Josh Howerton - The Church Jesus Calls Us to Be (01/12/2026)
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Summary:
Pastor Josh Howerton passionately calls Lakepointe Church to embody a unified biblical church by integrating high emphasis on the Word of God (doctrinal), the mission of God (attractional), and the power of the Spirit of God (charismatic), rejecting Satan’s strategy to divide them. Drawing from Scripture like 2 Timothy 3 and examples of church growth data, he warns against vulnerabilities in each type while quoting R.T. Kendall on the «great divorce» between word and spirit. He concludes with bold charges: unapologetically preach the whole Word, do anything short of sin to reach the lost, and operate in the Spirit’s filling and gifts, leading to a call for fresh Spirit filling, baptism, and response.
Energizing the Congregation
All right, man, hey, do this for me. All over our campus, I want you to stand back up. Everybody stand back up! I want you to slap two or three high-fives to the people around you and just tell them, «Man, get ready! Say, 'Get ready, get ready, get ready! Here we go! '» Oh man, all right, now y’all can sit down. Everybody quit being nice to each other! Stop that, stop that.
Yo, I just need to say this: you have no idea how much Jan and I love y’all! You really don’t! You have no idea how much we love you! There is nowhere else I would rather be on a Wednesday night, man, right now than here with you getting into this! Man, let’s go!
Okay, all right, we need to get at it! Let’s see, I get a sense that the Spirit is going to shift some things in our church tonight and that He is ready to unleash some things if we are willing to receive them. So here, let me just do this: If y’all can do this, would you practice some things for me? Would you say, «Amen!» «Man, preach, pastor!» «Say, 'Let’s go! '» Give me some applause, man! There it is, man!
Setting the Tone for a Life Message
Okay, here’s the deal. Here’s why I do that: I gotta warm you up a little bit because, I’ll be honest, if I preach a bad sermon, it’s 70% your fault because you could have responded me into preaching an amazing message. And I’m going in tonight; here’s what’s going to happen. Here’s how this works. Matt, this is different from a normal sermon. What you’re getting ready to hear is, in some ways, I think it’s accurate to say this is like my life message.
I think this is the thing that God has birthed in my spirit. It’s a little R&D, a little like, «Man, let’s figure this thing out together.» And here’s how this is going to go: You know, usually, I’ve got like an intro and an emotional flow, and I’ve got all these, you know, the jokes in there and a lot of stuff, and the intro and the conclusion and all the applause—my kind of thing. Here’s what I got tonight: I have none of those things. We’re just going at it together. We’re just going to go, okay?
So let’s just see this now. I have only ever given this talk to pastors at pastor’s conferences I’ve spoken at. I’ve only given this talk to pastors and church leaders because, if I’m being really honest, I don’t think most churches are ready for this. I’m going to talk about some things that might feel a little above your head. There may be some moments where you’re like, «I don’t know what he’s talking about.» Typically, I haven’t preached this in normal churches because most churches would not be ready for this, but Lake Pointe Church is not most churches.
Satan’s Strategy of Division
So, you know, here we go. All right! Let me just… here we go! Can I begin by channeling my inner charismatic? Can I begin by doing this? Some of you are like, «Ah, please, no!» You know? Okay, here we go. Here’s what I feel like happened: I feel like in 2020, Satan called an all-staff meeting with every demon that existed, and they decided, «Hey, actually, we don’t have to defeat them. We don’t have to defeat the people of God if we can just divide them.» And that for the last three years, you’ve seen a calculated satanic strategy to divide and devour. You look around—that’s what you’re seeing everywhere: divide a nation, devour; divide the church, devour; divide Christians, devour.
Have you ever noticed how—again, I’m channeling my inner charismatic—have you ever noticed how often in the Scriptures, demonic activity and unforgiveness are connected? Have you ever noticed this? That’s right, that’s right! You give me a little something, and I’ll give you a little more, okay? Have you ever…
So I’ll give you some examples. Second Corinthians says that Paul says, «If I have forgiven, I have forgiven anything, » so that we would not be outwitted by the devil’s schemes. That’s interesting. The Book of James refers to bitter people, listen to these adjectives, as earthly, unspiritual, demonic. Interesting. The Book of Ephesians gives a command to not let the sun go down on your anger so that you give no opportunity to the devil.
