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 concludes a message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit," from the series Mission Critical, and shows you what it really means to be filled with the Spirit—not getting weird, but getting filled—and how you can experience more peace, power, and purity as you follow Jesus.

Here you'll find bold biblical teaching designed to help you stand firm in your faith and live on purpose. As we prepare our hearts for Easter, we're focusing on what it means to be made new in Christ and to step boldly into the mission He's given you. To keep growing in that new identity, we invite you to sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly devotional emails at pastorjeff.com. Now, here's today's message.

Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub: There are hundreds of thousands of people in the world today, right in your neighborhoods, that don't know Jesus. Who has He raised up? You all. What does He do? He empowers you. 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: 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, Romans 12:6-8, and 1 Peter 4:10-11. You'll read about gifts like prophecy, service or helps, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading, showing mercy, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.

Why does God give those gifts? 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 can 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 is a great gift; God uses that. Sometimes God uses the healing of another person to bring people to faith in Christ. Sometimes God uses miracles. God uses whatever He wants to use.

Which gifts does He use today? 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 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.

We don't think of it that way; we think it's teaching. We look at some of the supernatural gifts and then we start getting a little weird about them, like tongues. What does the Bible say about tongues? "Do not forbid the speaking of tongues." There are two different types of tongues I read about in the New Testament. One I read about in Acts chapter two, where it's languages. As 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, wondering how I know that. That was the Spirit.

Then, when I get to 1 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 and 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.

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. 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. I want to be able to help people that are in need. Lord, I want to be able to be used by you in the world to advance your Gospel. Gift me as you see fit."

Do I believe in healings for today? 100%. We had a healing time last month. I got to pray over a couple of people, and both of them came up and told me how God had healed them. 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 and 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." I say, "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 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. 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.

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, praying for wisdom and the words to say. Or you wish you knew more about their background so you could help them. Or you're getting ready to speak and you hope for a word from on high to share with people so they really hear Him—prophecy. What is the gift that you need? Usually, it's the area that you lack.

If somebody calls you to the hospital to pray over them, and you've never prayed over a sick person, 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. We're not going to get weird here. 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.

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 speak in a tongue? No, and you never will unless God prompts me. 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, thinking it's the weirdest thing they ever saw, and nobody's saying anything.

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 ask if there is an interpreter or what they are saying. I kind of like the idea that they're praying to our Father in a way I don't understand. 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.

You don't need to worry about coming to Brave Church and wonder if it is one of those holy roller churches. No. We want the fullness of the Spirit in any way that He would have so we can experience more of His presence and His peace. Third, the Holy Spirit wants you to experience personally more of His power because you're His witness.

I think of famous last words. John Wesley, the famous evangelist, as he was laying in his bed on his last morning before he died, was asked if he was okay. He couldn't really speak, and at one point in the morning, he sat up in his bed and said, "The greatest news of all is that God is with us," and he laid back down and died. How cool is that? You know what Jesus's last words were? He said that John baptized you with water, but many days from now you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

The disciples started asking Him, "Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom to Israel?" They're just like us. "Hey, Lord, when's the end coming? What are the dates and the times? We've got to know all the end-time stuff." Jesus said, "It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority. Those are already set. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, even to the remotest parts of the earth."

It means this: gifts are given for us to advance the Kingdom of God. Gifts are not given to individuals so we show off our gifts. Nobody cares. Imagine if we were all on a construction crew building a new building. Someone was out there first with jackhammers, getting the concrete all broken up so it could be taken off. Then other people came with shovels to get all the concrete out. Certain carpenters came in and started building the frame with hammer and nail. As the walls went up, certain people came in with a trowel to get all the drywall done just right. Then came the painters, and then came the trim work.

You wouldn't see those guys standing around bragging about being a jackhammer guy or a troweler. Nobody cared; it was about the building getting done. In the same way, however God gifts you, it's not for you to walk around and show off who you are and what you can do. It's about you using the gift that the Holy Spirit gave you to build the body of Christ and advance the Kingdom of God on the planet. That's what He wants you to do.

He's gifting you to do that. When people tell you, "Thank you so much for your encouragement," or "How did you know that? That was great wisdom or great knowledge about me," or "Thank you for praying over me, I'm healed," you don't need to be false flatterers. You don't need to say, "It wasn't me, it was the Lord." We all know that. You can just say, "Thanks, I'm glad the Lord used me." That's humble.

Isn't it crazy to think that God would want to empower us and gift us in a way that He could use us to reach the world for Himself? He doesn't need us, and yet He chose us. You were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. He picked you and every single one of you to do great things for Him. So much so that when you do them, you will know it wasn't you, it was the Lord. But you'll also know you're participating in the advancement of His Kingdom.

