Holy Spirit Part 2 (Experience + Ask)

A few years ago, my wife and I were pregnant, mainly her, and we decided, we decided isn't it funny how guys will sometimes include themselves in that?

Like we're pregnant.

I guess it's technically true, but it's it's not a 50-50 endeavor.

So she was pregnant and I was along for the ride.

And we decided we needed a new house.

Because the house we had, we were like, oh man, more kids.

This isn't, I don't know if this is gonna work.

Let's let's sell this house.

That's something we had never done before.

We never sold a house.

And we were looking at our house, and this was before the housing market was like, you can just say you're selling a house and someone will buy it before you even enlisted it.

You're saying, I might sell my house, and you get a phone call, we'll buy it.

It wasn't like that.

So we had to do some work to get our house as sellable as possible, and we decided to take on some low-level do-it-yourself projects, low-level DIY type stuff to make our house more sellable.

The problem, though, is that I bring virtually no skills to the table when it comes to DIY.

I've only had one thing in life that I'm really good at, and it's it's talking.

And it's as much of a curse as it is a gift.

I can promise you that.

Ask my wife, would you trade Justin's ability to talk for virtually any other ability under the stars?

And she's like, yes, it'd be awesome if he could fix things.

It'd be awesome if he could, you know, all kinds of stuff, but I just I can't.

And you can't talk to a broken toilet, and you just can't do it.

At least I can.

So we've got these DIY projects, and I'm like, you know what?

I'm I'm I'm a man.

Let's do this.

I'm gonna do this.

When we got married, a bunch of people had bought us tools, and uh, and I didn't know what most of the tools were for.

And so this is a real thing.

I had two bins in my garage, each labeled.

One was labeled common tools, and the other was labeled not so common tools.

And anytime I had a project, and a buddy of mine was like, I remember one time this guy was like, Do you have uh a set of channel locks?

And I was like, I don't know what that is.

And he said, Well, it looks kind of like this, and like, ah, that's a not so-common tool.

And I went and got it, had it.

Turns out a lot of my not-so-common tools are actually pretty common.

But that's just an example of the lack of knowledge that I have.

And so when it came to these projects, it was it was just, it was a learning experience.

Everything we did just took so much longer than it should have.

Like I would do projects, like I remember a backsplash in our kitchen.

It set on the box, estimated time, two to three hours.

Took me an entire day.

And it didn't even look that great.

But I did it.

There was a shower door.

We wanted to put a new shower door on our main bathroom door to make it just look a little nicer.

And uh it said, estimated time, three to four hours.

Which, with me involved, just meant we went a week without a shower.

And it was fine.

We got it done.

I just I don't I don't have a lot of DIY skills, and I learned through that experience that I'm not a do-it-yourself project kind of guy.

What I am is a call someone else to do it project kind of guy, and I've gotten better and better at that over the years.

When it comes to our faith and growing closer to God, it is very easy to approach it as a DIY project.

For much of my life, I have approached going deeper with God, getting closer to God as a do-it-yourself type of thing.

Where in my mind, if I just figure it out, work hard enough, and do the right things, I'll I'll have that depth that I hunger for.

And I've experienced that my results approaching God in a DIY way are about the same as me approaching my house in the same manner.

It just doesn't have the results that I want.

And I often feel exhausted and frustrated and discouraged.

But the reality is we are never intended to have a do-it-yourself relationship with God.

He doesn't want us to do it that way, he's never asked us to do it that way.

We just have a tendency to think that's the way it must be, and it leaves us frustrated when we're not experiencing what we want to experience with God.

Last Sunday we started exploring this really incredible section of John chapter 14.

John 14 · chapter mention

It's part of a series we've been in called The Last Meal, and this is just us exploring the last meal Jesus has with his disciples before he goes to the cross.

So many of the most iconic things Jesus ever said or ever did happened in this meal.

And so we're trying to explore it because thanks to Scripture, we get a seat at the table.

And in the middle of this meal, or toward the end, depending on how you read the timeline, it's it's kind of hazy in some places.

Jesus begins to make a promise to his disciples.

And it's the promise of the Holy Spirit.

