Midweek Podcast - Baptisms of the Holy Spirit

When Justin gets here, we can start filming.

Isn't that right, Zach?

I'm also told there's gonna be a surprise guest on this episode.

So buckle in and get ready for the best podcast episode you've ever heard.

Here we go.

Welcome.

Hello.

I already gave the intro.

Did you?

Yeah.

What'd you say?

All right.

Well, yeah, this is gonna be a fun one because uh we're doing podcast tag team edition.

Right.

So you'll be a constant, but then I will swap with the one and only Megan McTier.

Nice.

So yeah, thanks for doing it this way.

Of course.

Adds a little variety.

We've never done it like this.

So you know.

It might be a disaster.

Who knows?

No.

It might not.

No, it just means um You're already out of breath, and you're gonna be the one that has to talk the most.

Am I out of breath?

A little bit.

I don't know.

What do you think that means?

I don't know.

Probably some major health crisis.

Oh, I hope not.

So you wanted to talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Just that yes, that and the concept of uh of experiencing the Holy Spirit.

Okay.

And uh because I w talked about the last couple of weeks, but anytime you talk about the Holy Spirit in church, you're just gonna have such a variety of people whose experience level with that, the with who the Holy Spirit is, how the Holy Spirit operates, it's gonna vary wildly.

Right.

You know?

Yeah, and when you said this from the stage on Sunday, I was not excited about having this conversation.

Really?

Yeah.

I just because it's like it's one of those things that is uh it's difficult to pin down some of the the details, and I'm a very detail-loving person.

Aaron Powell Well, you are actually you're very systematic in your thinking.

And so I could see where you're like, hey, I would like to know how does the Holy Spirit do it.

Right.

And so, okay, just some some background for me, real quick, um, to kind of place my experience with it.

So we didn't start going to church until I was in about fourth grade.

I'm from Springfield, Missouri, and we started going to the Southern Baptist Church in Springfield, okay?

Um, really good church and had a really good experience there.

Um, I didn't know this as a kid, but the headquarters for the Assembly of God denomination is in Springfield, Missouri.

Right.

And Evangel University is a huge assembly of God, and it's a very Holy Spirit.

I was gonna say Baptists very like Bible-centric and assemblies of God very spirit-centric.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Yes.

In terms of and both would probably be offended at that.

Yeah, right.

Yes.

But many Baptists, not all, but many Baptists could even be classified as dispensationalists in the sense that that and then that idea, I know you're familiar with it, but it's the i concept that you know God has acted in certain ways for certain times.

And some dispensationalists, like well, true dispensationalists, would say that the Holy Spirit stuff we see in like the book of Acts that that was that's not happening anymore.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

Yeah, I pick picture the Goshapon machine where you put a quarter in and you get the little toy.

Yeah, yeah.

Uh dispensationalists, all of the Holy Spirit things have been dispensed.

There you go.

The machine is empty.

The machine is empty.

Not that God couldn't do it again.

And now we're waiting for the next time to launch the church and no more.

And you know, I I don't believe that.

That's not what I believe at all.

Um, but I understand where you know, and you look at things that happen in Acts.

Where like Peter's shadow is healing people.

And you're like, well, why is that not happening anymore?

You know?

Um But the truth is the truth is if you look at scripture, there are moments Moses would be one, Jesus, the New Testament church.

There are these moments sometimes in the in the Old Testament with like where there's like concentrated like a lot of miracles are happening in a concentrated time.

A unique purpose.

So I think it can be a little bit like, yeah, the Holy Spirit is always active in doing these types of things, but there might be certain times in history where it's sort of it's just it's more.

So anyway, because I grew up Southern Baptist, not knowing that I was in the the headquarters of the Assembly of God, now I look back and go, oh, that's why our church was so passionate.

I mean, the like the Southern Baptist churches in Springfield were almost like extra cautious because um I remember going to with a friend of mine to a youth event, uh like early middle school, sixth grade youth event at the big Assembly of God church, and people were like speaking in tongues, and I had no concept for this at all.

So, you know, I grew up in a church that was very like the if anything, the Holy Spirit, the main thing you would say is be careful.

Like that was probably the main message associated with the Holy Spirit.

Um, but then I'd read the Bible and I'd see God doing all these things, and the Holy Spirit talked about, and so there was a little bit of a disconnect there.

And then, you know, I just went through all my school days, moved around a lot.

I remember getting to college and I worked at Chili's and I had this table of ladies very often at Chili's because I worked on Sunday nights.

So I went to church on Sunday mornings and then I worked on Sunday evenings, um, and this group of ladies from clearly a a charismatic kind of you know Holy Spirit heavy background would come in and and like sort of offend me every week.

