They denied him.
And in this case, denial had to do
with fear and pleasing men.
That's why they denied him, correct?
They said, I mean, in a comfortable setting,
we're praying with Jesus in the garden, of
course we're going to say, I would never
deny you.
But when the soldiers come, I don't know
this guy, I don't know him.
So fear and pleasing men, that hasn't changed.
Fear and pleasing men will cause us to
deny Christ.
And I know many people say, I would
never verbally deny him or completely deny him,
but many are afraid to truly live for
him and truly acknowledge him.
All you have to do is look at
Facebook.
If they're worried about their 800 friends, they'll
post a post supporting Trump, but they're not
going to post something supporting Jesus Christ.
They're not going to make statements about Christ
and bold statements.
Not to where you get weird and out
there in 14 posts a day and Jesus
said this, but just we're sometimes scared to
live for Christ.
And I saw this a lot in construction
in different fields.
They'll go to work, nobody will know they're
a Christian.
Well, you're a pretty good person.
Yeah, I'm a good person.
And nobody knows they're a Christian.
They don't want to talk about it.
They don't want to mention anything.
Why?
Fear of men.
And it happens in the pulpit as well
as the pew.
Here's the key to that.
If you suffer with that, and I'll tell
you the truth, all of us suffer with
that if we're not filled with God's spirit.
Acts 1.8 identifies this experience.
You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit
has come upon you, and you shall be
witnesses to me.
Isn't this interesting?
Peter, the disciples, are with Jesus.
In the garden, they're with their master.
They're with him.
We'll never deny you.
The soldiers come, we're denying you.
Fast forward now, Jesus is gone, and the
disciples are by themselves, and you couldn't beat
it out of them to deny their Lord
and Savior.
They went to their grave, boldly speaking for
Christ.
They were beaten, boldly speaking for Christ.
They stood up in front of the Jewish
people and said, you stiff-necked people, you
put Christ on the cross.
A mob would have killed them.
So what was the difference?
What was the difference between this Peter and
that Peter?
What's the difference?
It's a good time to take a water
break while you think about it.
This is a portion of the sermon that's
going to step on toes again.
The difference is this difference makes all the
difference in the world, and this is why
many people, including people in this church, are
not living boldly for Christ.
It's because they are not filled with God's
Spirit.
They are not filled with His Spirit.
They have religion, they know Jesus, but they've
never been filled with God's Spirit.
Now that would take me another whole sermon,
when you talk about the different things out
there, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the
filling of the Holy Spirit.
Suffice it to say that you are, I
am baptized by the Holy Spirit when we
become believers.
We're baptized into the body of Christ as
believers.
But then there are subsequent fillings of the
Holy Spirit.
Paul being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit.
That's how you have this boldness.
So you can either quench and grieve the
Spirit of God by the way you live,
or you can be filled with the Holy
Spirit by the way you live.
It's all about surrender.
So to sum it up for you briefly,
you have all of the Holy Spirit that
you will ever need, but does He have
all of you?
That's the problem in many churches.
That's why we're bored during worship.
That's why we come to church when it
fits our schedule.
That's why we'll go home and watch ESPN
and NASCAR before we touch the Word of
God, if we even touch it at all.
That's why we spend three hours on media
and no time in prayer and fasting.
That's why.
That's why people have not been filled mightily
with the Holy Spirit.
As a matter of fact, I don't care
if you can translate the Hebrew.
I'm not concerned about your Greek New Testament.
And I don't care if you have three
letters on your business card, Ph.D. I
want to know, have you been filled with
the power of the Holy Spirit?
Has God radically changed your heart and broke
you to such a point that your spirit
cries out, Abba, Father, God, I need you,
whatever you want me to do.
My day starts with you, and then throughout
my whole day I'm focused on you.
Then my night, I want to spend time
with you.
In your Word, are you filled with the
Spirit of God?
Because that's the difference maker.
That's why you can stand before a person
and not deny God.
What I just said about the Roman Catholic
Church and the Mormon religion just 20 minutes
ago, you think I would have said that
if I were not filled with the Spirit
of God?
And there's no difference.
Sometimes, oh, pastor.
