The Holy Spirit and You: Living in the Spirit's Fullness

Sermon Transcript

Guys, you don't know how blessed I am to... it's been a little bit of trepidation. I was thinking, Lord, am I leaving too early? But my elders selected my son coming behind me and it's going to be a joy, he's ready to go. If I stayed another five years, I'd just be sitting on top of him and restricting him from what he's to do. But it's like Lord, where to here? And these are the kinds of things that Lord's saying, this is what it's going to be.

So, I'm just thrilled that when Jeff can say, "Hey, can you come for a week?" I don't have to unhitch from all kinds of stuff back there or whatever. I just be where... Don't use the word retirement around me, it is a transition. Transition is defined, is I get to do now what's desired rather than what's required and that's fun. And I'm just thrilled to be walking with this church. I've watched you grow from the time Jeff got out here.

I think I told you last June and it's in my heart that 10,000 word came and that's going to be normal for you guys and it's going to happen sooner than you. So get ready, walk humbly, get there only as fast as you can go on your knees. But now as an overseeing elder, the first thing I want to tell you that you need to know about me is I am a rabid Green Bay Packers fan. Oh, we got a few whose eyes have been opened.

Who is the number one seed this year? Yeah. Okay. Here's my word to you, keep your hands off my quarterback. Raise your own up, don't poach mine. I hear everybody [inaudible 00:01:51] outside, Jeff gave me a picture of Aaron Rogers in a Denver uniform and I'm like, "The Lord rebuke you." By the way, I think it was Peyton's last year when you guys won the super bowl. If you go back... I was on my way to Israel when we played you guys. And I had a place I sit in a lounge, go back and look, I think Aaron threw for about 85 yards that night. The worst night of his career. And you want him? Leave your hands off.

It's a thrill to be here, I want to tell you as a pastor it is always an honor. When another pastor invites you to share in his house, I don't take that lightly. And it was always special to me as I pastored to have people I truly trusted. That's why I knew Jeff had a gift and I trusted him with my people. I'm grateful he trusts me with you, he may be sorry for that once in a while, but I wasn't planning on being here. I would've been here this morning, but I was going to listen to Jeff. And he's in this, which really is a seminal series and we're talking about the Holy Spirit today.

And I just want to say to Brave, I hope you guys will, I know this is Jeff's heart, you'll embrace, when I talk about it, what's the words, but it's like being a word and spirit church. A new Testament, biblical balanced but walking in the power of the spirit without being weird. Somebody once said, if you have all word and no spirit, you dry up but we know of other places where it's all spirit and no word, it's like they blow up.

But if you have word and spirit in the biblically balanced way that God would have, you grow up. And you have a lot of growing to do and God doesn't want you people just to be saved here in Denver, he wants them to be set free. He wants people to be... wants them to be healed, many times just physically but certainly emotionally. He wants them to be set free from their addictions, this kind of thing. And to do that, you have to be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. And I want to talk to you about out that today.

There's an interesting story that comes out of American engine Lord that tells of an engine brave, who found an egg that had been laid by an eagle. And not being able to return the egg to the eagle's nest, he thought the next best thing was to put it in the nest of a prairie chicken and of course the result was predictable. Oblivious to the addition, the hen sat on the eagles egg, along with her own eggs and by and by, the day came when the little eaglet was hatched alongside the prairie chickens.

The story continues, all this life, the eagle thinking he was a prairie chicken, did what prairie chickens do. He scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. He collected and cackled and he flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more than a few feet off the ground after all that's how prairie chickens were supposed to fly. Years passed and the eagle grew a very old and one day he saw a magnificent bird, far above him in the cloudless sky, hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents. It's soared with scarcely a beat of his strong golden wings.

Eagle commented to his neighbor "What a beautiful bird. What is it?" The neighbor clucked, "That's an eagle. The chief of birds." But don't give it a second thought. You could never be like him. So the eagle never gave it another thought and it died thinking it was a prairie chicken. It died thinking it was a prairie chicken when the whole time it was an eagle. Doesn't it speak to the desire of the human heart a little bit? Born to soar in the heavens as chief among eagles.