On purpose.

No.

Oh.

Um, but you're a server, so you're hearing their conversations.

No, they're having a lot of no, they would talk to me and and they just and what offended me is they would always forget they had ever met me before.

And I had them multiple times.

So they would always like ask me my name, and it was kind of like, you know, how a group of people who are really passionate believers might have decided we're gonna witness to this guy.

Yeah, yeah.

And uh, but it it's done in a way that doesn't feel like they needed to witness to you multiple times because you were just that lost.

Maybe, but it's fine.

But they would always ask me about, and I was like, Oh yeah, I love Jesus.

I go to church.

I went to church this morning.

Um, you know, I had a ring on at the time that had a cross on it.

Like I was just I was outward with my faith.

It wasn't even a and I talk about it, and they like, oh well, do you have the Holy Spirit?

And I knew what they meant by that, because I grew up in my grandma's assembly of God, all that.

And what they meant is do you speak in tongues?

Um, because there's a strong connection in more charismatic circles with having the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

In fact, I I know people who used to go to his hands who would thought the same way and actually had some people accuse someone that was in leadership here of not having having the Holy Spirit because they didn't speak in tongues.

They're like, well, he doesn't have the Holy Spirit.

And it's because in the New Testament, especially in the book of Acts, you do see speaking in tongues and the Holy Spirit is very like the baptism of the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues almost seem like they're reading about it.

There's I think the biggest moments to like point out is Pentecost, when Jesus fulfills his promise.

He says, Stay here till I've arrived.

And how do you how do you know when he shows up?

Well, you know, you'll know, I guess.

And then Samaria, which is also a very interesting cultural moment for the church, going from like the Jewish Jews to the Samaritan.

To the Samaritan, you know, however that sort of Jews, based on how they viewed it.

And then we've got uh Cornelius' house, yeah, where it's the Gentiles, that's when the Holy Spirit falls on them.

So I think there is like an interesting, like you could even just look at that and go, well, that's not all of the moments that speaking in tongues happens.

But it is like that's fulfilling a very specific purpose for the church when it comes to the like outward signs of the outward signs.

And actually, I had a friend that um, you know, I mean, I'm not dismissing any denomination, if it sounds that way, like I have some very close friends who are assembly of God.

Um, in fact, one of them, one of my closest friends in college, went to evangelical university.

He was studying to be a pastor, in that and his thing was, well, God has always given a physical sign to accommodate his covenants.

So the covenant he made with Noah, there's the rainbow, the covenant he made with Abraham, there's circumcision, and what's the physical sign of the covenant he made with the Holy Spirit, the new covenant?

Um, and he would say it's it's speaking in tongues.

Which, which I could even though I don't agree with that every Christian needs to speak in tongues as the sign that they have the Holy Spirit, I can agree that that is for a Gentile as myself, that is a sign that welcomed the Gentiles to kind of seal this moment and say, Yes, hey, now we're all welcome.

Yeah, and so back to the the Chili's thing, so I'd sit there and they would say that.

And and where like I can understand that thinking, oh yeah, well, because I see these things happen in scripture, there's also uh many scriptures about the variety of gifts that the Holy Spirit gives.

And if anything, tongues is the one gift that actually gets scripture, it's the only gift I uh in the New Testament where Paul is like, hey, cool it.

Yeah, there's like a regulatory have someone to interpret, you know, there's there's tongues and interpretation of tongues.

Because there are gifts of the Spirit, like and pull the curtain back.

The Holy Spirit, God's Spirit active in our lives.

We talked about it the message, listen to the message if you haven't.

This is kind of meant to go along with that.

The Holy Spirit active in our lives, and the Holy Spirit does a variety of things.

The Bible says the Holy Spirit is a deposit, it's a guarantee on our future salvation.

So it's like he gives us himself assurance.

The Holy Spirit uh gives us guidance, the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, will guide you, will teach you, will remind you of the things that I've said.

Uh and the Holy Spirit does give us there's gifts, there's gifts of the Spirit.

And there's a variety of those gifts.

And some of them are pretty mundane sounding, like administration.

You know, we don't tend to look at someone who's really good at spreadsheets and be like, they are filled with the Holy Spirit.

But that is a gift that is given because it's all for the building up of the church.

And then there are more prophetic kind of demonstrative gifts, supernatural gifts that feel that.

And people tend to get there's been a tendency in church history for the people who have those or believe that they have those to view them as spiritual superpowers, right?

And that there's a tendency to rank them higher.

