He'll move on us.

He will.

And so Charles Spurgeon said this.

I love this.

If you read the story of the Reformation or the later story of Whitfield and Wesley, you're struck with the singular spirit that went with the preachers.

The world said they were mad.

The caricaturist drew them as being fanatical beyond all endurance, but there it was.

Their zeal was their power.

Of course, the world scoffed at that of which it was afraid.

The world fears enthusiasm.

The sacred enthusiasm kindled by the thought of the ruin of men and by the desire to pluck firebrands from the flame.

The enthusiasm which believes in the Holy Ghost, which believes God is still present with his church to do wonders.

Hello! That's why we're here.

And so the first Great Awakening under Jonathan Edwards brought a renewed emphasis on the Holy Spirit.

In the aftermath of the second Great Awakening, Charles Finney in his revival lectures taught the importance of prayer and the outpouring of Spirit.

Charles Finney's interesting.

Charles Finney's really interesting.

If you read his lectures on revival, they're actually pretty good.

And I've read them a couple times, and they're and they're pretty good.

But the way he did stuff was interesting in that he believed, he's probably the first guy to figure out the methods of what we call revivalism.

This is not a revival.

Everybody understand?

Everybody understand it's not a revival.

These are just, these are just us coming together and we're and we're worshiping and we're teaching and we're letting God show up.

But a revival after Finney was like meetings that you had.

You had protracted meetings, and a lot of times it was like an attent, a camp, uh camp meeting, gathering, and then it was kind of getting people saved and stuff.

And a lot of churches still do that today.

Finney was the one who first kind of came up with that methodology, that idea.

But what Finney taught was different than what he actually did in some cases, in that he taught the prayer and the filling of the Holy Spirit is the key to revival.

And he was such a man of prayer, and he was such a man that was filled with the Holy Spirit, God mightily used him.

Now I want to introduce you a little bit to a different kind of movement that occurred in 1801 in America called the Cain Ridge Revival.

This is Cain Ridge, Kentucky.

And I want to give you a little bit of a few quotes here, but um Presbyterian Pastor Barton Stone, pastor of the Concord and Cane Ridge churches, traveled to witness this revival in 1801.

And he wrote, the scene to me was new and passing strange.

Many, very many fell down as men slain in battle and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state, sometimes for a few moments reviving and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groaning or a piercing shriek or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered.

With astonishment did I hear men, women, and children declaring the wonderful works of God.

It's so similar in some ways to a little bit of what we see in Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

I thought I would draw that out.

But to give you a picture of this, it started off with a few hundred and then it grew to up towards 20,000 in these fields around Cane Ridge, Kentucky.

And listen to this.

They would have about seven to eight preachers preaching at the same time in the same area.

So if you turned left, you had this pastor preaching to about 2,000 over here.

If you turned right, you had about this pastor over here, he had about 500 over here because he wasn't that anointed.

And then over here, you know, you got this other guy, and he's got 5,000 because the Spirit of God's working over there.

And in the process of this, about 20,000, it just continued night after night after night.

People shrieking, people barking, people falling to the ground, people just out.

They called this thing, they call it in Cane Ridge.

I don't know if I have it in here or in one tomorrow night.

They called it the jerks.

So people were doing the jerks.

And one guy, this is a pretty funny story.

I decided not to quote it because I had so many quotes, but because some of you might not think it's funny, but I thought it was.

But this guy who kind of liked this girl, he took her to Cane Ridge.

And the guys, I mean, the girl's dad didn't like him.

But he was really a spirit-filled guy, and he wanted to introduce her to the to the Lord and to the Holy Spirit.

So he takes her to these meetings, and she gets the jerks.

So she's really dressed up really nice.

And I guess, I guess he kind of came from the other side of the tracks, and then she came from some little bit of wealth.

So she comes really dressed up and very prim and proper and all that.

So they come in and she walks in and she just starts getting the jerks for like hours.

I mean, like she's had like almost like she's having an epileptic fit or something.

Just getting jerked.

And so that guy's all mad at him because he brought his daughter back with the jerks.

And um, so there's tons of stories like that.

It makes absolutely no sense except the Holy Spirit showed up.

This is this is commonplace when these awakenings occur.

So um, here's another one.

He described his experience at the Cain Ridge Church.

The congregation was, quote, affected with awful somnity, and many returned home weeping.