This eagle settled all its life for the scratching it out in the dust existence from a prairie chicken. You see, we make a mistake to assume that these types of tragedies are just the stuff of folklore. It's like where does folklore arise from? It's because they're speaking the human condition at times. See similar tragedies are played out every day in the human arena. People born to soar with the eagles, certainly, believers born to soar in the supernatural of God and scratching around like prairie chickens.

And thinking, well, that's... We actually develop theologies to say, well, that's what we're supposed to do. Does it speak to the desire of your heart today a little bit? To both discover and be released into all you were created to be and at the same time don't you sense sometimes that as a Christian somehow, maybe I'm living far beneath my privilege? Don't you sense at times a hunger in your heart to know so much more of what God intends for you? Could it be that we were meant to fly and yet we've settled for scratching it out in the dirt instead?

Could it be that we were meant to follow Christ with the same supernatural power and boldness that characterized the early church but we've settled for something other than our birthright. We look at Jesus, the chief of eagles, and he bids us, go in my name and do my work in my power. What did he say? As the father has sent me, so I am sending you. Did the father send him with a little access to power? Is he sending us out with our arms tied behind our back?

As the father has sent me, I'm sending you and the enemy speaks his lie. Don't give it another thought. You could never be like him. That was for them back there, it's not for you. You're just a prairie chicken. And we come into agreement with that. Is there any wonder that we settle? I think of this and sometimes we don't even discover or release the gifts that are actually within us.

I think if a young girl, always dreamed of singing, God gave her a beautiful voice and she won the part in her fifth grade year for the lead part in the play. And she was so excited when she come home to tell her mom and dad. And her mom wanted her audition a little bit in front of her dad and said, "Sing a little bit of that part that you're going to have at school." And she did and when she was done, her dad looked at her said, "You better find something else to do." He might have been kidding who knows, but you know how that goes down in the heart of a fifth grader.

So, she locked her song up with inside her. I'm just a prairie chicken who was I to think that I could sing? And years later she's in church like this, you get singing, you lose yourself a little bit in this worship, you better know the people in front of you can hear you. It's okay if you're making a joyful noise but in this case, somebody in front heard her and said, "Who the heck is that? What a voice?"

And after church that day went to her and said, "I'm really, really sorry, but while we were worshiping today, I heard you singing, I'm like, holy cow, you have an amazing voice." He becomes all apologetic, "Oh, I'm so sorry, I should have been singing like that. I really don't have a very good voice. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, that I bothered you." And he is going, "What are you talking about? You have an amazing voice. I was like, that person should be up there on the stage. Should be singing." She said, "No, no, no, no, really. I really don't have good voice."

She lived her life with a song locked up in her because she believed a lie about what she actually had. Prairie chicken instead of an eagle. That's what we do. And it's the Holy Spirit who was deposited in your life at the moment, you came to Jesus Christ to say, I am here to help you soar and to do what you could not do in and of yourself. He is not about limiting you in any way. He's about releasing you.

Friends, everywhere you look in the New Testament, you get the exhilarating idea that Christ meant for us to soar in the supernatural power of the spirit as we witness and work for him. And yet had almost everywhere I look today, we appear to be more like prairie chickens, scratching it out in the dust. And we either have to conclude that we're missing something and therefore need to make an all out effort to discover what it is we're missing or we must conclude that Jesus didn't really mean what he said when he gave us this.

I find it being probably one of the most astonishing promises in the scripture and it's found in John 14:12, where he said, and always love this when you read Jesus, he said, now I tell you the truth. What is it, is he going to lie to me? Why does he have to say, I tell you the truth. That's his way of underlining it. I'm not joking, I mean this. I tell you the truth. Anyone, did he really say that? Anyone who has faith me? No, no, no. I only mean this for the first 12 that I chose, this isn't for you.

I only mean this for the apostles that I... this isn't for. That's not what he said. Anyone who has faith in me, are you an anyone who has faith in him? Look what he said, anyone who has faith in me will do what I've been doing. And he was speaking about his powerful works. And then he gave me the mind blower and they will do even greater things. I'm like, God, if I could just get a little bit of what you did. I don't know about the greater, I'm not even sure. I know what that means.