Now I could go on and on, but do you see this pattern? The connection between demonic activity and unforgiveness? Now here’s how the math breaks down. Here’s how the theological mathematics works: Hell is the place where nobody is forgiven; Heaven is a place where everybody’s forgiven. So when we forgive, we pull Heaven down into our lives. When we fail to forgive, we pull Hell up into our lives.
And watch this: We cannot have the power of the Holy Spirit when we are inviting the presence of unholy spirits into our churches through division. You cannot have it; it’s like one or the other. So here’s what I feel like when I look out at the church—this is where I’m going to put on my church leadership hat a little bit. When I look out at the church in America at large, you know what I see? I see that Satan seems to have very effectively taken three things that were intended to be DNA strands that go together, and together they form the embodiment of the biblical church. What he’s done is he’s separated the three DNA strands, keeping apart what God created to be together.
The Power of Unity: Mentos and Coke Analogy
And so like, have you ever seen this, like TikTok or Instagram or something? Have you ever seen people take Mentos and Coke? You do the thing where you put… maybe you can go home and do that; you’re going to have some fun at home. You’ll have something to clean up. You put Mentos in Coke, and it’s just like this explosion! It’s like, man, you put these two things together that don’t seem like they go together, but if you put them together, an explosion happens!
When anyone asks me, «Josh, why is Lake Pointe exploding right now?» it’s because we are at the very beginning of putting these three things together. So let me talk about this. Okay, I’m going to give you—listen, I have accepted diagrams into my heart, and so I’m going to give you a diagram. Okay, here we go…
Three Types of Churches
This is, so again, this I’ve been working on for a couple years. Here are the three types of churches that I think, if you look out, you start to see these things. And oh, by the way, all of you came from one of these three types of churches. You’re going to notice that in your personality, your spiritual gift set, your wiring that you naturally gravitate towards one of the three.
So notice this now: number one, these are doctrinal churches. These churches have a high emphasis on the Word of God. Now again, let me get a little like pastor, church nerd for just 30 seconds here. These types of churches have gone through different names in like the last 30 years. It was, you know, kind of like the young, restless reform movement. A few years later, it was called the gospel-centered movement. Some people just call them Presbyterians, you know? And these are churches who love doctrine; they love good doctrines. They’re all about theological precision; they love the commands in the Scriptures to guard sound doctrine. They’re good at discerning truth from error; they have high discernment.
If you ask somebody from a doctrinal church, you mention 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, they’re like, «Oh, Piper, MacArthur, and Calvin!» You know, it’s like ten of you got that joke, but I’m willing to make that trade. Just, who got it? Who got it? I just need—All right, I like you! We’re nerding out for a second.
Now these are churches who, like, they don’t preach from the NIV—the nearly inspired version—they preach from the ESV—the elect standard version. Those are these churches. I see you; I see you! These churches, they don’t teach messages; they expose the text. That’s what these churches do. Now, I’m poking fun at these churches a little bit, but listen y’all, doctrine matters! Doctrine matters! We are called by God to quote contend for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints, and listen to me: if the church will not clearly disciple people about truth and error, right and wrong, if the church won’t disciple people, the world will. So this stuff, it actually matters!
Vulnerability of Doctrinal Churches
Now each of these categories of churches—what I’m going to say is they have a «Death Star vulnerability.» Let me keep nerding out. You know, different nerd stuff—different nerd stuff. It’s like this one little thing that’s like, man, watch out, because that blows the whole thing up! The Death Star vulnerability for doctrinal churches is, «Love builds up, but knowledge puffs up, » and these churches often end up teaching the doctrines of Christ with the spirits of Pharisees. Very often, what happens is, honestly, bro, they can be kind of mean. It’s like you walk into the worship services of some of these churches and you’re like, «Man, if y’all are happy and you know it, tell your face!» Tell your face!