No, you men at home, you need to
be filled with the Spirit just as much
as I do.
Women at home, in the workplace, wherever you're
at, you need to be filled with the
Holy Spirit of God.
All of us need to be filled with
the Holy Spirit of God.
And then when we come to church, we're
united, we're praising God.
Who cares what color the walls are or
the carpet when you're united with the power
of the Holy Spirit?
It's all about unity and praising God.
That's what being filled with the Spirit is.
Now, I didn't say that just because I
painted that behind me.
But it's truth.
It's truth.
And that works on both sides.
That works on both sides.
Can we not make any changes and still
worship?
Absolutely.
So all of us have to look at
our hearts.
Everybody does.
What does God want?
What's for His glory?
The power of the Holy Spirit is like
dynamite that ignites a hunger for God so
intense that every aspect of life is changed.
We become bold, not passive, stable, not fanatical,
and committed, not wavering.
I almost changed this entire sermon on the
power of the Holy Spirit because that's what
people need.
That's why they're lashing out at their spouses.
That's why they can't raise their kids.
That's why they're arrogant at church.
That's why they have no time for God.
That's why they're not filled with the Spirit
of God.
That's why they're filled with bickering and complaining
and angst and anger and irritation because they're
not filled with God's Spirit.
And it's not a big checklist.
You just say, God, I need You to
fill me with Your Spirit.
Get rid of this arrogance.
Get rid of this pride.
Give me a deep hunger for You.
Here's a very good indication of if you
are filled with the Spirit of God.
The last stanza that we just sang, something
like, Oh, I love you how I used
to love you.
If you're like, Oh, my Lord, that is
cheesy.
You are not filled with the Spirit of
God.
Or if you're bored.
Who made those lyrics up?
Those aren't theologically sound lyrics.
Yes, they are.
For God so loved the world that He
gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes
in Him shall not perish.
And because of that, I have to love
Him.
I have to praise Him.
He is my first love.
He is the first, the beginning, and the
end.
He is my Sabbath rest.
He is my high tower.
I escape from danger when I run to
Him.
He is my Sabbath rest.
He is the Lamb that was slain from
the foundation of the world.
He is the bright and morning star.
If I had time, I would tell you
who Christ is to me.
So I have to worship Him.
I have to.
That's the Holy Spirit crying, Abba, Father.
The flesh hates it.
But at some point, you tell the flesh
to shut its mouth and be quiet.
I don't care what you want.
I would encourage everybody in this room to
read this book.
They found the secret.
And it's not some weird secret that you'll
see on Oprah.
Ananiah Judson, Hudson Taylor, John Bunyan, Amy Carmichael,
Oswald Chambers, Charles Finney, John Hyde, Dwight, ever
heard of D.L. Moody, Andrew Murray, Eugene
Price, Walter Wilson, John Allen, all these men
and women who came before us.
The interesting thing is all of them, I
believe in most cases, Finney's experience was a
few days later.
But in most cases, these people, watch my
English here, these people were believers.
But they were disgruntled.
They were dead.
D.L. Moody even said that he was
doing ministry in his flesh.
There weren't big crowds.
There was nothing.
I can take you to Adrian Rogers.
You listen to him.
Remember, he passed away some time ago.
On the football field, I believe it was,
he fully surrendered his life.
A.W. Tozer, years after his conversion, finally
surrendered his life talking to his mother-in
-law.
In every single case, they are believers dying
on the vine, dead.
Or they have legalism, dry, dead religion.
Nothing, but God's touching nothing.
Yeah, they get through it.
They'll read their Bible.
They'll sing a few songs.
They'll listen to me.
And that's about it.
But this group, once they finally surrendered their
life completely and said, Lord, I need to
be filled with your Holy Spirit, I'm going
to stop watching the garbage on media.
I'm going to stop bickering and complaining.
I humble myself.
And God came in and he filled them
mightily with the Spirit.
Now you hear of them.
You see the difference?
D.L. Moody realized all of his ministry
was in the flesh.
He gave his heart to the Lord.
I believe it was either Chicago or New
York.
He said it was joy unspeakable.
So much joy came over me that I
had to run into a side room and
just cry out to God.