We'll do even greater things than these because I'm going to the father and his going to the father was all about when I go to the father, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, who is a person, we don't talk about it as an it or a force or a wind, he's a person. And when he comes and lives in your life, he will be in you and to you what it is as if I were walking alongside you, since I won't be here in the flesh anymore. Can you imagine Jesus, it is even better for me to go away because this way I can send him.

Instead of me being limited to space and time, he can be in each one of you and I will be... And what Jesus said when he comes it's me coming. That's exactly what the word of God says. Then amazingly, the whole record of the book of Acts Chronicles, working in the Holy Spirit, through followers of Jesus, who simply allowed themselves to be filled with the Holy Spirit and consequently found themselves soaring with the eagles in supernatural power and proclamation, rather than pecking around with the chickens in their own natural strength. The secret, filling of the Spirit.

Walking in the what we call the fullness of the spirit. The key to all that God wants to accomplish in and through your life, the key to all that God wants to accomplish in and through his church and this church. The key to it all is the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. The church simply cannot be the church and do what the church was designed to do without the Holy Spirit abiding within and empowering it.

Now, if we downgrade the place and the role of the Holy Spirit, worse yet, if we ignore him or grieve him or quench him, we will end up with churches playing church, this guy's scratching out their programs, playing small, experiencing little real life change at all, being ignored by a world that concludes that the church is nothing more than a waste of time, rather than soaring in the supernatural power of God, seeing life transformed by that power on a regular basis and a watching world taking note and saying, what's that all about? How are those prairie chickens doing that?

Fine if they call us that, but I'll tell you what, and I'm not talking about getting weird, we're talking about that in a minute. I'm talking about a biblically balanced but walking in the power of the Holy Spirit, such that people don't just get saved, but they get set free. And the stories going out and you know what happens out there? You just need to know all around Denver, the thousands and thousands and thousands there are to reach and that God has ordained for you to reach, you base your life in a lie, that house of cards will fall.

And when the house of cards falls, the first question that comes, is there anything that can be done about my life? Sadly, for a lot of churches? Well, And God wants to have people walking in boldness and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and you absolutely, God can only save you. He'll set you free. That's what he wants to do through Brave Church. The Christian life can only be lived as God meant to be lived in the power of the Holy Spirit. Listen, vows and promises alone, no matter how sincere can never overcome the power of the world, the flesh and the devil.

Jim Cymbala shares in his book, Fresh Power, how many people today casually dismiss the Bible's clear to the Holy Spirit's power and working with no verses to support their opinion. There are simply no New Testament verses that tell us to dismiss the precedent of the Holy Spirit's activity in the book of Acts, nothing in the writing of Paul or Peter or John or Jude says, oh, by the way, what the spirit accomplished through simple untrained men and women in the early church can never happen again, just for get it and try your best to reproduce that work with eloquent sermons and clever human programs. They were eagles, but not you guys, you're Prairie chickens.

Martin Lloyd Jones, well-known, powerful British preacher of the 20th century wrote the scriptures never anywhere say that these things were only temporary. Never. You won't find it. Just theology called cessationism which means that when the apostles died, the gifts ceased. They were eagles, we're prairie chickens. You won't find that, you give me chapter in verse. He says there is no such statement anywhere to hold such a view as simply to quench the spirit. And maybe that's what we've been doing in a lot of our churches.

I remember how I was a young teenager, I loved my church, we taught the word of God but I was awakened to the fact, now, listen, from the time I was a kid, I'd read the Bible stories, go to Sunday school and I believe my God could do what that Bible said he did. No problem. A whales swallow Jonah, okay. Spit him up, okay. Simple as that, believe it happened. Daniel in lions den. You get in the New Testament, Jesus healing, delivering people from demons on and on goes.

Yep and yet as I was growing into my teen years and saying, does this stuff still happen today? I was almost discouraged from even asking the question. And yet God was showing me behind the scenes, he called me into ministry through an audible call. I didn't know that God still spoke. I heard his voice, one of the holiest moment of my life, that's why I'm still preaching today. I heard his voice and he said, you sit on the outside of the pew today because at the end of the service, there's going to be an altar call. We didn't do altar calls in our church. I'm sitting there going there better be an altar call, or I'm just playing nuts.