Yeah, I think it because it comes with the authority of God said, so listen to me.

Right.

And I I don't ever really want to be in that position.

Like you look at the Old Testament prophets, it's like, I don't want to be one of those guys.

Those guys.

I'd love to obey God and say what God wants me to say, but like if I end up with the this the supernatural gift of prophecy.

That was as much of a burden as it was a gift.

It's like, oh no, please not this one.

And the other ones, it's there's more of a cooperative nature to those gifts.

Because it's like you said, it's for the building up of the church.

Yeah.

But there is kind of that um like spiritual trump card to say, I had a dream, listen to me.

Yes.

Now you have because God said this.

And many of the people I've known who operate in that way, uh, it has been this is the struggle I've had.

I believe in that stuff.

I've had dreams and I've had someone interpret a dream that was.

And you've experienced that.

You've had dreams, right?

I've experienced speaking in tongues, and I will talk about that in a second.

Um, and I didn't want to, and that was the weird thing about it.

Uh I've had those experiences, but but I there have I've also known a number of people who have been who operate in that and that's their thing.

And I'm not saying they don't, I'm not saying it's it's disingenuous, but I'm just saying they're very outward that this is their thing, but they're very often wrong, and they've said things that have proven to be completely off.

Right.

And there's no ownership of that.

It's like, well, God told me that if you don't do this, this will happen.

And then I'll pray about it.

I'm like, that doesn't make that, I'm not getting that at all.

And then two years later, after the opposite has happened, there's no reconciliation to And then they're still just as like, well, God told me.

Yeah, yeah.

And you're like, hey, there needs to be so there's a weird thing.

So back to Chili's, okay.

So it all comes back to children.

It all comes back to Chili's baby back ribs.

So I knew what these ladies were saying that you don't speak in, because they asked me, well, do you have the gift of the spirit?

And I would be like, playful, which gift are you talking about?

Do you speak in tongues?

No, I've never spoken in tongues.

Oh, well, we'll pray that you receive the Holy Spirit.

And it always just felt so and then they come back two weeks later, start and they they don't remember me, you know.

And uh maybe they went to Chili's a lot and I just they had so many servers.

I don't know.

Maybe they had the supernatural gift of no memory.

Of no memory, short-term memory.

And they'd do the same thing and be like, well, we'll just pray that you receive the Holy Spirit.

And I always took it a bit as an accusation.

And maybe that was on me.

Maybe I was just too sensitive or worried that I didn't have the Holy Spirit.

And so I just grew up by the time I got to his hands, you know, this is I'm 23 now, so I'm I'm uh three years removed from the Chili's experiences I was having back then.

I just had such a distaste for those types of conversations.

Anytime someone started talking about the tongue stuff, it was I just wanted to be, I wanted to leave the room.

Because I just felt I'd seen so many people do it in this haughty way.

Well, we have this and you don't.

We'll pray that you have what we have.

And I'd seen a lot of people do the thing that you talk about, like I God told me this, and it was just and then a lot of those people, too, that were most passionate about were just really like off-page.

Yeah.

So it just made me very resistant.

And then I had an experience.

I just want to get to the baptism of the Holy Spirit conversation, and you, Megan, can finish.

Um I then I had an experience where I did have a like instantaneous, overwhelming experience with God that led to me speaking in tongues in a moment it was private.

So it wouldn't have been, you know, tongues is kind of classified in a few different ways.

There's the speaking in tongues that's like speaking in a language of the earth kind of thing.

And then there's Which is at Pentecost.

At Pentecost.

And then there's this sort of speaking in tongues that unknown tongues.

Unknown tongues, right?

And uh and here's what happened for me.

I was actually in the student center here, I was probably 25, 26, and I was praying before a Wednesday night uh youth thing.

It may have been something you were coming to, you know, because you were a student back then, I'm not sure.

Uh and I just all I can just say is that I was starting to pray.

I cause I would set up the room, and then I'd always try to pray before you know everything got started.

So it's probably a couple hours before.

And everything that I prayed just came out like it was like I was praying, and it just felt very rote.

Yeah, like stilted.

Yes.

And then something inside of me was like, no.

So I was like, God, and just bless tonight.

And it was like, uh.

And it was almost this, I all I can describe is it was this very frustrating experience where I'm praying, and every time I pray something's like something inside of me is like almost like you know, like how annoying it would be if someone you tried talking, they actually like they do that in movies, and if you get shush in real life, you're so mad.

Like, don't shush me.

And then I had a moment where I was out of almost this like build-up of what do I pray?

Some sounds came out of my mouth that are not words that I know.