Which, if you're not familiar, if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, the idea is it's the very presence of God, the Spirit of God, that comes to dwell inside of us, to make his home within us, so that God's presence is with us, working in us, shaping us into the people that we're meant to be, and even empowering us, sometimes empowering us very intensely in certain moments to be able to do the things that God would call us to do.

It's the opposite of do it yourself.

It's him doing it within you and through you.

Jesus makes this promise of the Holy Spirit.

And so we began to talk about this last week.

And I said last week that this definitely needs to be a two-parter.

Turns out, exciting, discovered this week, probably a three-parter.

And it's fine.

I have this tendency to do that, by the way, and if you've been here for long, I like we had a conversation a few months ago or a month ago, I can't remember, it was called the Biblical Sexual Ethic.

And I thought it was gonna be a one-week conversation.

It was three, and it's fine, but I promise it won't be any more than three.

I promise that.

At the end of the day, though, I I may have said this before, but I there's certain things about God that you can't just just touch on the surface.

It's just not, it's worth more.

And I think sometimes it's easy teaching-wise, especially because we have this sort of rhythm of once a week, to sort of skip rocks, where we're covering a lot of ground but barely cracking the surface.

And I think with topics like the Holy Spirit, I don't want to skip rocks, I want us to dive down deep and say, can we really, as much as humanly possible, get our heads around this and experience something more?

Like if you want more of God, you want to go deeper with God, it's the Holy Spirit.

And so with that said, let's jump into what Jesus says to us.

He says, If you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate.

Some translations will say comforter.

Not comforter in the sense of like a warm blanket.

It's the same word that we get fortitude from or fortress.

It's someone who will empower you.

An advocate is someone who works on your behalf.

Some translations will say helper.

We have a God who gives us help.

It's amazing.

He says, He will never leave you.

He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth.

The world cannot receive him because it isn't looking for him and it doesn't recognize him.

But you know him.

Because he lives with you now and will later be in you.

No, I will not abandon you as orphans.

I will come to you.

Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me.

Since I live, you will also live.

And when I'm raised to life again, you will know that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.

Those who accept my commandments and obey them are the ones who love me.

And because they love me, my father will love them.

And I will love them and reveal myself to each of them.

Judas, not Judas Iscariot, that's the one who betrayed Jesus, but the other disciple with that name, said to him, Lord, why are you going to reveal yourself only to us and not to the world at large?

Jesus replied, All who love me will do what I say.

My father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them.

Anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me, and remember, my words are not my own.

What I'm telling you is from the Father who sent me.

I am telling you these things now while I'm still with you.

But when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind and heart.

And the peace I give is a gift that the world cannot give.

So don't be troubled or afraid.

Remember what I told you.

I am going away, but I will come back to you again.

If you really loved me, you would be happy that I'm going to the Father who is greater than I am.

I have told you these things before they happen, so that when they do happen, you will believe.

Jesus promises the Holy Spirit.

And as we said last week, he makes it very clear, especially if you keep reading and you know how the story progresses, that the Holy Spirit is a necessity for us as Jesus followers.

I grew up believing that the Holy Spirit was kind of like the bonus feature.

It was the add-on.

That you could have this very solid relationship with God, and it was really more about faith and belief and truth.

And then the spiritual stuff, the Holy Spirit stuff, I had just seen some kind of wacky stuff that made me a little resistant to that, to be honest.

And I saw the Holy Spirit as like the, it was obviously true, because I've always believed Scripture.

I've seen Scripture prove itself true more times than I could even count.

But but I saw the Holy Spirit as something that was that was extra, that was, it was bonus.

But Jesus doesn't talk about it that way.

Jesus doesn't talk about the Holy Spirit as something that, oh, and by the way, if you really want to have a good time, you should try the Holy Spirit.

No, he says, you need the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the one who will remind you of everything that I'm telling you.

The Holy Spirit will give you what you need.

Later, he actually says that it's better for you if I go, because if I don't go, you won't have the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says it's better for us to have the Holy Spirit than for us to have Jesus in the flesh.

Think about that for a second.

If you had the choice right now between, you know, the Holy Spirit and visible presence of God living within you that sometimes you're not even sure if it's there.

If you have the choice between that and like hanging out with Jesus in the flesh, which would you choose?