My pastor's still alive, 94 years old, I've talked to him about it many, many, many times. He said, Cal, I never planned an altar call. That day he got the end of the service when he was talking about yield your life fully to what God wants you to do. I'm a 17-year old high school student. Planning, Lord, you know what? I would go into the ministry if you called me. I'm planning to be a basketball coach and teach school and this type of thing. But I have a burning desire to preach the gospel but that's got to be you calling me. I don't know. I'm going to cut old school, sit on the outside of the pew and today you're going to surrender yourself to preaching the gospel.

Gets to the end, he said, I know God's spoken to some people today and I'm going to have the choir sing and I want you to come forward if God's spoken to you and yield to whatever he's asking you. Trajectory of my life to this day was planted there through my hearing the call of God. I love to... I played basketball, did all right in my day. No, we didn't have peach baskets, it was real bad basketball that type of thing. But I loved it because I could jump well and sprained my arch couldn't jump. And I got a heavy tape on all of that. And I'm laying in my bed like 15, 16 years old, "God, please release me. I want to be able to jump. I want to be able to play. You healed people in the New Testament. You can do that."

And the next day I'm getting out of bed, I step down because I know it's just going to... And I don't have no pain and I push on it and I push on it. I started playing ball without any tape and my arch was good. And a little 15, 16-year old find out, I think Jesus does that stuff. I didn't tell too many people about it, because they're going to think I'm crazy even though they're believers. I'll tell you one more, just so you can know how God is working in my life when I'm asking the question, does he do this stuff? Or is that just for them? Because it just sounds boring if it's not for us?

Ruined my back in my senior year of high school, one of my best friends [inaudible 00:21:27], he was like a state level pole vaulter. And we had no other pole vaulters, a couple of freshmen that could go about seven feet. Well, I could mess with the pole. I didn't know how to pull vault, but I get 10 feet at least, whatever. So I'm just messing around with it and just [janked 00:21:41] my back one time I had to sit down for over three weeks, just excruciating pain couldn't run. When I came him back and began to run, it took about another week or two and it was all stirred up again. I was doing my best just to get through.

I'm at one of the biggest events, one of the last events in my senior year, in my high school career and I was going to be running like four events and we got there and I walk out to the track, I begin to warm up and I'm in excruciating pain. I cannot go. And I walk back to the bus disappointed as I've ever been and I'm in the back of the bus, just crying because I'm in pain and I'm in disappointment. And we just learned a verse at church, that verse that day became my life verse. It actually is on the medal that I won that day and it's on the back of the card that was on my track jersey that day.

I didn't realize that I had written it on that card in my high school handwriting. In the back, I had learned this verse the week before, Isaiah 41:10. So do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God, I will strengthen you and help you and I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. And all I know is I'm sitting in the back of the bus, crying to God saying, I want to run today, would you let me run? And then I said, and this is how you prayed the word of God, Lord, you said. Dads, does works? If you said it and your kids are, dad you said. Lord, you said that you would strengthen me and you would help me and you would uphold me and I want to run today.

I heard in my spirit, not all that I heard, when it comes time to run today, you'll run. And I'm like, what does that mean? I want to tell you, I was in this relay at that point and I was going to be running the 800 leg and I did not warm up, I didn't test it, I didn't know, I said, I'll be an idiot if I take that baton and I can't go, but I'm going to test what I believe the Lord told me. Came time and when that baton was put in my hand, I ran the fastest 800 of my high school career without pain. And when the race was over, I had no pain. Come on.

Now I want to ask you, why is that weird? That's what Jesus did all the time, we make it weird. And so, I'm asking, does God still do this? And I'm being reminded almost everywhere I turn by preachers and teachers of the word, no, now we have the word of God and we don't need and shouldn't expect God to work through the mighty science and wonders of the Holy Spirit. Not only that but it became clear to me as well that many evangelical churches were walking around with, it was a term I coined, I think, I don't know that I read it anywhere, I call it charisphobia. It's the fear of the charismatic. Now we understand why.

