Pastor Jeff on the Radio

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Ministries, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub. On today's program, Pastor Jeff continues the message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit" from the series Mission Critical, and explains why the Holy Spirit is not a force, but a person, how his primary ministry is to magnify Jesus, and why God still wants to work through his church today.

Our mission is to challenge you to respond courageously to God's word and live fully for Jesus Christ. As we prepare our hearts for Easter, we're focusing on what it means to be made new in Christ and sent on mission for him. To grow deeper each week, visit pastorjeff.com and sign up for weekly devotional emails delivered straight to your inbox. Now, here's today's message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Second Corinthians 3:17 says, "For where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, there is freedom." It means this: if you want to experience peace, you can experience peace in this world. Some Christians have believed the lie of the enemy and they say this: "I've struggled with this sin for years ever since I've become a Christian, and I guess that's just my lot in life. One day when I get to heaven, I know I'll never struggle with that anymore. Praise God." And you're partially right. When you get to heaven, you will not struggle with sin anymore.

But I'm here to tell you on the authority of God's word, you don't have to struggle with it now. That the Holy Spirit wants you to magnify the resurrected Christ. Here's the number one ministry of the Holy Spirit, regardless of your background, tradition, or how you read the Bible: the Holy Spirit's ministry is to magnify Jesus. That's all he wants to do. He wants to make Jesus look good. And guess what? Because he indwells you now, he wants you to make Jesus look good. That's his ministry in your life.

And by the way, you can experience freedom, joy, hope, and peace in the Lord, not because of who you are and what you're doing, but because of the fact that the Holy Spirit wants you to experience the fullness of Jesus Christ. Isn't that good news today? He wants you to be controlled by him. He wants to know that you are empowered by him. He wants you to know that you can experience the fullness of him. And I meet Christians that are excited about their salvation, but are bored with their walk. They think to themselves, "I know one day when I get to heaven it's going to be good, but man, is it really hard to be a Christian here?"

Being a Christian can be hard. It can be challenging. But I can tell you this: you can also live that hard, challenging Christian life with a deep-seated peace and joy and freedom in your heart. See, people make a lot of weird statements in church sometimes when it comes to demonic activity in their lives, and they'll say things like this: "A Christian can't be possessed by a demon." And I would agree, because if you have the Holy Spirit inside of you, there's no room for a demon to come inside of you. I agree with that.

But you can be oppressed by a demon. You can be totally oppressed. And they'll make statements like this: "Well, I'm a Christian, I can't be possessed by a demon, I can only be oppressed." I'm like, "Okay, that's still bad. Why do you want that?" I mean, God wants you to live free, and God wants you to have hope, and God wants you to have joy, and God wants you to be able to put away your sin and experience the fullness of the person of Jesus Christ. And that's one of the ministries of the Spirit. That's why he's actively at work in this world.

Now, the Bible says that the Holy Spirit comes to convict of sin, righteousness, and judgment. The Holy Spirit is active in this world, even among non-believers. He's convicting non-believers of sin, he's convicting them that Jesus is righteous, and he's convicting them of a future judgment. It's why even those of you who now are Christians will remember what it was like when you sinned before you became a Christian and you felt conviction in your heart.

Meaning, even as a little kid, a five-year-old whose parents say, "Don't cross the street," and that kid goes scooting across the street, there's something that goes off in their heart like, "You just did what you shouldn't have done." Well, where did that come from? That's the Holy Spirit convicting them. Why is it that many unbelievers who are hardened atheists still believe in their heart, "Yeah, I hope I don't have to answer for this. There's judgment coming." Why was it when I was an unbeliever, I always hoped I died on a good day?

The ministry of the Holy Spirit is outside of us until we become a believer. He's always actively at work in this world. But when we become a believer, his ministry starts working from the inside out. He regenerates us. He baptizes us into the family of God. He does work inside of us. He begins to seal us and indwell us, and then he wants to fill us. You say, "Well, what's the filling look like?" We'll talk about it here at the end, but the filling of the Spirit is basically when you tell the Holy Spirit you can have every part of my life. I want all of you.