Dang it.

I did not anticipate that.

That's the correct answer.

Except for the fact that Jesus actually tells his disciples that it doesn't work that way.

He's like, I have to go.

Because if I don't go, the Father won't send the Holy Spirit.

So we don't get both.

I don't know why.

Take that up with God.

But he does say, like, it's better that I go so that you can have the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is a necessity.

We need the Holy Spirit.

Later on in Acts chapter 1.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

This is after Jesus has died and risen again.

It says, once they were eating with him, he commanded them, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised.

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

Jesus is about to give them this worldwide mission, and he says, Don't even think about leaving Jerusalem.

Do not leave your hometown, basically, until you receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

That's how much you need it.

These are the guys who have been with Jesus for three years.

They've heard everything that Jesus has said, they've walked with him, they've seen him do the miracles, they've participated in many of those miracles, and he tells them, You're not ready for this until the Spirit comes.

That's the necessity of the Holy Spirit.

And so last week we talked all about that.

We had two words.

It was the word need.

Recognize that we need the Holy Spirit and the word let.

We have a tendency, at least I have, to be resistant for a variety of reasons.

It may be how you grew up, it may be things you experienced in church.

Whatever it is, we can be resistant.

And what we need to do is drop that and let the Holy Spirit have his way within us, work within us, not push it away.

So need and let, and today we're gonna look at two more words.

Experience and ask.

Experience and ask.

And let's start with the word experience.

One of the hardest dynamics when you're talking about the Holy Spirit is the reality that certain things with God are very, very mysterious, and God is very okay with it being mysterious.

But as people, we don't like mysteries.

Anyone ever watched the show Lost?

Back in the day when that was like a cultural phenomenon.

Anyone ever watched the show Lost?

Not that many of us, okay.

Well, those of you that I would tell you if you didn't watch it to start it, except my experience, was that it was like a roller coaster.

Really fun at the beginning, some really cool loops in the middle, and the end was a little like, uh, okay.

Um did I waste four years of my life thinking about it?

Maybe.

But it's amazing because that show was all about mystery, and the best parts of it were the parts when they would show and unveil a new mystery.

And you're like, what?

What is that?

The worst parts were when they actually solved the mysteries.

And you're like, oh, that's what that was?

Oh, okay.

But the thing is, they they made that show.

They couldn't let the show just be about the mysteries because people don't like mysteries that aren't solved.

We like mysteries that are figured out, we want to know all the things, we want to understand everything, and God is very okay with mysteries.

Think about the first story that we really have in the Bible of people, right?

It's the story of the garden.

And you have these two trees.

If you're familiar with this story, you have two significant trees in the garden.

One is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, one is the tree of life, and they represent very different approaches to God.

One is devoid of mystery, the other is full of it.

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is basically, hey, just tell me what's good, what's bad, what are the rules, take all the mystery out of this, and I'll just live my life doing the work.

And the other, the tree of life, is just like being a child.

Not understanding everything, but saying, I just go to this and I get what I need.

I I it's kind of a silly analogy, but I like to think about it in terms of like a refrigerator.

If you're a small child and you live in a home that's that's financially okay, I know that's not always the situation, which is really hard, but if you do, you're a small child, your refrigerator at home is just a magic box filled with food.

And every time you're hungry, you go to it and it's just like, oh, and there's something for you to eat.

If you're an adult, that's not what the refrigerator is.

It's just another thing you have to manage.

Right?

You have to work for the money to go to the store to buy the things, to come back home, to realize you forgot the one thing, to go back to the store to get that thing, right?

And then you have to fill it and clean it, and it's it's a big giant mess.

It's work.

But to the child, it's just there it is.

And God so clearly originally wanted us to have an experience with him that, yeah, we didn't have all the answers, we didn't know how it all worked, but we just went to him and received what we needed.

That's the tree of life.

But we chose, because it's our nature, we chose the work.

No mystery, just tell me what you want, I'll do it, and that's the way that I'll approach you.

That's what we chose, that's what we tend to choose.

And so when you talk about the Holy Spirit, it can get frustrating because we very often want diagrams.

I cannot draw you a diagram of the Holy Spirit.

Or we want like an instruction manual.