That evening, when he spoke at the Concord Church, two little girls fell into a faint.

And after a brief revival ensued in Concord, Stone went to the next church.

Well, in 1900, American Bible teacher Charles Parham concluded the study of Acts.

So he goes through the he goes through the book of Acts, chapter by chapter, in Azusa Street, there in uh LA, 1900 to 1906.

And then the Spirit of God comes, it falls on the place, everybody begins to speak in tongues, and that launched the Pentecostal movement.

Now, you gotta understand, these are weird people.

All right.

Um, 1904, Welsh Revival, Evan Roberts has got to be one of the weirdest guys ever.

And I mean, I really should do a whole thing on just who the players were, because they were some nuts, man.

But but Evan Roberts was one of he would put a basket on his head.

Okay, so I'm not gonna do that.

I'll just tell you that right now.

So probably revival's not gonna come here, but anyway, he he would put a basket on his head, and then he would just he would just get down and pray, and the Spirit of God would come.

Okay, that's Evan Roberts.

Well, I don't know if putting basket and stuff on your head was in like 1904 to 1906 is a new methodology for bringing revival, but Parham did a similar thing.

Charles Parham put it, he he got up and he put a basket on his head too.

And the idea was, you know, he didn't want any man, any man to get the glory.

So I think their heart was right, you know, and that shows you you can be kind of a fruitcake, and God shows up if your heart's right.

And so he did.

And so this move of God, which has now been classically called the great Pentecostal movement of the 20th century, which then led into charismatic churches, that's where it came from, was in 1915.

So go back to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

So when this sound occurred, the multitude, some translate say ran together, they came together, and they were confused.

So people watching this are confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

So the tongues, part of what they're speaking, is languages of what we're going to read about in just a moment.

They were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, look, are not all these who speak Galileans?

So they evidently have an accent.

So they can tell by the accent that these guys are Galileans.

Okay?

Like I can tell a Southern Baptist pastor most of the time because he's got a Southern accent.

They do.

And I get around some of these Scottish Presbyterian guys, you know where they're from.

And they just seem so intellectual, you know, because that accent's kind of intellectual accent.

But where I'm from, that's not considered an intellectual accent.

When my wife's making fun of somebody, she uses a southern accent.

And I always say, well, now why do you do that, woman?

I mean, we've been married for 29 years, and you still go into that southern accent when you're doing something like that.

All right, so whatever.

So they hear this Galilean accent.

How is it that we hear each in our own language?

I mean, Galileans shouldn't know these languages.

Parthians, Medes, Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs.

That's a lot of languages right there.

And so they're hearing these languages.

What in the world can we learn from them?

This is my fourth point.

I think it's really important.

Mission magnetism.

When truly a work of God comes on a city, a county, a church, even an individual, there becomes a drawing of mission magnetism in that individual or that church or that city's life.

God never releases his spirit just for the work of his spirit in that person's life for very long.

Some of you are being touched right now, some of this is all new to you, and you're going to be touched by God, and something's going to well up within you that you want to tell others, that you want to love others, that you want to start serving.

There's going to be this transformation in your life because that's what the Spirit does.

The Spirit is a missional spirit.

I mean, if you never want to serve, you never want to love others, you never want to reach out, you're not spirit-filled.

You're just not.

Because that's the nature, that's the DNA of Jesus.

Jesus came to heal the brokenhearted.

Jesus came to set the captives free.

And so when you get more of Jesus, you get more of his mission.

You become spirit-filled so that you become spirit-spilled, and when you become spirit-spilled, your life is transformed because it begins to overflow with these rivers of living water.

And so a windstorm, listen up, it's important.

The windstorm is an initiatory, inaugural work of the spirit that has its ebbs and flows.

And I'm going to talk about a minute that this is not just like you just live in that one-time experience.

It actually becomes a daily experience, and it's a battle.

It's a battle.

It's a battle to walk in the Spirit.

But that's what the windstorm does.

It brings mission magnetism.

Many times, great numbers of persons in a community will be clothed with this power.

When the very atmosphere of the whole place seems to be charged with the life of God, strangers coming into it and passing through the place will be instantly smitten with conviction of sin and in many instances converted to Christ.

So there becomes this mission magnetism that is a reflection of, I believe, what happened when Jesus was on the earth.

So when Jesus was on the earth and he's preaching the Beatitudes, he's preaching on the hills, and he's speaking in Galilee, there would be a conviction that not only drew people, but listen, it also repelled people.