And and I'm not, again, this is gonna put podcasts, pull the curtain back.

Someone may watch this and be I mean, whatever.

What I can say is that that began something in me where the sounds that I made, like I could not, I'd never spoken those things before.

But if you asked me to write them down, like phonetically, I could, like, okay.

And then that sort of, I was like, what do I do with this?

So I went to someone who had experience with that.

They're like, oh, this is what this is, and it's like a prayer thing.

And and the way they kind of described it was your spirit, it's think about it like your spirit communicating with God, bypassing your brain, and you don't need your spirit, spirit to spirit, right?

And I was like, well, that kind of makes sense.

I don't know if that's there's not a Bible verse that says that, but it made sense to me.

And what it ended up being for me was like a really sweet and I would say intimate experience with the Lord that I could utilize in times of personal prayer, and I would come away from those moments just feeling really close to God.

And I don't know if I mean if you wanted to do a deep theological breakdown of that and say that's you're wacky and whatever, I you know, maybe, whatever.

I don't think you need to defend yourself like that.

Well, I'm not saying I'm just saying that I can't, I'm not I'm not saying that that is how the Bible says things go.

But what I do know is this, you mentioned Cornelius, the struggle with the systematic thinking of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which we see as a term in Scripture.

Uh Paul in the book of Acts finds out that a church, he's like, Well, what baptism have you received?

And they've been baptized in John's baptism, which is you know, water baptism.

And he's like, Oh, you haven't been baptized in the Holy Spirit?

Oh, right.

Well, I gotta get down there and lay hands on you and baptize you in the Holy Spirit.

And so that's there seemed to be this other type of washing over.

And the challenge is what order does it happen?

Because like Right, but wouldn't those people not be Christians?

Like, weren't they Baptists, the Johnists?

Yeah.

Wouldn't they be Johnists before?

But that's but then Cornelius is always an interesting thing for me because what's the order for Cornelius' family?

Right.

Because it seems like if I'm reading this, I haven't read the story today, but in the Cornelius story, right, they're Gentiles, they go get Peter, Peter comes, he preaches the gospel to them, they receive, they believe it, and then I believe that the speaking in tongues things instantly.

They haven't been baptized in water yet.

Yeah.

But denominationally, we don't believe that baptism is a it's a sign of a spiritual reality that's already taken place.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

That's already taken place, right.

My my point is that sometimes it's like I think we agree.

No, no, I don't think we disagree.

I'm saying that sometimes you have the people who have been baptized in the baptism of John, and then like, oh, you haven't been baptized in the Spirit yet.

And some people might say that the baptism of John was just they're not Jesus followers.

Like they got baptized.

They repented of sins, like in John, maybe baptized by John even.

Right.

Um My point is the systematic the the Holy Spirit, so Francis Chan years ago.

Oh no.

Francis Chan, too.

Is there some other He gave a message on the Holy Spirit that I listened to and he said, Look, and I think he actually has a way of being like pretty direct.

I was just joking.

Yeah.

Yeah, go ahead.

Well, anytime someone says like, is there a scandal of this pastor?

I don't you know, any pastor you reference that's well known, you're like, uh, has something come out?

I don't know.

But uh he said, Look, I can't tell you how sometimes the Holy Spirit is comes upon you, sometimes the Holy Spirit works within you, it's around you, it's this.

And when you read the the Bible, if you tried to map out, here's like a diagram of how the Holy Spirit operates, yeah.

It's uh it's kind of all over the place.

I guess maybe my pushback on it is I don't think you would say that there's any baptized, believing, faithful Christians that don't have the Holy Spirit.

Correct.

Correct.

And so there is an order of operation that means at salvation our spirit joins with his spirit.

You know, like there's like I'm glad you say that.

Yeah, so okay, so baptism of the Holy Spirit, that gets us whole back to the point of it.

The whole when I said in the message.

I didn't want to get into all of this in the message.

Um no, I believe that every believer who has uh true, genuine faith in Jesus.

Which we can't judge except by fruit, we can kind of like generically go like that.

Seems like a person who loves the Lord.

Yes, but we're not the guardians of their soul.

Jesus is actually one of the funny, one of the most common like uh ways that I got four minutes.

One of the most common ways, I gotta go to South Carolina.

Nice.

Uh one of the most common ways that I know someone has the Lord is if they meet with me and they're like, I'm just really afraid that I don't.

Because basically what it boils down is I love God so much that I just feel like I'm not doing enough.

And I'm like, you clearly love the Lord.

Like, you know, that's a good sign.

Um, but yeah, I think any believer who who's professed has genuine faith in Jesus, Scripture says his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we're gods.