I remember praying a bold prayer right after I finished playing football in college, and it went something like this at a camp that I was at where I was feeling prompted by the Lord to go into full-time ministry. And I remember I was on the 11th floor of a hotel in Indianapolis and I knelt down by the toilet and prayed because my roommate was giving me so much grief. I went into the bathroom because I knew he wouldn't follow me in there, and I prayed this bold prayer. I said, "Lord, I will do anything you want with my life, except for full-time ministry. Amen."

And that was my prayer. And it worked for about six months, but I was feeling worse and worse. And the better I did at work, the worse I felt. And I remember it was a Monday and I went to the Methodist church I grew up in and nobody was there. And I sat right down here in the front row, and I was recalling things in my life of all that the Lord was showing me. I remember being a little kid at a Lutheran grade school at age five, watching these people come in from the mission field eating iguana and showing overhead presentations about what it was like to live in New Guinea.

And I remember even as a five-year-old thinking to myself, "Don't pray too hard or you'll end up in New Guinea." But in that moment, for whatever reason, as God brought it to my mind because I thought that was the worst thing anybody could ever do, I remember telling the Lord, "I don't care what you want me to do. I am done fighting you. Whatever you want me to do for the rest of my life, I am completely yours. And if you want me to get on a plane today and never say goodbye to my family and fly to New Guinea for the rest of my life, I'm going."

And in that moment, I felt a presence like I've never felt in my life, that lingered for some time. And when that presence left, I thought to myself, "I want that presence again." That was the filling of the Spirit. I gave my testimony before that happened to me, but when I gave my testimony after that happened to me, I saw greater results. Was that the last time God's ever come upon me and done that? No. Because he's with me forever. We live in a dispensation when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, he's with you forever.

In the Old Testament, that wasn't the case. You'll read through the Old Testament, you'll see the Spirit come upon people and leave people. It's why when David sinned with Bathsheba, he said in Psalm 51, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence and do not take your Holy Spirit from me," because David knew in the Old Testament he wasn't being indwelt by the Spirit, and if he wasn't obedient, the Spirit was going to leave.

I got good news for you: "Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you," says the Lord. The Spirit comes and remains with you forever. Isn't that good news? We live in the greatest dispensation in the world. The Holy Spirit wants you to personally experience more of his peace because you're God's child. Secondly is this: the Holy Spirit wants you to personally experience more of God's presence. He wants you to experience more of his presence because you're Christ's ambassador.

We talked about this verse a couple weeks ago in Second Corinthians chapter 5, but I just want to read you one of the verses. Second Corinthians chapter 5, verse 20, it says, "Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Now let me ask you a question. Does God need us to save people? Can God save people without us? But what is his plan? God can save anybody without us. He doesn't need us, but he chooses to use us. He says, "You're my ambassador to get my work done."

Can God feed the poor without us? Yes. But what does he often choose to do? Use us and our resources and our time and our energy to do it. God is constantly wanting to use his people, and he wants his presence to show up in and through you. We don't just gather on Sunday morning because if we gather a lot of people, then the Holy Spirit shows up. The Holy Spirit is resident inside every single believer.

Sometimes falsely we quote Matthew 18 that says, "Where there are two or three gathered in my name, there I am." And that's really a verse on church discipline, that God is agreeing with leadership in the church. The fact is, if you're a believer, wherever you go, there God is. You go to work tomorrow, guess who's going with you? The Lord. You go to school tomorrow, guess who's going with you? The Lord. You're in a marriage, guess who's going with you? The Lord.

You go out on a date, guess who's going with you? The Lord. I mean, everywhere you go, there God goes. Why? Because you're indwelt by the Spirit and you're his ambassador, which means this: everything the Spirit wanted to do through Jesus, he now wants to do through you. He wants to make Jesus look good through you. He wants you to experience more of his presence, not just his peace, but his presence, so that you're not asking the question, "God, where are you? How come you're not around?" "I'm here. I'm in you. I want to come through you. I want to do more than you ever ask or could think."