Because it was there was a conviction coming from the Spirit that touched at the very core of who those people were, at their very heart.

So God draws people right here in the book of Acts, you see it.

I mean, there's so many ways this could have happened, but the way God shows us is that it came and suddenly people are drawn to where these spirit-drunk people are.

So they're kind of falling out of this, and I've been to this upper room, it's probably not the upper room, but they always tell you it's the upper room.

You know, by the way, most, I mean, I I love going to Israel and everything, but I mean I don't know if I believe.

Oh, this is this is the actual upper room.

You gotta be kidding.

No, it is! Okay, I believe it.

Okay, everybody, this is the actual upper room.

Okay?

So I don't know if it's the upper room or not, but the reality is it was somewhere around that area, but it's kind of upstairs because it's the upper room.

Okay, upper.

And so people are like coming down and, you know, just kind of whacked out because they think they're drunk.

So we'll talk about this tomorrow night, about the drunk thing.

But they they're coming out, and people are going, and why would I mean who cares?

You think there's not enough ends and and bar and grills in Jerusalem to see if you drunk?

Something draws them.

Okay?

And it's not just the the uh the uh speaking in tongues part, because remember, there's no amplification back then.

So they do not they don't have a rock band, they don't have like speakers out and people on a corner with a mic, they're just coming out.

So they're they're they're hearing the wonders of God, spoken in their own language.

This is God doing it.

This is this is mission magnetism.

I like that word.

You know, it it's it's magnetic, it starts drawing people.

If the Spirit of God ever came to Colorado Springs, if the Spirit of God ever came at on this, I mean Spirit of God's here, okay.

I said that wrong.

Okay, Spirit of God is here, Spirit of God's in this room, he's he's working right now.

But I mean on a windstorm level, on that level where he comes, you you won't be able to contain the crowds because God will draw them.

It'll be a mission magnetism involved in that.

So, with the Azusa Street revival of 1906, came such an outpouring, not just of the spirit, but of mission outreach and church planting as the world has not ever seen before.

Dr.

C.

Peter Wagner, which is one of my professors at Fuller, writes this in all of history, no other non-political, non-militaristic, voluntary human movement has grown as rapidly as the Pentecostal charismatic movement.

So when that we're a byproduct of that, you guys.

I mean, we're a we I talk about us being a word and spirit church.

There is an element where we talk openly about the Holy Spirit and we and we don't apologize for it.

I believe everything that happens in the power of God working in the hearts of men and women is because of the Holy Spirit.

And so, what I want to do here tonight is I want to talk about this filling and empowering of the Holy Spirit.

I want to take what we've got here of what we see in Acts chapter 2, and I want to call it the adventure of the spirit-filled light.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

The adventure of the spirit-filled light.

So for me, I got saved as a freshman at the University of Georgia.

So I came to know the Lord, didn't know anything about the Holy Spirit.

I think in the Lutheran church we call him the Holy Ghost.

And like I had this vision, I remember thinking he's kind of like Casper or something, you know, but he was, but maybe a little more ornate.

Kind of ornate Caspar.

Probably had vestments that he wore like my dad or something.

I didn't know, I thought of.

So I didn't know anything about the Holy Spirit, but I come to know the Lord, first thing they they teach me is have a quiet time.

So I start reading my Bible, PB and J, pretty much, prayer Bible journal.

I got a journal, I'm reading it.

I remember I found this navigator's um verse thing where you could check boxes, and that was perfect for a highly driven, overachieving guy like me, because then I felt like I was I was now high-achieving, overachieving, off the charts Christian guy now.

So I was in I was a pagan before, now I'm a Christian.

So instead of me checking off, you know, how many beers I drank, I could check off how many verses I'd read.

So it was kind of cool.

So for people like me, that's good.

We should have that's why we do it the way.

So all you guys can have that on your little bookmark.

I know some of you guys, you got you poking little holes in that thing, man.

I know, like, oh, check that thing off, you know.

And some of you just burn with indignation when you miss a day.

You know, that's good, that's okay.

So, anyway, that's all I knew.

So I got in there, got involved in that, and then as the as the weeks went by and the months, guess what came back?

All the same temptations, all the same struggles before started coming back.

So the desire to party, the desire to do stuff and stuff and things, I wanted to do them.

And I got frustrated.