Listen, those of you who maybe have a fear of the charismatic in here, charismatic movement went through our town in the late 70s and here's the theology of the charismatic movement. You have the Holy Spirit if you speak in tongues, if you don't, you don't have the Holy Spirit. That's unbiblical, can I tell you that? That's not what we're talking about here. And what happened in our town is happened in a lot of places when you were made to feel like a second class citizen because you didn't speak in tongues, you started becoming resistant to those crazy charismatics.

Do you know if you're a follower of Jesus biblically, somebody hijacked that term, you are charismatic. It's the word for the gift not only of salvation, charismata, but the gift of the Holy Spirit who has been planted in your life, charismata, who then releases gifts in your life, charismata. If you're a believer, you're charismatic. Get overthinking that that means I've got to speak in tongue and be weird. And I'm not calling tongues speakers naturally weird, not all of them are. But you're laughing because you've seen the extreme, so here's what happens.

You get those who are wounded by that, I don't want nothing to do with that, I don't want to look weird like that and all of a sudden I might be quenching resisting the Holy Spirit because it has to look like that. That's called charisphobia and you know what's producing it on the other side? Charismania. People who are not grounded in the word, but just all about, oh, look at this, look at that. The disciples weren't doing that. They were engaged in mission and when they needed the power of God, that was there to do what they needed to do. They didn't go, oh man, let's watch for gold dust coming down out of the ceiling today. What? It's not what we're talking about.

We want to be a biblically balanced word and spirit church. So quoting Cymbala again, he talks about the churches that have denied the gifts of the spirit, the charismata because they're fearful of anything charismatic. He talks about churches like that that can be like cemeteries. He said on the other hand, on the other spectrum our churches that are more like insane asylums. He said, we have some horrendous abuses going on in the name of the spirit of God. Bizarre things that are the outside New Testament teaching me to actually contradict it. When people bark like dogs laugh like hyenas, roar like lions, chirp like birds in the spirit, someone needs to lift a voice and say, where is that found in the Bible please?

And how does it edify the congregation, which is the first principle, the New Testament lays down for any manifestation of the Spirit. It must be for the common good and the entire church must be edified. So here's what happens. So we want to live between those two extremes because if I deny on this end or if I get crazy on this end people are fearful, I might go off the deep end. But if I deny on this end, I've lived the rest of my life in the shallow end. How about we be a church that shows people biblically. We could walk right here and be word spirit.

I recall when we talk about abuses, I recall one name a claimant specialist who is defending his doctrine that it's never God's will for any believer to be sick. Now guys, I've been healed, I've seen many healings, I believe in God's power to heal the sick and I believe every church ought to be walking in God's power to heal the sick. But you better not come up with a doctrine that you can't find in the scriptures that says on this earth, God is always going to heal everybody.

We are walking between the already and the not yet and so trust me, even those people that try to say, it's always God's will for everybody to be healed. If they've been pastoring your church I'll guarantee you they've done as many funerals as I have. And they better admit it because I've prayed in faith believing for people and sometimes people don't get healed. Here's the first thing, the worst thing that could happen to a person is not to go to heaven. But when I say, when somebody doesn't get healed is not a bad thing that they want to heaven, is it?

Secondly, we just have to embrace mystery. I believe I's God's will to heal. I believe it's the first fruits of the resurrection showing us that the one who raised people from the dead has the power to raise people from the dead now, you know this type of thing? But I don't get the full meal deal until I get home. My body's breaking down, I can't jump like I used to when I was 15. Why? Bodies wear it out? But I'm going to trust Jesus for all the power and strength that this nearly 63-year old needs right now to keep on doing what he's called me to do.

His power in my weakness, doing things that I could never do in my own strength, that's what word and spirit is all about. I was years ago, again, talk about craziness, there was some North American evangelists in Argentina preaching that if you really want to have a childlike attitude toward the things of God, you evidence the behavior of children. And it was like how? By drooling in the spirit. I remember hearing that and say, goodnight, I drool all night long sometimes. Honey, did you see that last night? I must have really had an encounter with the Holy Spirit. It's crazy.

And what it does, is it causes good people in the body of Christ to say, I want nothing to do with that and then we throw the baby out with the bath water. Let's get the baby back in. Okay? So this is Paul's word to us, God knows we can't do, we can't be what we could otherwise be if we're not walking in the fullness of Holy Spirit and that's his will for every follower of Jesus. Ephesians 5:18, do not get drunk on wine which leads to the debauchery instead be filled with the Spirit. It's a command. The exact tense, which means allow yourself to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.