Okay, so that’s number one—we’re going to say these are doctrinal churches. Now the second category of churches, if you just look out at the American landscape, I’m going to call them attractional churches. These attractional churches have a high emphasis on the mission of God. In fact, the whole reason we call them attractional is because they reverse engineer their strategies from attracting the lost. I’ll just kind of give a quick description of that. I’m gonna—it’s a little shorter.
Attractional Churches and Mission
In the late 1900s, when I was growing up, this was called the seeker-sensitive church growth movement. These churches, they love reaching lost people; they love churches growing. They have a high emphasis on things like excellence, leadership, aesthetics, graphic design—everything needs to be awesome. They talk a lot about vision, systems, and strategic planning. All of them have driven a motorcycle on stage at some point—all of them—all of these churches!
Okay, now these churches, it is currently like the trendy thing to make fun of these churches. Oh, big bad mega church! You know, this is attractional, seeker church, that kind of thing. People love it. But hey, can I just defend these churches really quick? Hey y’all, these churches act like Heaven and Hell are real! They actually care about doing whatever it takes to reach lost people, because Heaven and Hell are real! Jesus said that God’s heart for somebody who doesn’t know Him is like a dad with a lost son. Y’all ever lost a kid? You ever lost a kid? I got three kids. A couple years ago, I lost one of them for one hour in a water park. It was two years ago; you know what I didn’t do? I didn’t go, «Well, I got two more; 66% ain’t bad!» I didn’t do that! Man, no! Like my man, for an hour, I was just running around the water park, just going, «Have you seen Felicity? Have you seen?» My mentality was, «Either help me or get out of the way!»
And very honestly, a positive aspect of these churches is they have that mentality for Christians who are supposed to be disciples who care about reaching the lost. These churches are kind of like, «Bro, help me or get out of the way! We’re trying to reach people who are on their way to Hell right now!» So listen, this is how it works: when something’s lost, you stop thinking about the found things, and you obsess over the lost things. These churches obsess over lost people and that pleases the heart of the Father. It pleases the heart.
Now Death Star vulnerability for attractional churches, let me just gently lean in—is sometimes sensitivity to the culture becomes compromised with the culture. And so they become so seeker-sensitive that they end up downplaying or denying the parts of the faith that are currently unpopular to seekers. They are susceptible to compromise. The theological word for this is apostasy; that’s a genuine, legitimate danger. Okay, so this is the second category of churches.
Charismatic Churches and the Spirit
Now the third category of churches, we’ll call them charismatic churches. Let’s get crazy! Okay, here we go, let’s get crazy! They have a high—where are you at? Who likes that box? See, there are some people intentionally quiet right now. Well, that’s okay; that’s okay—you’ll see where we’re—it’s okay! Okay, high emphasis—so obviously doctrinal emphasis, Word of God, attractional mission of God, and charismatic—these churches have a high emphasis on the Spirit of God. These are churches who use words like breakthrough, power, encounter. Everybody’s got a rhema word and a Kairos time; you know, they have big faith; they have prayer cultures; high emphasis on the reality of the angelic and the demonic. That, by the way, all those things are good.
Now, a rhetorical question—don’t answer out loud. If you start asking again, I’m just church nerding out for 30 seconds—hang with me. It is normal people. I’ll come back to you in a second. If you start asking like, «Man, which podcasts are each of these categories of churches listening to?» So doctrinal churches, man, they’re listening; you know, it’s Piper and MacArthur—that’s the crew. Attractional churches, there is, you know, it’s like Craig Groeschel, and Steven Furtick and Michael Todd—like good, great evangelistic preachers!
Now, rhetorical question: who are these charismatic churches listening to? Trick question! They don’t listen to podcasts; they only listen to worship music. That’s all they do! Okay, now we are— that’s a joke; that’s a joke. Now we are—there we go! I see you!
Okay, now I’m making fun a little bit, but can I just, like, hey, come back with me? Oh, by the way, that bottom circle is the fastest-growing movement in all of church history. So let me just point that out!