Because what was happening was I was trying to perfect in the flesh what I had begun in the spirit.

Right?

And if you haven't experienced that, just give it a little time.

It's coming.

Because what happened, that's all we know.

That's all we know is, you know, more discipline, more duty.

That's what the Pharisees were teaching at the time of Jesus, you know?

That's what all the prayer and fasting was about, was you know, getting kind of brownie points with God.

And then the Catholic Church perfected it in the centuries later with indulgences and stuff like that.

And that's why when when Luther comes along and says, No, you're not gonna be any any on, you're not gonna be on any better ground with the merits of your own works as you were before if you're basing your salvation on the merits of your own efforts.

For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself.

It's a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.

And so what the justification by faith that was discovered, rediscovered, because the church has known it through the centuries, but it was rediscovered on a high level by Luther was that we stand, listen, you guys, we stand on the merits of Christ.

His merits, his life.

Well, then what I began to struggle with was then how do I intentionalize that?

And that's when someone shared with me the spirit-filled life.

This idea of surrendering to God daily, daily, and then asking the Spirit of God to refill me and for Him to live his life in and through me.

Because the church doesn't understand this.

And so we ask the question: who is the Holy Spirit?

The Spirit is Jesus living in you when you get saved.

When you repent of your sin and you by faith give your heart to Christ, Spirit of God comes to live in you.

So when Jesus was asked by Nicodemus about being, you know, what does it mean to be saved, or how do I find eternal life?

Jesus said, unless one is born of water and the spirit.

He's comparing being born again spiritually with being born physically, water in the spirit.

Now, baptism is hugely important.

If you haven't gotten baptized since you've come to know the Lord, I highly encourage it.

And we're looking at doing it because they have a baptismal here.

So in the next few months, we want to do a baptismal here.

But what he's saying is, um, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

So what he's saying is that when you accept Christ, when you by faith believe that Christ died on the cross for your sins and you confess it with your mouth, Romans 10, 9 and 10, Spirit of God comes in.

Spirit of God comes in.

You have the Holy Spirit.

You can't lose the Holy Spirit if you're truly born again.

You get the Holy Spirit.

Now, why is that important?

Because there is Pentecostal, what I would consider a sort of hyper-Pentecostal teaching that says that if you don't manifest the Spirit through speaking in tongues, then you're not even saved.

Okay, that we don't believe that here.

We believe that you're born again.

When you're born again, you get the Holy Spirit.

And you listen, you can't get more of the Holy Spirit.

You can't get more of the Holy Spirit.

But the Holy Spirit can get more of you.

That's what the Spirit for life is.

It's not getting more of the Holy Spirit, it's the Holy Spirit getting more of you.

So in Ephesians 1:13 it says, In him you trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

Ephesians 1:13

You are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

Young man gave his heart to Christ recently with one of our uh leaders.

And when we got home, Liz and I, we prayed that his heart would be sealed, that it would be sealed with the Spirit of God.

Because as soon as that young man repented, and he's been into some pretty bad stuff, and so he had a lot to repent of, and when he repented, you better bet your bottom dollar he's gonna get attacked.

He's gonna get attacked.

And so we were praying for the sealing of the Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit enters our lives and empowers us to live the Christian life.

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ living within every believer.

He empowers us to live the Christian life.

The filling of the Holy Spirit connects us to all of the spiritual power of the universe.

To be filled with the Spirit is to be plugged in to God's supernatural power.

It is clear throughout the New Testament that our Lord wants all believers in Christ to be filled with the fullness of himself.

Paul writes to the Ephesians, Ephesians 3, 14 through 19, he writes, For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you may be filled with all of the fullness of God.

Now that is a that is a heart full.

Think about that.

Paul is praying that we in the road, if Paul was here, he'd say, I pray for the road, I bow my knees to the Father for the road in Colorado Springs, that you would be filled with all of the fullness of God.

Man, I want that.

I want all of the fullness of God.

Hello?

That's what we're after.

That is the power and the presence and the anointing.

That's like you go into a supermarket and God can use you at King Supers.

God can use you at your job.

God can use you driving a truck.

God can use you delivering the mail.

God can use you as an engineer.

God can use you on that computer.

That while you're there, you think you're just there to get a paycheck and you know do what your boss told you to do.

But God's got you there as a missionary in that environment, and you think God doesn't care about what's happening in that cubicle and what's happening on that hallway?