That there is a the Holy Spirit, you have the Holy Spirit.

I also believe from Scripture there's clear there's clear moments where there can be a powerful I don't have the right words for it necessarily, but the where there's a a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit where there's like an abundance of it that sort of changes the game and empowering of the Holy Spirit.

An empowering of the Holy Spirit that's a that's different than just the the day-to-day and dual.

And that doesn't mean that, again, it's not a super spiritual superpower.

Like for me, I needed that moment.

I really did.

I think I was sort of stuck at the time in a very logical, I was very uh I was I was effective in some ways as a youth pastor, but very much in the flesh.

Like I worked hard, I tried to think about things and strategize and all this stuff.

And and I'd had some people in my life in leadership that had kind of challenged me on that.

Like, hey, you work really hard, but it's it's all flesh.

It's just it's good flesh, but it's not, it doesn't seem like you're hearing from the Lord.

Right.

It seems like you're trying to get frustrated.

Yeah, I was like, I don't know how to do that.

That was, I mean, literally, I'm not trying to ignore God.

Right.

And that moment was for me this major.

Oh, I I have experienced God.

I do, and I will say that it's not like from that moment everything went smoothly, but I I have learned over the years to sort of like to even I just say under working for me now.

I don't know if you would say I'm the super hyper strategic leader.

Uh I tend to be more of like I'm not strategic.

Strateg, yeah, but I'm not like, hey guys, here's the five-point plan of our such and such.

You know, your version of the five-point plan is we're never gonna have a five-point plan because I'm gonna decide it in the moment because I can so well, yeah, the straight point.

So over the yes differently than other people.

But actually, a big part of my strategy, so to speak, is I just I've learned over the years, which I didn't have back before that moment.

I just trust that the Lord will give us something.

Right.

And so it's kind of like every year Christmas would be a good example.

I feel like every year our Christmas Eve gatherings are a lot of fun and meaningful.

And m uh a lot of churches I know will have these meetings that start now in the year, like February, March.

What are we gonna do for Christmas?

And we always plan Christmas like in September, October.

And sometimes our Christmas plans like, oh, Christmas is pretty soon.

And we're oh yeah, we should probably figure that out.

Right.

And there's just a confidence that the Holy Spirit will give one of us an idea that we all, because we have the Holy Spirit, it resonates and we go that.

And sometimes it's been you or me or Matt or Madison or any, I mean lots of people.

You twice.

You twice?

Yeah.

Yeah.

What were your No, you said you or me or Matt or Madison.

You or me or Matt.

Oh, sorry.

Oh yeah, yeah.

It could be, yeah, sorry.

Um Megan several times has had ideas.

So the point is having that experience that I had with, I would call that a baptism of the Holy Spirit, where it like washed over me and gave me a whole new level of experience, new category.

What that did in the long term was begin to give a familiarity with me of how the Spirit operates.

And I just now, even as a pastor, I don't spin my wheels trying to figure out how we're gonna I just go, yeah, there that there's an area of the church I recognize isn't quite right.

It's like, yeah, we need to think about that.

So Lord, I'm just listening and and I'm waiting until So if that happened again, something like that, do you think that's possible to happen again to you?

Sure.

And so you're saying it's a when you say the phrase baptism of the Holy Spirit, you're just meaning like you got extra Holy Spirit.

I think there is a Biblically I would say there is like a I don't think you need to have it happen multiple times, but I do think that there can be a an experience that you would in your life you would put that date down as like this thing happened.

And you experience the Holy Spirit and your spirit I don't know, grew, went through pu matured, I don't know, like spiritual puberty happened.

I don't know.

And now you have you you have a different sort of walk in your life with the Lord that you didn't have before, but it's not because you didn't have the Holy Spirit, it's just because you didn't have that level of experience with the Holy Spirit.

I again tough to describe, which is why this is a hard conversation.

Yeah.

And you can, if someone's watching this with a very theological like it's good, it's messy stuff.

And that's why I mentioned the Francis Chan.

Like, yeah, go ahead, make me a diagram of how the Holy Spirit operates.

And it's gonna be like the Holy in the Old Testament spirit came upon the person.

Right.

And then the spirit.

It's tough.

Uh but no, I don't think that it was just like a cool moment that then I can have.

I think there can be more of those.

I think it's good to pray for a fresh experience with the Holy Spirit, but I do think I would look back at that and say that something happened in my life on that moment that categorically shifted me in terms of just my confidence even in the Lord speaking to me and me being able to experience that.

Because for a long time I thought maybe something's wrong with me.

That I Right.