Data on Church Growth
Let me just…so like, I’m a data guy! I’m a data guy; you know, like I love charts and graphs and spreadsheets! I have accepted Microsoft Excel into my heart! You know, I was like—so let me just show you some data. The first slide will discourage you, and the second slide should make something come alive in your heart!
Okay, what I’m getting ready to show you, go ahead and toss it up there. This is a diagram; it shows the decline in membership of eight Protestant traditions from the year 1990 to 2020, so a 30-year span. If you look at those, it does not look good! Just very bluntly, it does not look good. On average, what you’re seeing up there is an upper thirty percent decline over the course of 20 years. But you may notice that at the very top middle, there’s one missing.
Now don’t show it yet! The one that I intentionally did not show you is a category of churches called Assemblies of God churches! So next slide! Here’s the Assemblies of God! Over that same span: Positive 51%! Now listen, that—I see you! That’s our Assemblies of God folks, man! Welcome! Okay, I’m learning y’all; I’m learning y’all!
Okay, let me explain this a little bit. And if you’re nervous, just hang with me! Just hang with me, okay? 2 Timothy 3 says this: Let me explain the data you just saw. «But mark this: there will be terrible times in the last days"—that’s now! «There will be terrible times in the last days. People will"—listen to this language—"have a form of godliness but deny its power.» There is, in my opinion, a three-generation slide to apostasy, and it always goes like this.
The Slide to Apostasy
Okay, check this out: the first generation has godliness and power; they know God; they experience the power and filling of the Spirit, and the world changes. But can we be honest? Very often, the power of the Holy Spirit gets abused, manipulated, used, and honestly just really weird, cringy, manipulative ways. And so what happens is generation two sees the abuse and manipulation, the spiritual manipulation of the power of the Holy Spirit, and so in generation two, they go, «Hey, let’s keep the godliness, but let’s reject the power. It’s weird; these people are weird!»
Oh, but wait! There’s an outcome to that! And here’s the outcome: generation three goes, «Hey!"—next slide—they’re disinterested in God because they saw no power! There is a reason that the one group of Christians that is meteorically rising and reaching people is the one that is most embracing the power of the Holy Spirit! I don’t know what else to say; it’s data! You know, so let me just—this is like anecdotally; here’s why people in general don’t tend to leave charismatic churches. Here’s why: because if somebody argued you into the charismatic church, it’s all about an experience, an experience, or an encounter with God! If somebody argued you into faith, somebody else can argue you out! You can’t argue somebody out of an encounter with the living God! You just can’t do it!
Now, I got to keep moving. So here’s the Death Star vulnerability of charismatic churches. They can prioritize the gifts of the Spirit over the fruits of the Spirit, and what will happen is you get ungodly leaders who stay in places or are elevated under sort of God’s like, «Touch not God’s anointed!» That’s dangerous; that’s dangerous! Okay, now so this is the thing, and what happens right now is Satan has effectively divided these churches. I have this whole talk on why all these categories of churches naturally sort of resist one another—so Satan has divided these; he’s divided these!
Unity in Word, Mission, and Spirit
Okay, but what God has joined together, let not man separate! What if there was a church that lived there? What if that happened? What if, like, would that be possible? Could that be a thing? Now, can I just really quickly pause because I know that you may be nervous, and I want to disarm the nervousness. Whenever I preach on the power or gifts of the Spirit, I always get this question: «Josh, are you turning Lake Pointe into a charismatic church?»
Okay, he says, «Dude, this guy said yes!» Okay, now listen: he either said yes or he’s like, «Yeah, that’s my question too.» You know, either way, my answer to that is no! I want Lake Pointe to be a Bible church, and the Bible commands us to love the Word of God and accomplish the mission of God in the power of the Spirit of God! We are called! This right here, we have a divine commission from the Father to do this!