He so cares, and he's just looking for someone with the fullness of God that he can speak to, and you just thought you were going to the cooler.

Man, you're not going to the cooler.

You're going to the river.

I mean, Paul would go into a go into a city or Peter go into a city and they say, Where now where do people go?

You know, where are they?

They're down at the river.

He'd go down to the river, and then God would use him and start a church.

I mean, God's going to start D-groups through some of you guys in your companies.

And you're going to say, well, I don't know, is this a really can it be a D-group?

You know, they don't come to the road.

Of course it's a D-group.

I don't care who it's with.

Go for it, you know.

And so because you're going to be full with it, you're going to be filled up with the fullness of God.

You're going to know stuff you're not supposed to know about people.

God's going to give you information about that guy in his marriage over here.

I mean, the greatest thing that could happen at the road is that some people are scared to come here.

I mean, that would be a good thing.

You think, oh, that's a bad thing because we want to grow the church.

No, we don't.

We want to grow believers into disciples, and we'll leave everything else up to God.

But I mean, if God's showing up, it's a fearful thing when God shows up.

Right?

So, I mean, if you hear that, I don't want to go there because I hear they're all whacked out and stuff.

That's a good thing.

That's all right.

I mean, I'm not talking about like being doing stupid stuff, but I mean, A.W.

Tozier said this: Though every believer has the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit does not have every believer.

Woo! Love that.

Though every believer has the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit does not have every believer.

Here's a key passage, Ephesians 5.18.

I want you to turn there.

Turn to Ephesians 5.18.

This is a seminal passage for us.

It says, do not get drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.

What in the world is he talking about?

You gotta understand that at the time of the Artemis Temple in Ephesus, people would go there and they would get drunk with intoxicants and hallucinogens.

So they would, they, there was these, there was these berries they would chew.

There were these kind of um drinks that they would drink that would take them into kind of hallucinations, and they considered that the filling of that God, that that spirit.

He says, look, this is what you're used to, you guys.

You're used to going and getting drunk at the temple at Artemis, which is one of the seven great wonders of the world at that time.

Um, but be filled with the Spirit.

Here's what he's saying.

He's saying that the issue of the Holy Spirit filling is an issue of who's in control of your life.

It's a control issue.

When you are drunk with wine, when you are drunk with Jack Daniel's, when you are drunk with beer, whatever it was, are you smoking pot or whatever, you're under the control of that intoxicant.

He's saying, in the same way that you lose control and you're under the control of that, be filled with spirit.

Let God so control you, so empower you, that he can use you in a spirit-spill way.

And so the reality is, church, that the spirit-filled life is about control.

Who's in control?

It's interesting that Paul writes to be, you might want to underline this or circle it, to be, but be filled.

Be filled.

Some say to be, but be filled with the spirit, and that that grammatical sentence, that grammatical structure means continuous action.

The Wycliffe Bible commentary defines it well.

It's talking about Ephesians 5.18.

Keep on being filled, be continuously filled with the Spirit.

A believer can never obtain more of the Holy Spirit, for he indwells the Christian's life in all his fullness, but the Holy Spirit can get more of the believer.

That is, he can exercise complete control of the life that is yielded to him.

So another way to say it is be being continually filled with the Spirit.

Because sometimes people ask me, you know, do you have a spirit-filled church?

Is the road a spirit-filled church?

And what they mean is, do I allow speaking in tongues and stuff like that?

And is it kind of Pentecostal?

And I like my answer.

My answer is, well, on some days it is, and on some days it's not.

Because you see, the spirit filled life, listen, it's not a title, it's a daily choice.

So I'm spirit-filled.

I got spirit-filled 18 years ago at a Benny Hinn seminar.

I don't really give a rip.

I mean, I really don't.

What are you doing right now?

Well, I've been through three marriages, but I'm spirit-filled.

And I get up every morning, la la la la, man, I speak in tongues.

I'm like, man, you're you're so unspirit-filled, it's unbelievable.

I don't care if you speak in tongues.

I want to know who's in control of your life.

Who's in control of your life?

I know people who've never spoken in tongues, and they're totally spirit-filled.

Alright?

Do I believe in speaking in tongues?

Yes, I do.

I speak in tongues.

Do I push that on people?

No.

I let the Spirit of God do that.

But here's the deal, you guys.

Here's the it's important.

The spirit-filled life, listen up.

It always takes over your tongue.