And from this command, I wanted to extract a number of important principles very quickly. Principle number one, is just understand this, the filling of the spirit is distinct from just the original reception of the spirit. Every one of us, when we came to Jesus, we received the spirit. I came to Jesus when I was nine, I received the spirit then, that doesn't mean I've been walking in fullness since then. I've had to learn how to release more of what has been there.

So, look at the verse there, Ephesians 1:13-14, and you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, that's what we're doing. Preach the gospel, so people can come to Christ, that's the gospel of your salvation. But look at this, having believed. The moment you believed, what happened? You were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our attention until the redemption of those who are God's possession.

So there's the original reception of the spirit apart from which we do not belong to Christ. Romans 8:9 says, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. That does not say if anyone does not speak in tongues they do not have the Spirit of Christ. No, if you came to Jesus, the Spirit of God is in you. Thank him for that, praising for that. Say, Lord, thank you that your Holy Spirit came in me at the moment that I believed. And if you're not a believer today, I want to tell you, you are living far beneath your privilege. I don't care what's going on in your life right now, you are scratching it out like a prairie chicken. And God wants to show you supernatural stuff through his spirit.

And you don't have to be all afraid that I'm going to get weird if I become a Christian. I always like to say, just remove a couple of those letters, change them around and weird becomes wired. I want to be wired it the right way, so that his power can flow through me and that doesn't make you weird. I like to use this illustration, everybody know what this thing is? It's my iPhone. Everybody know what that is on the back, a big G stands for God's team.

Anyway, some of you, if I handed this to you because of your working knowledge of what's available through this thing, you can run a business off your phone. You could create a Hollywood movie off your phone. You can buy, you can sell, you because you are making use of what you have access to. Me, I call people and I text people. I guarantee you, I'm doing 10% of what this thing can do. Here's what I want you to understand, when you got the Holy Spirit, when you said yes to Jesus, you got the whole iPhone.

I will guarantee you for all of us, there's a lot of apps we're not using but it's not because well, somebody else has that iPhone that I don't have those kind of apps, I don't have that. No, no, no, no. See what I'm saying, we talk about the fullness of Holy Spirit and being released in... It's not getting something you don't have, it's being released into what's already present but what you haven't been making use of. Do you see?

So when we talk about it being awaken, when we talk about being filled, we talk about the fullness or Holy Spirit. It's not like I'm waiting for something that I don't have is God saying, okay, I want to take you in a new level of something that's been present all along. That's the filling, Lord fill me. And the Bible lets us know that the people who are filled at Pentecost had to be filled again, Acts 34:31, they were filled again. Acts 13:52, they were filled again, [inaudible 00:35:29] filled with the Holy Spirit, this happened. A little later on filled with the Holy Spirit.

Somebody said, why do we have to be filled over and over again? The answer is because we leak. I got up this morning, I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. I need his strength in my weakness. So that filling understand is distinct from just reception, the reception makes the filling possible. But it's just not automatic, you have to, lord... If you can get along without his power, then fine. I can't. Here's number two, the filling of the spirit will equip you to do and be what you otherwise could not do and be.

This is why Jesus taught his disciples that they needed to wait until his ascension and the subsequent put ring out of the Holy Spirit because otherwise they would be going out in the world with correct doctrine, but no power from above. Think of that. The people who walk with Jesus for three years had the best training of anybody. They'd been with him, they saw him die on the cross. They saw him resurrected, by the way and they're still hiding in a room, fearful of the authorities.

What changed them? How did they become so courageous, take my head off if you want but I got to preach the truth. You know where that came from? It was a filling of the Holy Spirit. It's an interesting, we think today, well man, just get enough theological education and go out and start preaching and teaching and this type of thing. In a lot of our churches, that's going on and nothing's happening.

It's not that people don't have the truth, it's that we need the Holy Spirit to set fire on that truth. See, Acts 1:8, we will receive power, when the Jesus said you'll power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and what was the power for? So you're going to swing from the chandelier at church and show everybody how filled we are. No, you will be my witnesses. Witness means word and deed. You'll do things, you'll say what I want you to say. You'll do the things I want you to do.