Okay, so there’s a quote: like if you were to ask, «Josh, what one quote outside the Bible most reflects your heart?» Here it is! I’m going to show it to you: This is R.T. Kendall. R.T. Kendall said this: «There are word churches, and there are spirit churches. There has been a great divorce in the church between word and spirit. And like any divorce, some kids go with the mom, and some kids go with the dad. Revival happens when you bring those two back together.» That’s what can happen! Okay, so this is where I just be very blunt: this is where I want us! I want us, I want us loving the Word of God, accomplishing the mission of God in the power of the Spirit of God! And I don’t want to miss anything that God has on offer! I don’t want to miss anything! Like absolutely nothing!
Charge One: Preach the Whole Word
So let me give some charges to us as a church. This is like a family meeting! Let’s talk about this! Let’s talk about where we’re going! Some charges to us: if we’re going to be this, I’m going to give one charge for each of the circles, and I’m going to give a charge to our church, and some of these will be challenging. A charge to the church and then a charge to you as a disciple. I want you to leave in the Week of Encounter a different person than you started as! I want you to leave different, okay?
So here’s charge number one from the doctrinal category. You just need to know this: we will unapologetically preach the whole Word to the issues of the whole world! We are absolutely going to do that! Now here’s why I say this, and some of you are in and some of you are out, and what just happened is all the people who were in clapped, and all the people who were out didn’t. So I—you know what everybody told me I was supposed to do to grow a church was avoid controversial issues and never preach about anything that was higher than like a sixth-grade level. That’s like what I was told—like, do that; that’s how you do it. There are a few problems with that. The biggest one is the Bible! That’s the biggest one.
So the Book of Galatians, Paul says this: «Am I now trying to win the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please man, I would no longer be a servant of Christ.» Like, listen y’all, if the Lord has spoken, we are not allowed not to speak! We’re not allowed not to. The warning—and like I think about this often as, like, dude, as a pastor, as somebody whom God has called to preach the Word of God, the condemnation of the prophets in the Old Testament is God saying things like, «I told you to say this, and you kept your mouth shut» or «I didn’t tell you to say that and you, quote, prophesied from your own heart.» But y’all, listen, man! My job is whatever this thing says to tell you, and I declare, and you decide! That’s like how the whole thing is set up.
So number one, the problem is the Bible! The other—listen, can I just say this? The other problem with that strategy of like, man, don’t say anything controversial, don’t say anything above a sixth-grade level? The other problem with that is it doesn’t work! You hear me say this all the time! When you get… you hear me say this—when you get baby Christians, you get baby Christians! And, well, here’s what I know—can I just say this? I’ll just kind of notice this. And I’m not—this is not a proof that this is the right thing, but it is a symptom.
I’ve just noticed this: It was two and a half years ago, two and a half years ago, I decided, «I’m going to abandon that philosophy, and I’m just going in. I’m just going in!» Here’s what I’ve noticed, okay? What I’ve noticed is the harder I preach, the bigger we get! I’ve just noticed that, man! And so like, let me just—now, some of you are cheering right now, and you won’t be in 10 seconds! So whenever I do this, some of what I hear after messages on these things is people saying, «Pastor, you’re getting political now!» Just don’t say anything yet! «Pastor, you’re getting political!»
Can I just say this? In our culture right now, everything is political! Everything is political! Loving and reaching a Hispanic community—that’s political apparently! Preaching on race—that’s political apparently! Preaching on gender dysphoria—that’s political! Preaching on abortion and God’s limitless love and forgiveness for women who have had them—that’s political! Apparently, going to Target is now political! I learned that from my joke at the end of the sermon last Sunday. It was like, I learned that real quick: «You shouldn’t have mentioned Target!» You know, it’s that kind of thing, okay?
So here’s the deal, man, y’all are the best! You are the best! You’re the best! So listen, here’s my reality: I live in a world where everything is political! So if I want to avoid being political, I have to stop being biblical! And I will not do that! I will not do that! And I just need an amen! That’s awesome! Awesome! Some of you—listen, and I know some of you—you struggle with that. Let me just say this gently: man, I listen! I don’t care who you are; I don’t care what you’ve done; I don’t care what you believe; I don’t care how stupid you think I am—I love you! I love you! But I just want to be honest with you, I just want to be honest.