What would happen at a church if a church really believed, "It's not about me, it's about the Lord, but I want Him to do whatever He wants to do in and through me for His glory because we want to see more people reached, more people set free, and more people turned loose on mission"? That's what the Lord wants. This is why it's so important. 2 Corinthians 12:9 says, "Where we are weak, there He is strong." It's not about your strength of your gift; it's about the strength of your Savior that's giving you the gift. It's about the power of the Holy Spirit that works through you. He chooses the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. If you'd have met me in college and met all my friends in college, you would have said, "That's the least likely pastor we would ever sit under." God knew.

It's important that we know this because everything has a spiritual root. I officiated a wedding this week. In the history of Brave Church, we've never had a marriage problem, and we don't have any right now. You don't have marriage problems. There are spiritual problems that you have that are deep-rooted that will show themselves in your marriage. We don't have any single problems or dating problems. Some of you singles have some deep-rooted things in your singleness that are showing up in your dating relationships. We don't have any parenting problems; we don't have a problem with our kids. But we've got some things inside of us that are showing up that cause problems in those things.

Everything has a spiritual root. That's why the Holy Spirit wants to root them out because in a marriage when you have a husband who is willing to admit his sin and a wife who is willing to admit her sin, and they come together because they want what the Holy Spirit wants, you don't have a marriage problem. When you have two singles that want to honor God in their relationship, you don't have a relationship problem. You don't have employee and employer problems when both people are filled with the Spirit. What does God want to do? He wants to fill you with the Spirit so that you can be the fullness of what Jesus Christ wants you to be in any given relationship anywhere. You can be eating at a restaurant, you can be standing in a checkout line, you can be at your neighbor's house. God wants the fullness of the Spirit to be on display in your life.

Finally, God wants you to experience the fullness of His purity because you are His temple. Listen to this word in 1 Corinthians chapter six, verses 19 and 20: "Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price; therefore, glorify God in your body." We say things sometimes when it comes to church, like, "Don't act like that at church," or "Don't talk like that at church." We tell our kids sometimes, "Don't say that at church." Why at church? Everywhere you go, you're a temple for the Holy Spirit. He's in you. So, don't talk like that. Don't act like that. Why? Because you're a temple for the Holy Spirit.

Where does God reside today? In the Old Testament, He was in the tabernacle and then in the temple. Where is He at now? He's in every single believer on the planet. If you're not experiencing Him to the full, here's why, for one of two reasons: Ephesians 4:30 says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." The Bible gives us commands on how to live and what to do and says, "Don't do these things." And we say, "I'm going to do it anyway." That's called grieving the Spirit. When you grieve the Spirit, you miss the fullness of His power in your life.

Quenching the Spirit in 1 Thessalonians 5:19 is when God's saying, "This is who I am and this is what I'm doing," and you're like, "I don't believe that; that's not God." That's quenching the Spirit. When you grieve or quench the Spirit, you can't experience the fullness of the Spirit. God wants you to experience the fullness of the Spirit. That's why in Ephesians 5:18, it says, "Be filled with the Spirit," because that's what God wants.

We say things in church sometimes, like, "Come, Holy Spirit." I know what people mean when they say that, but it's hard to come up with words that are just right. When we say, "Come, Holy Spirit," we're not saying, "You're not here. You're out in the hall and the lobby. Come, Holy Spirit, come in." We're not saying He's not around us because we know He is. He's inside of us; He's everywhere. "Where can I flee from your presence?" I think a better word than "Come, Holy Spirit" is "More, Holy Spirit." More peace, more presence, more power, more purity.

I married my wife a number of years ago, and when we go out on a date, I'm not like, "Come, Kim, come closer." But I am thinking in my heart, "I want to get to know you better. I want to know you more. I want to have deeper intimacy with you. I want to hear about you." She wants to know me. I want more in this relationship. However far along you are in your relationship with Christ, there's more. You can experience Christ more. The Holy Spirit wants you to experience Christ more, but He doesn't want you to grieve Him and He doesn't want you to quench him.

I remember when I was in college, I read a prayer from Campus Crusade for Christ on how to be filled with the Spirit. I prayed it fervently for days and nothing happened. I was ready to call Bill Bright and some of the people at Campus Crusade and say, "Your prayer is broken." But I realized that while the prayer was true and the Word of God is true—and by the way, nothing changes this Word—this is the written Word which reveals the living Word, which gives us the ability to speak the Word. Guess who wrote the Word? The Holy Spirit, who's better than just having the Word.

I grew up in a day where you had to have a map to go places. You went on vacation, you got a map or a Triptik from AAA, and you had to flip the pages. Now they have GPS, and you'll hear somebody talking to you: "Make a U-turn at the next intersection." Then you miss that, "Make a U-turn at the next intersection," and then you silence it. We have something better than GPS. We have the Spirit inside of us, not outside of us talking. That's why you feel promptings sometimes. That's why you feel you should call your mom. You should call them and just tell them you're praying for them. Where did that come from? That's the Holy Spirit inside of us prompting you to do something.