And he said in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, other... most parts of the... Guess what? Brave, it's going to be just like this, throw a storm in the water, the ripple effect that's what's happening. God's doing it here. It's going to be beyond you, beyond you, beyond you, beyond you, because that's God's desire and for you to do and everything he wants you to do and be you got to say, Lord Jesus, just come film me again, film me again, fill me... I need your power, power in what we do.

Here's principle number three, the filling of spirit will set you free from the restraints and complexes of insufficient talent, intelligence or upbringing. So when you sit there and say, well, I'm just a prairie chicken I could never do that and yet you have this incredible desire in your heart because you know the call of God, you know something that you're supposed to be stepping into and yet you're stepping back, stepping back, stepping back, I could never do that. God wants to set you free. And what sets you free is the filling of the Holy Spirit.

And all of a sudden he starts doing things through you that you're going well, I know it's not me because I was the one that was... You see what I'm saying? You're cooperating with him but it's Holy Spirit now that's anointing your gifts and allowing you to do what you otherwise wouldn't have been doing. Now I have to say this, the Holy Spirit give gifts you but he doesn't anoint you in areas of your ungiftedness. You understand? He an anoints me in the areas of my giftedness so I can do and be what God's called me to do and be.

So I say this, if I didn't play the piano before I had the anointing of the spirit because I don't know how, just the Holy Spirit filling me necessarily allow me to play the piano. You don't want to hear me play the piano, I guarantee you. That's not what he gifted me to do and be. See, but he will release me and some of you need to be set free from the lies you've believed about who you are and what he can do through you and it'll be the filling of the Holy Spirit that begins to heal you.

And it just becomes a normal thing and it's not weird. I've had time with even out here doing some of the training, I just had time with at least two young ladies that are walking in freedom right now through just a few moments of knowing how because I have access to lead them into a place of freedom. I didn't have to dance around, I didn't have to get weird to make it happen. I just had to call on the Holy Spirit to come and do it and I know how to access that because he's taught me and that people get free. Isn't that awesome? Isn't that what we want to be?

He fills you to set you free from the restraints and complexes of insufficient talent, intelligence or upbringing. Now that said, I want to close with that. The question often comes up when we speak about the filling fullness of the spirit, is there anything I can do to secure this filling for myself? And I'm always hesitant to try to give like, here's the five buttons you push, type of thing. It's not that kind of thing. It's like, no, I create a context for fullness and then trust God to fill me. So what is that context?

Here's number one, I would say to you, some of you need to go inside and this needs to be your number one today. Surrender any grieving, quenching or limiting attitudes or actions in your life. Surrender them to Jesus. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about with charisphobia. You've stepped back from the Holy Spirit because you thought it meant you had to do that and that's not come from God. It's a lie of the enemy that's caused you to step back and you may be grieving if it's grieving, you can grieve him through sin. Holy Spirit, I won't to grieve you. You can quench him because you can only work this way and not this way in my life.

Hindering, 2005 in a hotel room in Atlanta, Georgia, through a book that tore me open. I had to get on my knees weeping. We had a lot of good things happen, people come to Jesus, people were getting freed, very few people getting healed any of that that because we hadn't given the Holy Spirit permission to do that mostly because of a leader. And I was drying up even though I was in the middle of a lot of people coming to Jesus.

On my knees and tears, I repented and said, Lord, I repent, Holy Spirit, I repent of quenching you, of grieving you of hindering you. Please have full access and wherever you want to lead our church, I take my hands off because I want that New Testament balance of the word and spirit. 2006, study break again, near the end, I couldn't go on and the Lord downloaded, renewed me, has taken my church in a whole nother trajectory where now we've seen more people get saved, more people get baptized but not just that, thousands of people who have been set free, hundreds if not thousands who are free of chains, free of bondage, just it looks a whole lot more like what Jesus did than what I used to do.

I had to surrender my grieving, my quenching. How many of you know the Holy Spirit loves you? He's good, he's not here to make you look like an idiot. Two, acknowledge your need for his fullness, if you don't know your need you don't acknowledge it. I just have had to live in that place all the time. Lord, I need you to fill me again today. Three, ask for his fullness. Ask, Lord come and fill me. God responds to thirst of us you will generally have about as much activity, the Holy Spirit in your life as you are thirsty for.