And maybe I'm coming from a place of not having had that experience, but also not feeling like I don't talk to the spirit or hear from the spirit.

You know what I mean?

Clearly do.

And I would actually tell you, and Matt Megan's gonna switch in with me now because I gotta go.

Um, I would tell you that over the years, I've watched you grow so much spiritually.

And but am I waiting for my baptism?

That's I guess my question.

And that's that's why I'm asking for like the the rule.

Like are you having a is it a fresh experience with the spirit, or is it there's like a level up moment?

I'm gonna hand it off to Megan at this point, and you guys will because I know she'll have opinions on this too, and uh someone that has had level up moments with the Holy Spirit for sure.

Great.

Um, Megan, you good?

Welcome, Megan.

SWAP.

Bye, Justin.

Drive safe.

Hey Megan.

Hey.

Welcome.

How's it going?

Good.

I have no idea what you had discussed previously.

Oh I don't know about it.

Lots about chilies.

Oh, okay.

Well, I wasn't planning on talking about chilies.

I think the the recognizing you know me very well.

You can just move around.

Oh, this this way.

Okay, yeah.

Um you know me very well, and so you know that I'd like to think in like the like there's like this order of things.

This happens first, and then this thing is.

Exactly.

Um so we're talking about baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Justin was saying theologically, biblically, he doesn't land in a spot of saying there's a order of operations necessarily for every Christian.

He was saying for him, he experienced a baptism, what he would call a baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And so that left me questioning.

I do hear from the Spirit.

I do feel like I have a rich prayer life, slash interesting Bible life and worship worshipful moments and dreams and things that I would characterize as spirit-led or spirit originated.

Right.

But I I don't have like a moment that I can point to that's like this big spiritual outpouring.

Right.

Like a like a Cornelius moment, you know.

Right.

And so we're I was wondering, does every Christian are we all waiting on those like a is there a personal baptism of the Holy Spirit, or were those baptisms of the Holy Spirit?

We discussed Pentecost being for the Jews, there's a Samaritan kind of outpouring of the Spirit, and then there's the Cornelius Gentile sort of moment.

Those were big uh visual signs of these people are now welcome.

Stop having beef with the Samaritans, or like don't make the uh Gentiles be your whole way of thinking, like they're welcomed into this family too.

So I don't really know where the question is, but am I waiting on a baptism?

Okay, are you waiting on a baptism?

Can we just do it right now, too?

Wouldn't that be cool?

Um I I don't know.

Um I think and I think I kind of heard him say this, it's hard to talk about the Holy Spirit with like with like the certainty of this is how this works.

Right.

Um I I will say that for me I came to Jesus at such a young age, um and I began experiencing the Holy Spirit at a young age, but didn't know what to do because I had no words for it and no categories for it, and and the the church I grew up in didn't really talk about it.

So when I'm having prophetic dreams at seven, I was like, what do you you go tell your parents like I that happened and I had a dream about it?

They're like, stop watching weird movies.

Um because what do you I mean what do you say to that?

Um I ha obviously Holy Spirit stuff was happening, but I didn't know what to do with it.

Um and then I experienced, I think, the Holy Spirit most, like categorically maybe, in that I just had a hunger for God's word, like a weird, a weird hunger for God's word.

And I think people forget that that's a Holy Spirit thing.

Right.

Um and that the Holy Spirit, like, he wrote the Bible.

So when you are like reading God's word and and and it's making sense, or you it's not making sense, but you just can't stop reading it, um, that that is the Holy Spirit.

And I had that too.

Yeah, you had a really good message a couple years ago.

I don't know what the exact points were, so if I butcher it, I'm sorry.

I probably don't remember what the exact points were.

You you shared something about like, yeah, when you receive the spirit, or when you know, again, we're we're I think we're landing if if at salvation.

Yes, I yeah.

You you put your faith in Jesus, yes.

Um you receive the spirit.

Yes, there are those like supernatural um gifts that you're given, but also like he brings what's dead to life, and so your flesh is dead up to that point, and your spirit is too.

And he's like activating what it's almost like those natural gifts that you would have become kingdom directed or spirit-filled or whatever it is.

So it's like you go from being someone who's a teacher to someone who's a spirit-filled teacher, and that's a very different category.

Right.

Or a spirit-filled artist or a spirit-filled musician.

Like we worship isn't um music isn't ever listed as a spiritual gift.

Um writing isn't ever listed as a spiritual gift.

These things aren't listed as spiritual gifts in the Bible, but I've met people who are obviously spiritually talented artists or spiritually talented writers, because the Holy Spirit has resurrected that into his, like, his toolbox of things that he's now using.