Hang on; I just want to be honest: If what I just said bothers you, you need to find another church! And very honestly, listen, we need your parking spot and your seat! Well, you know, that’s it, man! There you go! So we want—now, y’all are excited, so we will unapologetically preach the whole Word to the whole world!
Personal Charge: Romance with the Word
Now, can I just lean into you as a disciple? I want you to leave the Week of Encounter a different person than you came! And if you want something different, you gotta do something different! If you want something different, you got to do something different! If you want to become a person of God, you have to develop a romance for the Word of God!
This is like—I didn’t—it’s not in the message! Like one of the ways that Jan and I knew, like, «Oh, I want to marry that person.» You know how I knew? Independently of each, we didn’t even meet each other; it was a blind date! So like, all this happened before, man, we got into dating when we realized, «Oh, you do this too? Oh wait, you do this too?» And when we were captured by Christ in college, we both, we would just sometimes, like, just fall asleep just like hugging our Bibles and just sleep with our Bibles just because like, man, we just developed this romance for the Word of God!
Because when we opened this thing, we heard His voice—the voice of our Father who loves us! And you cannot become a person of God without developing a romance for the Word of God! And listen, this is like—this is how God blesses you! Like, this is an awesome thing! You just need, this is a reality: God has a plan to bless your life; it’s in the Word. Satan has a plan to curse your life; it’s in the world! You get to choose which plan you’re on! Like, just let me give you some data and let me keep moving on, okay?
Here’s—there’s a study that came out; it was two years ago. Here’s what I found: People who read the Bible one time a week, it makes no change in their life whatsoever. People who read the Bible two times a week, makes no change! I’m like, seriously, no change in their life whatsoever! People who read the Bible three times a week, makes no change in life whatsoever! People who read the Bible at least four times a week, something radically changes in them! Those people are 228% more likely to share their faith! They are 407% more likely to memorize Scripture! They are 59% less likely to view pornography! They’re 30% less likely to struggle with loneliness! I could go on and on and on.
Here’s the point: When the Word and not the world becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change! Your life will start to change! And so, man, this is like—this is baseline! This is like baseline! Like, man, some of you have been believers for five, six, seven decades. Go listen, if you want what you had at the beginning, do what you did at the beginning! And man, if you’ve lost—if you had it and you lost it, and you want it back, I bet you when you had it, you had a romance for the Word of God! You were in it! You wanted to wake up and hear your Heavenly Father day by day! And so, man, like, if you’re going to leave encounter a different person, get back into this book in a different way!
Like, so that’s a charge to you!
Charge Two: Reach the Lost
Now the second one is going to be a little more brief: charge to us from the attractional category. Let me just—I just need to re-emphasize this. You just need to know we are never going to stop doing this. We will do anything short of sin to reach people for Christ! We will do anything short of sin! We’ll do anything short of sin!
Now right here, let me just say this. I just want to—right now, Lake Pointe Church, I just want to say that I am so proud of you! Like honestly, sometimes I’m like, «Oh man, it’s like I’m just so proud of you!»
So I said this in two services, only two services, and only the Rockwall campus; there was a reason for this! All you other campuses that we love very much, Rockwall campus, will you show other campuses how much we love them? That’s right! That’s awesome! Man, you’re family here! It’s great!
So a couple of people know this, but let me recap for the whole church. In 2022, let me talk like data real quick. In 2022, Lake Pointe, we had our first-ever 16,000 in-person attendance week! That was 2022! In 2023, this year so far, we’ve had our first 17,000 week, 18,000 week, 19,000 week, and 20,000 week! And that does not include holidays or «At the Movies, » I’m just talking normal weekends!
Now let me just say this: anytime I say something like that, somebody goes, «Oh man, really? Y’all are just all about the numbers? You’re just all about the numbers? You know, big terms on big, big church—it’s all about the numbers—make church fast.» You know, kind of thing.
Can I just say something? You say, «We’re all about the numbers»? Let me just say something—yep, we are! Yeah, we are! Let me just say that, yes, we are all about the numbers. We are all about the numbers of marriages restored, of addicts freed, of children adopted! We are all about the number of people being saved from an eternity apart from God! Yeah, we are all about those numbers! That’s exactly right! Because we will do anything short of sin to reach people for Christ!