It always takes over your tongue.

There's something about, it's almost to me, it's almost like puppets.

Like there's a string or a lanyard that runs from your heart to your tongue.

And if you're always cussing at people, if you're always like, you know, screaming at people, if you're always saying mean things to people or gossiping, you're not spirit-filled.

Now, you can stop that and then be spirit-filled and then lose your spirit-filled the next day.

Yes, you can.

That's what I'm saying.

Like some days around here, we're pretty spirit-filled.

But then the next day, we're not so spirit-filled.

So I can't tell you, well, Tuesday's a good spirit-filled day.

But Thursday, when we have a lot of meetings, it's really a bad spirit-filled day.

We're not spirit-filled on Thursdays.

I want to get spirit-filled in those meetings.

If we had had more spirit-filled meetings, I probably wouldn't be preaching right here.

So the reality, church, is that it's continuous action and it's a choice that we all make, each one of us individually, to follow and to re-surrender to Christ.

So it's not a title, it's a choice that we make in our lives.

So, what is the fruit of the Spirit-filled life?

Galatians 5, 22 and 23.

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against, I like this.

Against those things, there's no law.

You cannot put up a law in any religion or in any statement or any creed against those things.

It's universal.

The more we start walking in the Spirit, the more these are true in our lives.

And guys, you all know it's two steps forward and one step back in the Christian life, even in the spirit-filled life.

So God's going to show up with some of you tonight.

We're going to pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit.

You're going to experience the Holy Spirit.

You're going to be empowered by the Holy Spirit.

But next when you get up in the morning, you still got to open the word.

You still got to make a choice to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

You're still going to get angry.

You're still going to be jealous.

You're still going to have temptations.

But then what we're going to what we want to learn is to have a quick response to temptation.

A quicker response to temptation is, Lord, I can't, I can't go there.

I can't go there.

I can't go near those bars.

I can't go near those strip joints.

I can't go near those kind of that kind of internet stuff.

I can't get in that kind of a discussion.

Can't go there.

That's smart.

Guys, that's smart.

I mean, you're playing with fire if you think, well, I'm filled with the Holy Spirit and I can just walk right back in there and see this stuff, and I'm going to be fine.

No, because your flesh is still there.

And guess what?

You can never rehabilitate your flesh.

Your flesh never gets better, ever.

But what happens is the Spirit of God gradually over time takes over more stuff.

But it's not like this, it's kind of like right?

You know, well, I was doing great last year, but man, 2014 stomped.

Okay.

But 2015 is going to be better.

You know, so we're growing in that.

It's called sanctification.

Three promises, and I'm going to be quiet.

Three promises that I think are really important.

I see three promises between the Holy Spirit and the believer that are represented by three Greek prepositions: para, in, and epi.

Para, these are Greek prepositions.

Para, in, en, and epi, e-p-i, epi.

In John 14, Jesus told the disciples, and I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comfort.

That's speaking of the Holy Spirit, that he may abide underlined, or you've got to underline, I think, in your notes, with you.

Okay, that's the word para.

That's the Greek para, with you, forever.

Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not, neither knows him not, but you know him, for he dwells with you, para, and he shall be in you.

In, e-in.

In you.

So first, number one, the Holy Spirit is with you.

That's the first promise.

The Holy Spirit is with you.

That's the Greek preposition para.

And that's where we get the word Holy Spirit, which means paraklet.

Parakletio.

Parakletio is the idea of that the comforter comes alongside of you.

And this is some of you are not saved here.

You think you're saved, but you're not.

Only God knows that.

But I'm thinking in a crowd this time, these people who don't know the Lord.

Well, the Spirit of God is on you.

That's the reason you're here.

Or you remember before you got saved, you went to church, or you met some Christians, and you started having an interest in the things of God, and it made no sense, but you were just interested.

The day before you had no interest.

That's like my story.

Like one day I'm not interested at all.

The next one I am, it's like weird.

And that's the Spirit of God coming around you.

That's the wooing of the Spirit.

Listen, guys, the God always initiates.

God always initiates.

You're only accepting what He's initiating.

So, so para, Spirit of God coming upon you.

Secondly, the Holy Spirit in you.

In, in you.

So Spirit around you, then you give your heart to Christ.

The Spirit of God comes in you.

So the Spirit enters your life, coming into the believer.

1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20.

Know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you.

In you.