It's interesting in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 10, it says this: "For we are his workmanship." Who's we? It's us. "We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which he prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." So what's God's purpose? God saved you not just so he gets you to heaven; God saved you so he could do great things in and through you. Did you know that? And when we get to Ephesians 3:20, we love to quote Ephesians 3:20. "Now to him who is able to do far more than we ask or think, according to his glorious power that is at work within us."

Friends, don't believe the lie that you're just average. Don't believe the lie that God can't do anything through you. Don't believe the lie, "I don't know why I'm here." God placed you here, he came for you, he wants to save you, and if you're saved, he didn't want to just get you to heaven, he wants to use you for mighty works which would blow you away if you only knew what he wanted to do through you.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Jeff Schwarzentraub with Pastor Jeff Ministries, and today's message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit" from the series Mission Critical, explaining why the Holy Spirit is not a force, but a person, how his primary ministry is to magnify Jesus, and why God still wants to work through his church today.

We'll get back to Pastor Jeff in just a moment. But first, generous listeners like you make this ministry possible. And when you give this month to help share teaching like you're hearing today with more folks around the world, we'll send you Pastor Jeff's booklet, "Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission". It's a powerful, Scripture-saturated guide to help you understand what truly changes when you surrender your life to Christ: your identity, your focus, and your purpose.

This resource pairs perfectly with the messages you're hearing today, calling you to step boldly into the mission God has for you. Request your copy today when you give to Pastor Jeff Ministries. Just go to pastorjeff.com. Now, for the conclusion of today's message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: Friends, don't believe the lie that you're just average. Don't believe the lie that God can't do anything through you. Don't believe the lie, "I don't know why I'm here." God placed you here, he came for you, he wants to save you, and if you're saved, he didn't want to just get you to heaven, he wants to use you for mighty works which would blow you away if you only knew what he wanted to do through you. And that's not just a few people in the body of Christ; that's everybody in the body of Christ.

Why do you think the enemy lies so much to tell you how awful and worthless you are, or why does the enemy lie to you and get you upset, like "How come they're not asking you to do that? And how come you're not—" Because he doesn't want to see the presence of God unleashed in and through you. You want more of his presence? God wants to give you more of his presence. It's interesting to me, one of my favorite verses in the New Testament, which I hear people botch all the time, in John chapter 14 and verse 12.

They say, "Well, it doesn't really mean that." I believe the Bible means what it means. This is Jesus talking, and just to refresh your memory, he's the Son of God, he's the King of kings, he's the Lord of lords, he has all authority. Here's what he says to his disciples. John 14:12: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do because I go to the Father."

Did you hear what he just told 12 knuckleheads? It's like, "You've seen what I do." I've heard what Jesus did. He raised the dead, he healed the sick, he gave recovery of sight to the blind. Jesus said this: "Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also." Wait a second, you mean God wants to do the same works through us that he did through Jesus? Yes. Well, how come I'm thinking you can't? Because the devil's been lying to you.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. There is no scripture in the Bible that says once the 12 apostles died off, the power of God and the presence of God are no longer available to God's people. Nor does it say that the Holy Spirit slowed down his work. Jesus said, "You'll do even greater things than these because I'm going to the Father." This verse I've been thinking about for a long, long time. And I've been thinking about it because I think in organizations how things get set up, and especially when it comes to the church.

This is the one reason I never wanted to become a pastor and I loved doing evangelism. It's because so often in church what we have is a pyramid structure of leadership. You know how a pyramid structure of leadership works? A pyramid structure of leadership looks something like that, and at the top you put the senior pastor, maybe you have some elders, and then as the church grows in number, numerically, you add people, whether you add 5 or 5,000, you add a little more staff, and then you take care of a congregation.

And the bigger the pyramid gets, the higher the senior pastor becomes and the elders, and the more authority they have to tell God's people what they need to do and whether they fit in or not at our church. I hate that. I didn't like it before I became a pastor and I certainly don't like it now. I'm about the kingdom. So when I study through the New Testament, I don't see church looking like that.