Now that’s us as a church! Let me give you a charge! What about you? Are you personally—are you willing? Are you doing whatever it takes to reach one more for Christ? Are you willing to do that? Can I just say this? You cannot stand before God someday and say, «I went to an evangelistic church.» The question is, are you evangelistic? Are you reaching people for Christ?
And here’s the thing, man: all we need is just one more! That’s all your focus needs to be; it’s just one! We’re not trying to be a big church; we’re just trying to reach one more! And if enough people are reaching one more, then we’re going to keep seeing this thing going, going, going. We just need you to reach one more!
I’ll give you an example of this: like, you need to know the answer to the question, «Who’s my one more?» You need to know the answer to that question! Like, I’ve got one right now. I’m not going to say his name; man, that’ll be real awkward. It’s different for me, like my warm-up—like I’ve always got one person that’s like, «That’s my guy!» It was a dude that ran a Mexican restaurant at one time, and it was like, man, it’s awkward for me!
Like here’s my—you have it so easy! My pitch is, «Come to my church and hear me preach. My mom says I’m amazing!» That’s my pitch! So like literally this dude, his name was Manny, literally this dude—I was like, «I’ve been working on him!» Giving huge tips and helping him with all this stuff and all that stuff, and finally, like, I invited him to a service, and I like just—I’m like, it’s awkward, so I’m not going to tell him that I’m the preacher.
So like he just comes in; we’re sitting—I sit in the third or fourth row with Manny, we’re sitting there, and it’s like time to preach. I’m like, «Hey bro, I’ll be back in this!» You know, I’m like, he’s like, «Bro, where are you going?» I’m like, «Bro, I’ll be back in like 30 minutes!» You know? Do you want to know the—listen, you want to know the best week you’ll ever have at church? You want the best week? This is what happened that week: I’m preaching, I get the invitation, and while I’m praying, I get to watch Manny raise his hand!
Now let me tell you, like the best week you will ever have at church is when your one more is sitting in the seat and you like peek up! You’re allowed—if you got your one more, you like peek around real quick! And you see the person that you invested in, and they cross the line—best week you’ll ever have!
So you need to know the answer to the question, «Man, you got to know the answer to this question: Who’s my one more?» Who is that one? If we’re just doing one more, one more, one more? Like, man, this thing—this city’s going to change!
So that’s it; we’ll do anything short of sin to reach people for Christ!
Charge Three: Power of the Spirit
Now let’s get crazy—charismatic! So here, here we go! Okay, okay, okay! Here we go, charismatic! You just need to know this: Man, because we believe every word that’s in here, we will operate in the filling and gifts of the Holy Spirit! We want to do that!
Now, this is going to make—I know that this makes somebody—when I like people go, «Man, Josh, are you charismatic?» I’m like, «I’m charismatic with a seatbelt; that’s what I am!» Because there are clear directives in the Word of God about how gifts should and should not be used. And so anytime somebody steps outside of that, it’s like, «Oh bro, that’s like—man, the Word of God is our ultimate authority above any emotion you got!» It’s like, man, so that’s number one!
I know that this makes you nervous because some of you, you’ve just seen rampant emotionalism; you’ve seen people doing crazy things and calling it charismatic; it’s just weird stuff, man. Like, I’ve seen some weird, weird, weird stuff—weird stuff! So amen, there it is, bro! That’s it! I like that guy! I’ve seen it too; we’re not—we don’t do that here; we don’t do that!
But here’s why, okay? Here’s why we have to do this: We have to step into the power of the Spirit because I just—let me just say, it sounds even weird to say, but because of the reality of the demonic! Yeah, you may be going, «Man, right now, you may be gone, ‘Josh, it’s the 21st century, and you believe in demons? ’»
Listen, yeah, I do! In our culture, what we do is we call them addictions or depression! Listen, that’s not the only issue! Of course therapy! Of course mental health! Of course, yeah! But sometimes there’s also a spiritual issue. And let me—here’s my proof, man! Think about this! Think about what an addict says! An addict says, «Man, I got this thing inside of me, and it pulls me towards something that I know is going to steal, kill, and destroy me and everybody I love! And man, it makes me do things that I don’t even want to do! And man, this thing that it pulls me toward, it enslaves me! It’s like another voice is inside of me!» That’s what an addict says!