How can I experience more of that? Be filled with the Spirit. It's ongoing. It's not a magic prayer; it's really a desire of your heart. If you want to be filled with the Spirit, the first is this: there has to be a desire. You have to want it. There almost needs to be a desperation for you to have it. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." Do you want the Holy Spirit in His fullness in your life? Sometimes we'll say, "Yeah, if He wants to do that, go ahead, but I don't really want that because I don't really want God being in control of my life." So there has to be a desire, a hunger, a thirst.

Second, confess and forsake your sins. Lord, I know it's wrong. I don't want to stay in it anymore, but I don't even know how to fix me. But I renounce that and I don't want it anymore in my life. So, I'm desiring the Lord and I'm confessing my sin. 1 John 1:9 says, "If you confess your sin, God is faithful and just to forgive your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness." Proverbs 28:13 says, "He who confesses and forsakes his sin finds mercy." Confess and forsake sins. This doesn't mean you need to sit around wondering if you have any sin. I find that the Holy Spirit's really good at pointing it out if you have it. "Lord, search me and try me. Is there anything in my life that's hindering you?" Sometimes we don't want it.

Third, surrender. You might like the word "yield" better. Surrender every area of your life to the Lord. Yield every area of your life to the Lord. It means this: some of us who know that we're saved say, "Lord, you can have every area of my life but I get to choose where I live, but I get to choose who I marry, but I get to choose my job, but I get to choose how I spend my money." Are you really willing to tell the Lord, "Lord, my life is yours? Whatever you would have for me, whoever you would have for me, wherever you want me to go, and whatever you want me to do, Lord, I'm yielded to you. Take my life, let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee"?

These are prerequisites for being filled with the Spirit because when we tell the Lord, "I'll do it all but that," we hinder His work. Fourth is just by faith—just claim the fullness of the Spirit. By faith, I'm believing you're going to control my life. You may feel His presence in a unique way; you may not. It's okay. It's not about what you experience or feel; it's about the fact that the Holy Spirit wants to take you on a journey.

If you want more peace and power and presence and purity in your life, that's what you're going to pray. "Lord, I desire that. Lord, I confess my sins and forsake them. Lord, I surrender every area of my life to you. I'm yielded. By faith, I just want you to fill me. I want you to control my life. I want you to lead me where you want me to go."

He wants to do that with each and every one of you. He doesn't care about whether you're male or female. He doesn't care about your socioeconomic background. He doesn't care about your history. He doesn't care about your past sins. He doesn't care about the color of your skin. He just wants all of you. When you're humbly before the Lord saying, "Holy Spirit, here's my life. You take it, you do whatever you want with me," that's when God begins to show up in a new measure in your life.

It's not like, "Okay, then I'm done," because I've found at different times in my life when I've told the Lord, "Okay, you've got it all now. I don't know what else I could possibly give you," I was right—only to find out six months later there was a little more I was holding onto. Only to find out a couple years later there's more I'm holding onto. I'm still on this journey of trusting the Lord to take more and more of it. I want to stay in a position where, Lord, to the best of my knowledge, you've got it all now. I'm not holding onto this because things creep in where the enemy will tell us, "No, you've got to hold onto your kids right now. No, you've got to hold onto your spouse right now. No, you've got to hold onto your parents right now. You've got to control." Wherever we feel that control, that's where we need to relinquish control and say, "Holy Spirit, you're in control. You've got this. I want more of you and I want less of me." When you do that, that's where the filling continues and is ongoing, and God will use each and every one of you.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub with Pastor Jeff Ministries. Today's message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit" from the series Mission Critical, shows you what it really means to be filled with the Spirit—not getting weird, but getting filled—and how you can experience more peace, power, and purity as you follow Jesus.

We'll return to Pastor Jeff shortly. But first, this month, Pastor Jeff wants to help you rediscover what it means to be made new in Christ. Not just forgiven, but transformed and sent on mission. To help you do that, we'd love to send you his booklet, Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission. It's our thanks for your gift of support today to help share biblical teaching with more people through programs like this one.

This timely resource shows you how your new life in Christ reshapes your identity, clarifies your focus, and gives you a mission that matters for eternity. Request your copy today when you give at pastorjeff.com. Now, for the conclusion of today's message.

Thanks for listening today. That was Pastor Jeff with the message, "Experiencing More of the Holy Spirit," from the series Mission Critical, showing you what it really means to be filled with the Spirit—not getting weird, but getting filled—and how you can experience more peace, power, and purity as you follow Jesus.

Before you head out, just a quick reminder. When you give today to help more people hear bold biblical teaching, we'll send you Made New: Discovering Your New Identity, New Focus, and New Mission as our thanks. It's a timely resource designed to help prepare your heart for Easter by reminding you that new life in Christ brings a new identity, a new focus, and a new purpose. Your support helps others discover that same transformation. Request your copy today at pastorjeff.com and be sure to join us next time for more teaching from Pastor Jeff.