Um because when we when we give ourselves over to Jesus, the Spirit now says, okay, all of the things that you are are are now mine, and I'm gonna now pick what I'm resurrecting.

And I think he does those in his own order.

Um some of the things kind of lay dormant, at least in my life, some of the things have kind of laid dormant for a while.

And he's like, All right, now time to resurrect that, and I'm gonna heal this over here, and now I'm gonna resurrect that, and I'm gonna heal over.

And it's just not even uh Yeah.

Sometimes it's like, yeah, that's done.

That's like for your glory, and until maybe until you can heal that part of it, right?

You can bring it back.

Right.

Yeah, so it's a really interesting uh thing, and it's kind of like a I guess a frustrating thing to go, Well, I feel uh maybe disqualified.

I don't feel disqualified, I'm saying I have felt disqualified at times, yeah.

Where people you hear someone talking about those spiritual spiritual gifts and not knowing what to do with it.

So where do you land on the baptism of the Holy Spirit?

If you had to just be like, there's a term in the Bible, baptism of the Holy Spirit, what would you think?

I think I think the baptism of whole of the Holy Spirit is an experience, a moment where you can palpably feel the Holy Spirit.

That's what I would describe the Holy Spirit to be, um, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Um I don't always palpably feel the Holy Spirit.

When I was four and prayed to receive Jesus into my life, I didn't like get like knocked over in the spirit.

I didn't start speaking in tongues.

But I do believe that the Holy Spirit then had free reign of my life.

I was four years old.

Like I joke around with Justin all the time.

He says it all the time, I did my best sinning after that, right?

It's like I um so when I felt palpably the Holy Spirit and understood it understood him, and this is the thing I say it all the time.

This is a like an entity, like a person, just like Jesus.

Um when I understood him and could could have a relationship in a way, more mature relationship in a way, um, wasn't until I was older.

So if you want to categorize like a palpable feeling, understanding, experiencing, like it all came together, baptism of the Holy Spirit, I would put that later in my life.

But I don't think that the Holy Spirit wasn't active.

And that's the other thing too.

It's like the activity of the Holy Spirit was there even before baptism of the Holy Spirit.

And I wasn't allowed to be baptized in my church until I was 12.

Right.

So it's like I was saved at four, I was baptized at 12.

I remember being baptized and then going like, oh, this is this is when I'm going to like get something new.

And I remember like believing I got something new then.

And then it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I then like experienced the Holy Spirit in a new way because I asked.

I never knew you had to ask.

Like I was like, oh, you have to ask for this?

Oh, oh, I didn't know that.

Okay, I'll ask.

And then like there was like a new like whoosh of like, oh, I asked.

It's like I had not because I asked not.

Like that was true.

So I do you think I don't know.

Do you think for those people that might be so there's kind of different categories?

There's like, I love God, but am I saved?

You know, that's kind of just like uh uh Satan attacking, and you know, maybe there there does need to be growth.

It's like I think of the tree in my backyard that I planted on the hill.

I'm like, I'm always worried about that tree.

It's a baby tree.

I'm like that tree, that tree might die.

Let's see in the spring if it blooms again.

Does it have roots, but I can't pull it up to save it?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

And so there might genuinely be in a person's faith, like, okay, what you're recognizing is not that you don't love God or don't have the spirit, it's just that you're a baby tree right now.

Right.

And that's okay to recognize, and you might need someone to come alongside you, hold you up, etc.

But then we've talked about it multiple times.

Then there seems to be kind of a category of Christian that is like um going through the motions may might be a word, or when they talk to you, or you're having conversations, and we've all probably been in this place of like, I just feel like your priorities are completely out of whack, or maybe it's I don't ever hear God when I pray, or I the Bible doesn't, I'm not interested in reading the Bible.

Like, is that someone who has misunderstood their salvation and needs to kind of what what's Peter say, work out your salvation with fear and trembling?

Like actually go back to that and be like, are you part of the church club or are you part of the kingdom kingdom citizen?

Or is that just someone who, like you're saying, just needs to ask for more?

Obviously, both would be fine.

Right.

Right.

I I would if if if I was talking to someone who said, Listen, I have been a part of church, I've been a part of all of the things, but I am not, I don't understand God's word, I don't even like it, I am trying to do the Christian things, but it just feels dead.

Like I feel like a dead tree.

That's how they would like describe their life.

I would say one, what was your salvation experience?

Like, what was that?

When was that?

Um And do you uh believe that Jesus has actually taken all of this stuff?

Is he is he are you submitted to that?