I cannot write for you an instruction manual on the Holy Spirit.

You can't necessarily perfectly define the Holy Spirit or perfectly encapsulate the Holy Spirit.

But I tell you what you can do, is you can experience the Holy Spirit.

And in looking at several of the experiences that people in Scripture had with the Holy Spirit, we can understand and begin to understand better maybe how that experience can be for us.

If we've either never had it, we're not sure if we have, or if we simply would like something deeper.

So I want to look at a few scriptures.

Ephesians chapter 1, verses 12 through 14, God's purpose was that we Jews, this is Paul writing, and he's a Jewish man who's teaching the non-Jewish people called the Gentiles about Jesus.

Ephesians 1:12–14

And he says God's purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God.

And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth.

The good news that Jesus saves you, that God saves you.

And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago.

The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised, and that he purchased us to be his own people.

He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

So you have this group of people who are traditionally not the people who should know God based on the way the world had worked at that point in time.

And yet they heard the message of Jesus, they believed, they put their trust in Jesus, and Paul says, when you did that, when you believed, God gave you the Holy Spirit.

And so we see this element of belief.

Now it's not just an intellectual belief.

James, if you've never read the book of James, he's a straight shooter.

Um, he says in chapter 2, verse 19, you say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God.

Good for you.

Even the demons believe this and they tremble in terror.

What James is saying is that it's it's not just a belief like an intellectual recognition that there is a God.

It's a belief that is packed with submission and surrender.

It's saying, I believe in you and I give my life to you.

And it appears that what Paul is saying is that when this group of people submitted their lives to Jesus and put their trust and their faith in him, that God gave them the Holy Spirit.

That's an experience that he describes.

Let's look at another.

Acts chapter 19.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

While Apollos, who was one of the leaders of the early church, was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions until he reached Ephesus on the coast, where he found several believers.

Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

He asked them.

No, they replied, We haven't even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.

Well, then what baptism did you experience?

He asked, and they said the baptism of John.

And Paul said, John's baptism called for repentance from sin, but John himself told the people to believe in the one who would come later, meaning Jesus.

As soon as they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

And then when Paul laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in other tongues and prophesied.

There were about twelve men in all.

Now, in a lot of the stuff we're gonna look at, you're gonna see this phrase, speaking in tongues.

And I thought about jumping into that today, and I decided no.

That needs to be its own conversation.

So here's what we're gonna do.

Um, we're gonna we do this fairly often.

We're gonna record an entire separate podcast all about the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues specifically and some of the things involved in that.

I've got a couple really awesome guys lined up to be in that podcast.

I can't wait to have that conversation, and so we'll we'll post that.

And if you want to, you can just go as deep as you want in that conversation.

But just know that this is something in the early church, it almost it's almost like a constant when people have the Holy Spirit come upon them, which is an experience of power.

It's this undeniable moment where the Holy Spirit makes his presence known in the lives of people that there were demonstrative things that would happen, and one of those often described as speaking in tongues.

Like I said, we'll record a separate episode about that.

But in this specific scenario, here's what happens.

These people had believed, they were believers, but they didn't have the Holy Spirit.

Why?

Well, it turns out that they had only heard part of the message.

But they heard part of it, they believed in it, and and Paul's like, oh, you haven't heard the other part, like the best part, Jesus.

You got baptized with the baptism of John, John the Baptist, but you need Jesus.

And then they get baptized in the name of Jesus, and then Paul lays his hands on them, prays over them.

No different than if I might pray for you, I'd probably put my hand on your shoulder and say, Hey, let's pray.

And they received the Holy Spirit.

So you have in that situation, you have belief, you have baptism, you have someone praying over you, but let's look at another experience.

Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

It says, When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent Peter and John there.

As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, for they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Then Peter and John laid their hands upon these believers and they received the Holy Spirit.

Okay, so now you have people who, unlike the people that Paul was referencing earlier, the people in Ephesus, they have been baptized in the name of Jesus.

Apparently they've heard the complete message.

And it's not just they repented from their sins, they've accepted Jesus, they've been baptized in the name of Jesus, but they don't have the Holy Spirit yet.