So this is a relationship with the believer when we get saved.

But then there's this other really important preposition.

Don't miss this.

Para.

In.

Thirdly, epi, epi.

And that is the Holy Spirit coming upon you in power.

Coming upon you in power.

Acts 1.8.

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has epi, has come upon you, come over you, washed over you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samir, into the earth.

Mission magnetism is the impact of the power of the epi of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes over us or upon us, thus we are not just vessels containing the Spirit, but we become channels of the Holy Spirit.

Let me say that again.

We're not just vessels for containing the Holy Spirit, but we become channels by which the Holy Spirit overflows to the world through us.

That's what we want.

That's what Jesus was talking about in John 7 at the Great Feast when he said, The Spirit of God's gonna come and rivers of water are gonna flow out of you.

So, church, tonight.

Some of you are longing for power, greater power in your life.

And we're gonna go into worship.

And then we're gonna pray.

We're gonna give, and sometimes it's through the laying on of hands.

I'm gonna be up here, and some others on our leadership are gonna be up here, and we're gonna pray that you get filled with the Holy Spirit.

Some of you have been filled with the Holy Spirit before, but you've gone through some things, and it's just not been good.

It's just been a really hard time, and the Spirit of God wants to come.

Listen, some of us here are battling gossip.

Some of us here are battling anger.

Some of us here are battling jealousy.

Some of us here are battling with envy.

Some of us here are battling with sexual fantasies.

And it just it just robs you of joy.

And and what's happening is that your appetite has caused you to taste so much stuff.

Hello?

Like if you well I remember growing up, I just remember there was like one kind of apple.

No, no, there was two.

There was a like a red one and a green one.

Hello?

Okay, I'm from the South, so I mean, I we didn't have them shipped in from area.

I remember if you got oranges from Florida, that was a big day.

And there were no, I remember Bilo.

Bilo came in to Batesburg, Ladiesville, South Carolina.

I was like biggie bilo.

Because before that it was just a local grocer.

And I had the job in this in sixth grade.

My job was I would, they would come, I had my little job after school, and they would give me their little bag of fruit, and I had, and I would weigh it, and then you know how much it was per pound, and then I'd write on the bag.

A little, I didn't have a calculator, I think I had some other kind of adding machine.

I know I had to do it on paper.

That's right.

I remember I had a notepad, I had to do it.

You I actually had to compute using a pencil and a piece of paper, and there were no buttons.

You believe that?

But I just remember it's two kinds of apples.

So I can tell you what a red apple tastes like, I can tell you what a green apple tastes like.

Sometimes it's green apple days, and you wanted that green taste, that kind of Granny Smith.

And then you had the other one.

Well, now there's about 25 versions of green and 50 versions of red and right, and so now when you say apple, something salivates in your on your tongue toward like Fuji or Granny Smith or whatever it might be, because we've had our appetites touched by so many things.

And some of you here have had a lot of stuff in your life and a lot of sin, and so your appetites are more refined than others, and what the Spirit of God has to do is he has to come and give you a fresh appetite for God, and he can, he's really good at that, he he does that all the time, and so why don't we stand?

And some stuff, some strongholds in our life cannot be broken without the filling and the power of the Holy Spirit.

So let's let's worship the Lord, and then I'm gonna call up those who want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we're gonna lay hands on some of you.

Spirit of God's gonna come, and it's gonna begin a new adventure in your life.

All right?

So, Father, we just uh we give you this time.

And Lord, I just know, I just know that when your power is released in people's lives, we're never the same.

And we've tried to live the Christian life, we've tried to get over these areas, and we can't do it.

We do not have the man-made power to do it, we do not have what it takes.

Living your calling is impossible without the power of your Holy Spirit.

God, some of us here, including myself, we need a fresh touch.

We need a fresh infilling.

We need an epi.

We need that overflow of your spirit.

And God, as we go into worship right now, come.

Rule in this place, in the atmosphere of this place.

Spirit of God, this is your church, this was your idea.

Some eons ago, before any of us were born, you had it in your heart that you were gonna plant the road in Colorado Springs in 2014 and 2015.

You were gonna do something here.

So, God, we're here, we're available, and we surrender afresh to you.

Come do your work, Holy Spirit.

Come do your work, come move in your power.

So, as we go into worship, you guys, um if you feel led to come up and pray in the mic or anything just like the other nights, feel free to do that.

Let's worship.