Because I think people have uh people I've talked to have said like, yeah, I believe Jesus did this, but do you submit to that?

There's because there's a difference, we've talked about this.

There's a difference in saying, like, I believe Jesus did that, or I believe I am submitted to that process.

Um and so often it's like you kind of get the answer too of like, I I feel like you're answering for what I want you to answer, and what I want you to tell me is the truth.

Like, right.

Do you believe in Jesus and are you submitted?

It's like, well, the church thing to say is yes.

Right.

But it's more for my sake than it is for them answering.

I'm like, no, let's have the the conversation.

It's not to please your parents, it's not to be on the same page as your spouse.

It's like, are you putting your faith in Jesus?

Right.

That's the the big moment of saying beyond that.

Yeah, believing someone did something versus saying, I believe they did it, and they are now Lord of like that's a whole different different posture of my heart.

And the the Holy Spirit, Jesus, all of that, it's not it is all true, but whether or not I am willing to put myself under the authority of that is different.

Right.

Studying the historical Jesus and knowing the real spirit.

You know, that's the completely different things.

The living God is completely different things.

Completely different things.

So um there are people who have learned and been in church and know all of the things, but it's not what controls, they're not submitted to it.

It's not what controls their dead religion.

Yeah.

And that's where I'm trying to give credit to the people who would be like, you don't have the Holy Spirit.

The only credit I can give them is that there are people in the church that might say that they're a believer, but like you're saying, they've not submitted any part of their life, their heart still belongs to them, not to the Lord.

And so that's where it's like, if you are wrestling with that, my encouragement would be to work that out.

Have a conversation with someone.

I think having Christians around you can help you know if you're being crazy or not.

Like Am I a terrible Christian?

It's like, well, no, it's not that you're a terrible Christian.

It's that if this hits and you're going, wow, I don't I don't have the Holy Spirit as like the total takeaway from this conversation.

Right.

My encouragement isn't to feel bad about it.

It's go talk to somebody about it who loves the Lord and you know does.

Right.

Um, right.

Because it's not a complicated in a lot of ways, we're like overcomplicating what is something that's very simple.

So it's so simple.

And Jesus made it so simple for us to see.

I mean, he even said, like, I don't do anything that the Father didn't like the Father doesn't tell me to do.

When he lived his life, he lived it by the Spirit.

Like he just he just did what he was told to do.

That's how we're supposed to be.

Like we're just supposed to do whatever God tells us to do.

Um, we're supposed to be totally submitted to whatever God tells us to do all the time.

That's it's supposed to be very simple.

We're just supposed to ask, receive, and do.

That's all we're supposed to do.

Um and so if we're making it more complicated, if we're sitting there going, like, I don't know what um, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, and it's it's feels so stressful.

All we're supposed to do is ask, receive, and do.

It's supposed to be very simple.

We complicate it way more.

It makes that Matthew 6, don't be anxious about anything because it's not gonna add a moment to your life.

No.

No, so if if even if we're in in our Christian journey, our cr like is that work out your salvation, that sanctification, all that stuff, and we feel like we're missing something, then we should just ask.

It's and we're never going to be shamed for asking, shunned for asking, um, pushed away, pushed aside.

We're just supposed to ask.

And that was something that I felt guilty for or shamed for until I got to the point like I had been saved, I had been baptized, I had grown up in the church, and I still felt like I was missing something, but I didn't know what it was.

And it was just I needed more of the Holy Spirit.

So I asked.

There you go.

Why?

Why did I need more?

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't know what I was missing, but I was missing it.

Yeah.

And uh it's interesting.

I'm currently in a phase of life where I think the Lord is giving me more of that, but I haven't asked for it.

Yay.

You need more and you didn't even know.

It's like Justin's saying, I didn't want it.

Um and so yeah, it's it's it's the receiving and asking and responding.

Yeah.

Just keep it simple.

Yeah.

So that's good.

I think that's a that's a good place to land.

Um so if you have questions, ask us or someone.

And if you Ask God.

And if you have bigger, bigger questions than can be answered by us, ask the Lord.

Yeah, and and I just ask the Lord for more.

It's never a bad question.

Right.

It really isn't.

It really, really isn't.

And if he doesn't give it to you, that's his prerogative.

But he won't he won't not give you the spirit.

Yeah.

But like if you're like, I want to be Oh, yeah.

Like I want visions or I want to do it.

Yeah, I want to speak in tongues and I want a prophecy.

I it one thing, this is one thing that um I've started asking, and it's really good.

I want more of the spirit without my preferences of how he shows up.

And that's been really fun.

That's cool.

So ask that question, and we will see you next time.