And so, a little different than the time before, and Peter and John lay hands on them, pray over them, and they receive the Holy Spirit.

Let's look at one more.

Acts chapter 10, there's a guy named Cornelius, really interesting guy, shows up.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

He and his family become the first non-Jewish people to really like go all in with Jesus in a big way.

It's really an incredible story.

And it surprises Peter, who's the one that speaks to these people, because up to this point he's really only had the Jewish people on his mind.

And so Peter actually goes to their house and begins to teach them.

And here's what it says Even as Peter was saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the message.

The Jewish believers who came with Peter were amazed that the gifts of the Holy Spirit had been.

Poured out on the Gentiles too, for they heard them speaking in other tongues and praising God.

So in this situation, I don't know if this is Peter is the greatest speaker in the history of the church, or in the middle of his message, he doesn't even like get to his points.

They're already filled with the Holy Spirit.

Or if Peter was really bad at it and God was like, I gotta help here, because like Peter is just, he's losing them.

I don't know what happened.

But, all jokes aside, like, this is crazy.

Because this is different than the other times.

In this situation, it appears that they haven't yet been baptized in the name of Jesus.

Because Peter hasn't even finished talking to them.

Maybe that happened before, but we don't know that.

That would be us trying to sort of fill in details that we don't have.

But it appears that in the middle of simply hearing the message about Jesus, boom, they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and it's undeniable.

And so if you're like me and you are a logical person, you get frustrated reading all of these stories because you're like, where's the formula?

I've got these different experiences, and then you look at like the disciples, we talked about them last week.

Jesus appears to them after he dies and raises again, and he breathes on them, which seems weird, but the word for spirit in Hebrew is ruach, which means breath or wind.

So Jesus says, Receive my spirit, and they do, they receive the Holy Spirit, but then later on, the Holy Spirit comes upon them in a more powerful way, a way that's often in the Bible described as the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and then you're sitting there going, Well, I'm just confused.

Is the Spirit in me, around me, upon me, under me, over me, behind me, in front of me?

Where's the Spirit?

How does this work?

Does anyone else have that frustration?

You're like, I just want to know how it works.

Just me, awesome.

All right, so.

And again, that's that part of us, that's that tree of knowledge of good and evil part of us that just wants to know all the ways that it works so that we can do it.

But the Spirit is mysterious.

And I cannot give you a formula.

I can't give you a recipe.

But what Scripture does give us our ingredients.

Like, think about it in those terms.

What's more important, the recipe or the ingredients?

It's the ingredients.

Like, here's why.

If I give you an amazing recipe and terrible ingredients, you're gonna have a hard time making a gourmet meal.

But if I give you the best ingredients possible, and the recipe's a little hazy, there's a high chance that it's still gonna turn out well.

Because the ingredients are what's most important.

And so what where scripture doesn't necessarily give us a fully fleshed out just X, Y, Z, point one, point two, do these things in this order, because sometimes it's out of order.

Sometimes they have the Holy Spirit even after they've believed in Jesus.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit comes upon them as they're hearing about Jesus.

It's like we can't necessarily do that, but we see ingredients.

What ingredients do we see?

What common ingredients?

Well, we see belief.

So I would ask you, if you're like, I don't know if I've experienced the Holy Spirit in a tangible way, have you put your full-fledged belief in Jesus?

Like planted both feet, not one foot on Jesus, but one foot in the world, but both feet planted firmly in your faith on Jesus, and you've said, I've surrendered my life to him, I belong to him.

That's that's the right ingredient.

Baptism.

Being baptized.

It's a step of obedience.

It's just something Jesus asks us to do.

And it's not that baptism necessarily in these stories results in like instant Holy Spirit, wow.

But there's a connection.

It's an ingredient in many of the stories that there's an act of obedience and surrender.

That's what baptism is.

It's a chance to declare to everyone around you that I'm not just keeping this secret, I'm going public with this.

I follow Jesus.

I've given my life to Him.

Being prayed over by people who have the Holy Spirit, by people who have given their lives to Jesus, have followed him, just the people who have gone before.

That's an ingredient.

Have you ever had someone do that?

If you show, if you go to, I'm not sure if I have this or not, I struggle with this.

Have I really experienced the Holy Spirit?