Now, certainly Jesus appointed leadership in the church. Certainly there's authority in the church. Certainly there's people responsible and answering to God for how the church is being led. But the purpose of good leadership is to shepherd the church to get God's team on the kingdom field to do what God's people are called to do. Amen? So when I read through the New Testament, I see it as an inverted pyramid. I see this: Jesus, after he rose from the dead, told his disciples, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."

How much authority is that? All of it. It means nobody else has any. All authority's been given to him. "Therefore, go. You make disciples of all nations, you baptize people, you teach them to obey everything. Go do that." Jesus said this: "If you want to be great, you'll be a servant. If you want to be greatest, you'll be slave of all." What did Jesus do, who was in charge of everything? He put himself at the bottom of the pyramid. And then what'd he do? He unleashed the church to go do stuff.

It's why in the heart of every single believer they're looking to be part of a church that says, "Just turn me loose to be who the Holy Spirit created me to be for Christ's sake." And a brave church, we're saying, "Go do it!" Amen? That's the presence of the Lord. The presence of the Lord is in your own sphere of influence with whoever God's called you to do. You live the fullness of Jesus Christ wherever he calls you to go live it. That's being the church.

That's what it looks like to be part of the family of God, where we're equipping people to go out and do those things. We're the team. I play a role on that team, but what excites me most about this team, this brave church team, is hearing stories about how God's using each and every one of you, and collectively us to go out and reach people for the kingdom. In a couple weeks and months to follow, you'll sit in a service and you'll ask this question, "How come we have all these empty seats?"

And here will be my answer: "How come you haven't been leading people to Christ? And how come you haven't been inviting them to grow in the fullness of Jesus? And how come you haven't been sending more people out?" That's the question. Because God wants to reach our city with the gospel. There are hundreds of thousands of people the world ended today right in your neighborhoods that don't know Jesus. And who has he raised up? You all. And what does he do? He empowers you. And how does he do that? He gives you gifts.

You can write these verses down. I won't have time to get into them all this week. First Corinthians chapter 12, verses 4 through 11. First Corinthians 12:4-11. Romans 12, verses 6 to 8. First Peter 4:10 to 11. You'll read about gifts like this: prophecy, service or helps, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, teaching, exhorting, giving, leadership, showing mercy, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues. Now why does God give those gifts? Because he uses all of them in the body of Christ to bring people to himself.

The gospel's sufficient. We can teach the gospel. We could tell people that Jesus Christ died for their sins and rose from the dead and through repentance and faith you can have life in his name. Teaching's a great gift. God uses that. Do you know sometimes God uses healing of another person to bring people to faith in Christ? You know sometimes God uses miracles? God uses whatever he wants to use. You say, "Well, what gifts does he use today?" They're all in operation.

They're all in operation. It's just that some of the supernatural, unexplainable gifts we have a harder time with. Teaching is a spiritual gift. Did you know that? I mean, I find it amazing that I can stand up here and open the Bible knowing who I am, how depraved I am, how much God has grown me, and he can use his Holy Spirit through the word to change your life. That's a miracle to me, right? And yet we don't think of it that way. Oh, it's teaching.

We look at some of the supernatural gifts and then we start getting a little weird about them, like "What about that tongues thing? Tongues? We're not going to do tongues here, are we?" You know what the Bible says about tongues? "Do not forbid the speaking of tongues." There's two different types of tongues I read about in the New Testament. One I read about in Acts chapter 2, where it's languages, whereas the disciples are praising God, people are hearing it in their own language. They don't need an interpreter.

It would be as if I was standing up here speaking flawless Mandarin and there were Mandarin Chinese people here listening to me, like "How does he know that?" Well, that was the Spirit, right? But then when I get to First Corinthians 14, I read about a prayer language where Paul talks about how he prays in a tongue and his mind is unfruitful but his spirit is filled up. So what's he going to do? He's going to continue to pray in tongues, he's going to continue to pray with his mind.