I love the passage in Luke 11, where Jesus was teaching on our need for persistence and prayer. He said, ask, seek, knock, and literally keep on asking, seeking, knocking. And then look how he applied this teaching in Luke 11:13, if you then though you are evil know how to give gift to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. And I believe this in the context that makes it clear that Jesus is teaching about the ongoing activity and fullness of the spirit in our lives as we sense our clear need for such. Ask for his fullness.

Number four, obey, whatever God shows you to do. Guys, unbelief and disobedience will cause you to leak. You cannot remain full while there's ongoing sin in your life while you're living in disobedience. Notice what Peter said in Acts 5:32, we are witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him. Is there any place in your life where you're unwilling to obey the Lord?

The spirit can only fill, think of your house, your heart is like a house with all kind of rooms. The spirit can only fill those rooms that you open to him. And if you want fullness, you open the windows of your heart. You invite him to blow through and you yield to him, anything he wants to deal with in your life. And then here's a really critical one, by faith, believe that you have received what you ask of God and act on it.

Now I said by faith, here is the misnomer, well, I'm really filled with the spirit, I don't know if I am because I didn't feel the goosebumps. I don't know if I am, because I didn't start speaking in tongues. See, we start looking for a filling, we start looking for an experience and God says, no, no, no, no, you ask me and I told you if you asked me anything, according to my will. Is it his will for you to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and release what he's placed in you? You ask me and I will do it.

Here's our problem, we sit around waiting to see whether he did rather than the acting upon the fact that we ask him. I have never seen a person healed yet nor have I known ahead of time that they were going to be. What I sense my spirit that I'm supposed to stand up, lay hands and pray over this person. I can be filled with the spirit if I don't step out and act nothing's going to happen. I can also be filled with the spirit and have the same little whispers because the enemy is there messing with you. What if you prayed and nothing happens. What if you didn't really hear from God? Whatever yours might be.

Listen, one pastor said wherever you see the filling of the spirit, you can just put in there, courage, the filling with courage. And it's really true because that's the fruit of the holy of being filled of the spirit. You step out to do what God's calling you to do in the boldness and the courage and the Holy Spirit. And then you know what happens? Holy cow, do you mean it? That looked like Jesus. That looked like something in the New Testament happened there. Amen. Brave, you hungry for that? I want you to bow your heads and your hearts for prayer right now.

I'm going to just do this the way I did in the first service and that is, I don't... Guys, I just believe there's a place, turning points in our life and if this just ministered to you in a way that you're going Cal, that word was exactly for me today. I'm just going to ask you to stand where you are right now. Just where your head's bow, nobody looking around and I'm not, again, there's no judgment on people that don't feel don't just stand because somebody else is standing. You just stand because you're saying, you know what? You're speaking to that kind of hunger in my heart. I just want to walk in New Testament power. I want to be everything that Jesus designed me to be. Man, I want to see the fresh release of the Holy Spirit in my life.

Those of you are standing, just raise your hand to heaven, make this your vow and pray this in your heart as I pray it with you. Father God, I give myself completely to you. Forgive me where I have limited you through my unbelief or maybe my need to carefully control my image or my unhealthy fear of how you might work in my life. I acknowledge today, my desperate need of you. I now ask that you, Lord Jesus, the giver of the spirit to fill me to overflowing with the fullness of your spirit. I now surrender my preconceived notions of how you must or must not work in my life. I want your fullness Holy Spirit, and I acknowledge my need for more of your power in my life.

I now trust you for the courage and power to do and be what you have designed me to do and be. And I open my heart to release through your spirit all that you have already planted within me. Thank you that you'll teach me in Jesus name. Amen. All of you give the Lord a hand. And Jeff again, I brought along a daily prayer for fullness. I want somebody to just make this your prayer for a while. Where can they pick that up? QR code on the back. Okay. There's a prayer, just pray it, pray it, pray it, pray it, pray it until it just becomes a second nature. Okay. Let's enjoy it another worship song him as we're leaving today.