Have I really received this?

Well, have you gone to people who you know have and said, Hey, will you pray over me?

Will you lay hands on me and pray over me that God would give me his spirit in a way that I've not experienced up to this point?

Again, I'm not saying it's the recipe, do this, do that, do that, boom, but there's ingredients there.

And if you're like me, you want more of God.

And if more is the wrong word, you just want a deeper experience with God.

And you can.

You can experience the Holy Spirit.

Here's why.

You are a spiritual person.

You are created by God with the capacity to know Him.

This isn't just intellectual belief.

There are things that God wants to do in you that don't make sense intellectually, that you would never be able to explain to someone and have them look you in the eye and take it seriously.

But it's just God moving in a way that only God can move.

It's his spirit.

It's not something we can manufacture in the flesh.

And it's for you.

You are meant to experience God.

And the Holy Spirit is our ability to experience God.

And so if you're asking yourself, man, if I had that, well, I would say start by asking these questions.

Well, have you put your full faith in Jesus?

Have you been baptized?

Have you been prayed over?

And if if you've done those things, I'm telling you, you're in a really good spot.

Now, sometimes we have these moments where we say, Yeah, I've I feel like I have done those things.

And now what?

Because I still in this, I haven't had the experience.

And it's very important, I want to make this distinction.

Um, we have to be careful not to chase experiences.

The Holy Spirit is not a feeling, the Holy Spirit is not an emotion.

And there are times in church culture where you can kind of manufacture a feeling that can very easily be confused with the Holy Spirit.

It's actually one of the reasons why I don't yell a lot anymore when I teach.

I used to yell more, if you've been here for a while.

And there's nothing wrong with every once in a while getting fired up and being like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's just that I realized, you know, anywhere else in life when I yell, it's usually a bad thing.

Like, there's very few moments in life where I yell and I'm like, that was the right call.

That was the right call.

So then why would it be the right call when I'm on stage?

And what I've learned, and it's it's a it's a nuance, there might be moments where the Holy Spirit just fills you with a passion that just kind of comes out that way.

But it's also very easy to emotionally manipulate a large group of people because if you start yelling and you yell for five, ten, fifteen seconds, someone will clap just because they're uncomfortable.

And then everyone else claps, and it's like they're like, yay, please stop.

Um but seriously, it can feel like, man, something just happened, and we have a hard time confusing our emotions for the Holy Spirit.

That's why it's very important as a church that we don't try to manufacture, we'll talk about this a little bit more next week, but we don't try to manufacture feelings and emotions and confuse that with the Holy Spirit.

So when I say that you can experience this, you can experience more, I'm not saying that we chase after emotional experiences.

But I am saying that God is a God for us to know and experience.

And I will tell you that if you're in your mind going, I feel like I need more of that, I want more of that, I hunger for more of that, that's a good thing.

And God does not hold out on us.

And so if that's you, if you're saying, look, I've given my life to Jesus, I've been baptized, I've had people pray over me, and I still feel like I'm missing something, let's look what Jesus would say.

This brings us to our next word, it's the word ask.

Luke chapter 11, Jesus says, I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for.

Luke 11 · chapter mention

Keep on seeking and you will find.

Keep on knocking, and the door will be open to you.

For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and to everyone who knocks, the door will be open.

You fathers, if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the spirit to those who ask him?

One of the first lies that we ever believed from our enemy is the lie that our God holds out on us.

When the serpent showed up in the garden, the serpent convinced Adam and Eve that God was holding out on them.

That he was keeping something from them.

They were tempted to eat from the wrong tree.

And the serpent said, No, no, no, no, God's lied to you.

You won't you won't die if you eat this fruit.

You'll actually be like God.

And it planted this doubt in their minds that God has been keeping something from us, and we've got to reach out and take it.

Our God does not hold out on his children.

He gives us what we need, and what we need is the Holy Spirit.

And so Jesus says, Look, if you feel like there's something missing in your faith, if you feel like there's an experience that you've yet to have, if there's this moment that you haven't experienced, you read scripture, you see the Holy Spirit comes upon people, and it's powerful, and it's like an anchor point in their lives so that they can always look back and say, that happened, that was real, I know that my God is in me.