What do we believe about tongues here? I believe all the gifts are in operation. I believe some of you have the ability to speak in tongues as a prayer language. I believe some of you don't. And by the way, every gift is given by the Spirit for the purpose of unity and for building the body of Christ. They are not a sign of maturity. I know some people who get the gift of tongues right after they become a believer. It does not make you mature. I know some people who have the gift of teaching. That does not make you mature. The Holy Spirit grows you and makes you mature.

But it's okay to pursue love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts. Because when we pray for gifts, here's what we're praying for: "God, I want to see more unity in your church, and I want to be able to help people that are in need, and Lord, I want to be able to be used by you in the world to advance your gospel, and that's what I want, so Lord, gift me as you see fit." Do I believe in healings for today? 100 percent. We had a healing time at First Tuesday this last month. I got to pray over a couple people. Both of them came up and told me how God had healed them.

Now, I didn't heal them. God just used me as a conduit to pray for them. Does that mean that every time Pastor Jeff prays for somebody they get healed? No, I've prayed for people that have died. God gets to choose what he's going to do, when he's going to do it. When I pray, I pray every week that people would get saved. I don't say, "Lord, if it's your will, save people." Lord, save people! But it's on God to do all the saving.

When I pray for you to be healed, if I pray for my own family, I pray that you get healed, and then it's God's desire as to what he's going to choose to do, whether he's going to heal them on this side of heaven or not. That's God's job. But God gives all the gifts for the purpose of building unity in the body so that people see his presence on display in the world. Amen? Do you want to see more presence of the Lord? I do.

I want every gift that he possibly has for me anytime that I need it. Sometimes it's in counseling and you're sitting there and you're like, "Lord, give me wisdom. I got to know what to say." Or "Lord, I wish I knew more about their background so I could help them." Or "Lord, I'm getting ready to speak. I hope you give me a word from on high to share with your people so they really hear you." Prophecy. What is the gift that you need? Usually it's the area that you lack.

Somebody calls you to the hospital to pray over them, like "I've never prayed over a sick person. I don't know how to do it." Then pray for the gift. "Lord, just help me today pray by faith that you would heal this person and I'm going to trust you with the result." It's that simple. Friends, we're not going to get weird here. I promise you we're not. I was a Christian for about 20 years before I received a prayer language in my life.

The day I received a prayer language, I was no more spiritual than I was 20 years earlier when I became a believer. But God's used that gift in my life. I love to use that gift when I worship. I use it here in church all the time, but have you ever heard me speaking in a tongue? No, and you never will unless God prompts me. Friends, I've been in churches my whole life. I've only seen tongues used well one time in an entire church setting, where somebody had a tongue and somebody interpreted it.

Usually somebody's got a tongue and everybody's freaking out and like, "That's the weirdest thing I ever saw and nobody's saying anything." But we want to shepherd those things. We don't want to shut them down. We want to grow in gifts. It means this: when I'm in a private prayer setting and somebody starts speaking in a tongue, I don't look at them and say, "Hey, is there an interpreter there? What are you saying?" I kind of like the idea that they're praying to our Father in a way I don't understand. I like that.

But in a public setting, the Bible gives us strong instructions. There's only three per service and it's all interpreted so that every single person in the congregation understands exactly what just happened. That's what the Bible says. Friends, we're not going to get weird. You don't need to worry about coming to Brave Church, like "Oh, are they one of these holy roller churches now?" No, we want the fullness of the Spirit in any way that he would have so we can experience more of his presence and we can experience more of his peace. Third, I'll give you this: the Holy Spirit wants you to experience personally more of his power because you're his witness.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with the message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit" from the series Mission Critical, explaining why the Holy Spirit is not a force, but a person, how his primary ministry is to magnify Jesus, and why God still wants to work through his church today.

Thanks for joining us for today's program. Before you go, a quick reminder: when you give a gift of support today, we'll thank you by sending a copy of Pastor Jeff's powerful booklet, "Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission". This isn't just a devotional; it's a Scripture-rich guide to help you understand who you are in Christ, why that changes everything, and how to step boldly into the mission God's given you.

So request your copy today at pastorjeff.com when you give to help others experience the transforming power of God's word. That's pastorjeff.com. We'll see you next time.