I can take you to Finney and John
Bunyan and the Whitefield Journals and all men
and women who came before us and even
live today who are doing mighty works for
God are filled with his Spirit because they're
broken and humble inside.
And God says, I'll fill that vessel because
now he'll go wherever I want.
You want to go here?
Just direct me, Lord.
And here's where we have to be careful.
Hear my heart.
The Pharisees read the Word of God.
The Pharisees prayed.
The Pharisees even fasted.
The Pharisees sat through a worship service, but
they're on their way to hell.
But if you parallel that to many believers,
they are not filled with the Spirit of
God.
You can go through all the motions.
That's not being filled with God's Spirit.
And I weep for people in that state,
don't you?
Maybe that's you.
And I weep because God has so much
more.
If you would just break and humble yourself.
And I've noticed the older we get, the
harder it becomes.
If I talk to a group, 18, 19,
20, 20, they'll run to this altar.
They'll be weeping.
They'll be on fire for God.
There's your next worship leader.
There's your next pastor.
But by the time we hit my age,
I've read this 25 times now.
I can quote hundreds and hundreds of scriptures.
I was raised a certain way.
Who do you think you are?
Well, let me tell you who I think
I am.
I'm preaching what God's Word says.
You can have the letter of the law,
not the Spirit, and you will be dying
spiritually.
Ask, when was the last time you led
somebody to the Lord?
Ouch, don't raise your hand.
But if you think, I mean, I remember
one guy, he was arguing with me, something
about politics or different things, many years ago.
And I said, when was the last time
you ever just led somebody to the Lord?
Wow, tons of, 10 years?
Five years?
How long ago was it?
Never?
See, when you're filled with the Spirit, you
have to.
And you're lying at grocery, ma'am, I
see you're having a hard time.
Can I pray for you?
Yes, could you please?
Here's a gift card.
Everywhere you go, the Spirit's bubbling.
That's why it's called overwhelmed.
That's why when people say the baptism of
the Holy Spirit, I don't freak out because
baptism in the Greek is baptizo.
It just means an overwhelmed feeling of the
Holy Spirit.
So you can call it baptism.
You can call it filling.
You can call it unction.
You can call it anointing.
You better have it.
See, I'd rather, I like what R.A.
Torrey said, I'd rather miss the theological term
exactly and have the power than get the
term just right and miss the power.
Now, I love theology.
I think it's proper theology to teach about
the baptism of the Holy Spirit and being
baptized in the body of Christ and subsequent
fillings.
But ironically, it's the people that like to
argue this subject who aren't filled with the
Spirit.
Oh, all those gifts of the Holy Spirit,
they ceased a long time ago.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Any scriptural proof for that?
Well, let me show you church history.
No, any scriptural proof for that?
So what Paul did, it was wonderful, but
when we do it, it's of the devil.
I haven't got to the message yet.
Look what you guys did to me.
Don't look at that clock.
You turn that clock around.
If you need to leave, you can walk
out quietly.
Let me just, let me, because you wouldn't
know it, but this is really now where
my heart is.
That was all supposed to be an introduction,
but God really changed that.
Ask my wife.
Ninety percent of what I talked about was
not at last night's message.
So I hope somebody is being touched by
what God wants to do through His Holy
Spirit.
And you know what?
It's sad because nobody, Francis Chan, I think,
wrote a book a while back on the
forgotten God, and we forget about the Holy
Spirit.
And what we have is we have the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Word.
And we forget.
Are you aware that it's a Holy Spirit
who convicts?
It's a Holy Spirit who draws.
It's a Holy Spirit who seals.
It's a Holy Spirit who's given to you
as a guarantee.
It's a Holy Spirit who intercedes.
It's a Holy Spirit who prays with groans
that cannot be uttered.
It's a Holy Spirit that will lead you.
It's a Holy Spirit that will guide you.
It's a Holy Spirit that will direct you.
And when you discount all of that because
of some weird thing you see on TBN,
you're discounting the work of God in your
life.
That's how God the Father works.
We believe in the Trinity, the triune nature
of God.
God is one, revealing Himself in Father, Son,
and Holy Spirit.