If you haven't had that experience, Jesus would say, Ask, and then ask again, and ask some more, and knock and bang on the door, and keep asking, and keep seeking, and you will get what you ask for because God the Father wants to give you the Holy Spirit.

He wants to.

So ask him for it.

Now, like I said last week, for me, and it's just my personal experience, I got saved when I was in the fourth grade, and saved if you're new to church.

That's just I grew up Southern Baptist, so we got saved.

Like some people, you grow up different denominations, you have different words for it, but we got saved.

We were in trouble.

That's what we I learned that really fast.

We're in a lot of trouble.

We got saved.

So I got saved, and it just meant I put my faith in Jesus.

I was 10 years old.

And I was like the perfect age.

We started coming to church, hadn't really gone to church before that, and I heard these stories about Jesus, and I just thought they were awesome.

And I was like at this age where I was ready to believe stuff.

I didn't even have any doubts.

Like I loved the X-Men and superheroes, and so I start hearing about Jesus, and he walks on water and he heals people, and that's amazing.

And I didn't have any reason to believe that the people telling me this might be lying to me.

So I just received it like a kid.

Like, that's cool.

I followed Jesus.

It was that simple for me.

And then two, three years later, I got baptized.

And that was a cool experience.

And then I had that like middle school, high school, I love Jesus.

I also love other things that sort of are at odds with what Jesus wants me to do.

And I went and hung out over there for a little while, would kind of go back to Jesus, wrestled with a lot of guilt and all this kind of stuff that I had to process.

Ended up in high school, making a major rededication would be the word that is often used, where I kind of said, no, no, no, I am I'm focused on him, I'm gonna do this the right way.

Not that I won't have struggles, but he is my king and I want to live for him.

And then, like most people, I just sort of did my best, tried really hard, had success in certain areas of growth, and had a lot of failure.

But I started hanging out with some people through this church, and like I said last week, that clearly had something I didn't have.

There was just like a grace to them that was different.

It's the only word I can use to describe it.

Like I had known people that talked a lot about the Holy Spirit, but it was it was wacky.

And it was like I say that, I'm not gonna go into all this again from last week, but it was just that they got really excited when they talked about God, but then part of you was like, I feel like I need to go away because I just feel like I'm gonna get cornered, and they, hmm.

It's like it's like a post-when you ever see like a post-apocalyptic movie and the people that smile too much, and you're like, they're cannibals.

Because in a post-apocalyptic movie, those are the only people that smile are the people who eat you, you know?

So they're too friendly, you're like, back away.

I just had experience with people who would talk about the Holy Spirit, but it was kind of this weird smile, like, hey, you have the Holy Spirit.

And I was like, I want to go.

Right?

But all of a sudden I started interacting with people who weren't like that.

I can think of so many people like this.

And uh like Herb is a great example.

Herb on our worship team, Herb's Herb is so excited about Jesus every time you talk to him.

Every day it's like Herb just met Jesus for the first time.

And I work with Herb and I know that.

He's like, man, Jesus, right?

And you're like, yeah, Jesus.

Like that's how you are around Herb.

So it's it was people like that, and I saw this spark.

And honestly, I saw a confidence.

I struggled with confidence in my faith so much because I had let performance and failure and all this stuff create this dynamic where it was more about my performance than what God had done for me.

And I saw a confidence that they had with where they stood with God that I didn't have.

And all of a sudden, this hunger started to develop inside of me.

I want more.

I want more, I want something deeper, something different.

And I started to ask for it, but it was very polite.

Like, hey, hey God, it's me.

First of all, I'm sorry for all the things I did wrong.

But I want that.

And not in the selfish way, like I just want it to have it because it's cool, but like I need this.

And then just nothing, crickets.

You know, and I saw other people that would have these amazing stories.

And I was like, yes, that's incredible.

Why hasn't that happened in my life?

And this went on for years.

But I just asked.

And then one day for me, I was in the student center, which is right over through those doors.

I was by myself, I was working with the students at the time.

Gosh, this was 10, 11, 12 years ago.

And, or maybe longer than that, maybe like 13, 14 years ago.

I don't I don't really remember the date.

But I was by myself, and I was praying for our students, and it was just me alone in a room.

And boom, I had an experience with the Holy Spirit that was undeniable, and it just changed me.

And I grew three inches that day.

And my no.

No, like I walked out of the room, and no one in the world would have like seen a difference.

But I internally, something changed.

And I've had lots of struggles since then and lots of ups and downs.

But that moment for me has proven to be this anchor point in my life that when I'm struggling with doubt, when things aren't going the way that I want them to go, and I even have those thoughts that hit your mind, like, does God really love you?

Are you really connected to Him?

I go, No, that was real and undeniable.

And I will never doubt, never doubt, that my God is in me.

And I'm just trying to tell you that there's no formula per se.

There are ingredients.

Make sure you've got those.

There's no recipe exactly.

But Scripture does give us these moments to look at and say if you desire a deeper relationship with God, if you desire more depth of experience in the Holy Spirit, it's there for you.

It's there for you.

You're meant to experience it.

I just can't tell you when and how it'll happen.

But I can tell you that Jesus would say, Ask.

And ask again and keep on asking, and keep on seeking, and keep on knocking.

And look, if you want people to join you in that, my goodness, our prayer team every single Sunday in the prayer room.

I mean, I promise you this, I know the people on the prayer team.

If you walked in and you said, Hey, would you pray over me to receive the Holy Spirit in a way that I just haven't?

Like, they would like, yes.

It's like they would be like, let's do this.

Like they were, it'd be so exciting.

Because that's an experience they've had, and they would definitely want you to have that experience.

Again, we're not chasing experience, but we are hungry for more of God.

I don't want one-third of God.

I don't want two-thirds of God.

I don't want 98% of Him.

I want to I want all of it.

Why would I want anything less than all of God?

And I'm telling you that as Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, it's a promise for you.

It's a promise for you.

Do you desire more?

Do you yearn for something deeper?

Do you need a different experience than you even had up to this point?

And maybe you're like, no, I'm good, and that's fine.

But if you want more, there's more.

And if you want deeper, it goes deeper.

There's an experience that God has for you.

And it might even be like a date that God already has on the calendar that you just don't know about.

But it's going to happen.

Just desire it and ask for it and watch what God does.

That's it.

Just desire it, ask for it, and watch what God does.

Now, next week we're going to wrap up this conversation on the Holy Spirit.

And we're going to talk about two more words.

And it's going to be the words control and wait.

Control and wait.

And so I'm I'm really excited about that.

I love you guys, and I recognize talking about the Holy Spirit, like every single one of us is going to have a different idea, conception, maybe misconception, background.

It's like every one of us has a different place, but we all have one God.

And he loves us all the same, and he wants all of us to experience him.

And that's the connection that you see.

That's what, that's the thread that runs through all of these stories of the Holy Spirit is a God who generously gives of himself to those who follow him.

So hunger for it, desire more of it, ask for it, and watch what God does.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for this day.

Thank you so much for this amazing group of people.

Lord, I just feel so grateful to be part of this church.

And I ask, Lord, that as we as we leave this place today, that we leave hungry.

You know, some Sundays, Lord, I think you want us to leave filled, and I hope that there is filling that happened today as we opened up your word.

I trust you to do that.

But I think so often, Lord, you want us to leave this experience hungry for more.

Because you are not someone that we're only supposed to connect with once a week.

You're not someone that we're only supposed to think about once a week.

That you have given us your spirit, and you even you even make your spirit more available to us through all kinds of a variety of experiences.

We can have more of you.

And I pray, Lord, that we leave this church as a group of people, this place as a church of people, hungry for more of you, desiring to go deeper with you, and relentless in our asking and our seeking and our knocking until it happens.

Lord, for those of us who've already had those experiences, those anchor points, we just we just pray that you would connect us with people who haven't so that we can encourage them, so that we can maybe share our stories and spur them on, be with them, pray for them.

For those of us, Lord, that are waiting for something to break, Jesus, I just pray that it breaks.

And I trust that you give us exactly what we need when we need it.

That your timing and your way is best, always.

We love you, Jesus.

Thank you for all you do for us.

Thank you for giving us your spirit.

Because it is the greatest gift we could receive.

We pray this in your name, Jesus.

Amen.