Now what do you call that? Bad judgment? There’s more going on there, man! So like you need to know that if you’re a Christian, you can be oppressed by a demon, but you can never be possessed by a demon because you are a blood-bought possession of Jesus Christ! Love, all possession of Jesus Christ!
So the only way to win a war against unholy spirits is by the power of the Holy Spirit! And we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and spiritual forces of darkness in the high places! That is always true! Every problem you have is more spiritual than you think it is! And you have to win the war on the spiritual before you wage in the physical—it’s simply how you have to do this.
Think about it! If we go back, just let’s just do it, it’s all about this! This book is everything! This tells us what is our rule, our standard, the whole counsel of God—right here! Think about this book in Rome, especially Corinth! I’m going to describe Corinth to you, and it might or might not sound a little familiar!
Corinth was a college town; everybody was young, educated, single! They were all waking up at the crack of noon trying to get drunk on mimosas! They were making up pronouns, «My body, my choice!» stickers on the backs of all their camels—talking about moving to Austin! That was Corinth! And they were deeply loved by God! They were deeply loved by God!
And when Paul walks into Corinth, and he’s looking out at that, and he’s gone, «I’m going to see this city conquered for Jesus.» You remember what he said? «My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power!» See, that is what works in Rome! Hey y’all, America looks a lot like Rome! Now guess what’s going to work? A demonstration of the Spirit and Power! A demonstration of the Spirit and Power!
All these things, man, all these things—like these gifts have been given to us for this purpose! Now some people like, «Oh, gifts, I don’t know if they still do that; I think that was just in Bible times!» First of all, that’s not the Bible; there’s nothing about that in the Bible. All this stuff—you don’t know this stuff is happening in our church!
Like there’s a—actually, I’m giving you one from literally this week. Like literally this week, Lake Pointe Español, this woman walks in; she’s with her husband, who’s Spanish-speaking; she’s English-speaking. She walks into the LPE service; she’s struggling with deep, deep depression— a stronghold of depression! She’s in the middle of the service! In the middle of the service, all of a sudden, she starts hearing Pastor Paul in English! She looks over her husband and she’s like, «He’s speaking English!» The guy explains, «No, no, he’s still speaking Spanish, but she’s hearing him in English!»
She hears him in English for a period of eight minutes! She’s struggling with depression; she hears him for the eight minutes that he is preaching about freedom in Christ from depression! That like that’s like a thing! That’s a thing! So man, all of this stuff, you listen, you cannot live a supernatural life in natural strength! Everything that we want to see—an outpouring of the Spirit of God, everything John talked about yesterday—there is no earthly power that can do those things! No strategy, no lights, no none of it! The Holy Spirit of the Living God can do it in a blink of an eye! In the blink of an eye!
Call to Be Filled with the Spirit
And so let me just—I’m going to lead this thing. I told you, man, there’s no emotional flow! This talk’s almost over; I’m almost done! But let me give this to you: some of you, you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit! If you need to be filled with the Holy Spirit, you see these three things—I don’t have time to do the whole theology! You see these three things: the heavens constantly—that somebody is baptized into Christ, the Holy Spirit baptizes someone into Christ, a believer baptizes that person into water, and then Jesus baptizes them in the Holy Spirit. He fills me with the Holy Spirit!
There’s a passage that the Lord gave me right before I walked up on stage, and this is for some of you! This is Acts 19! This is in Ephesus! Paul goes to Ephesus and it says, you say the words out loud: There he found some—what? Some disciples! That’s interesting! So it’s people who are following Jesus; they’re called disciples! And asked them, «Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?» So they’re disciples who are following Jesus; they’ve already believed! And he goes, «Did you receive the Holy Spirit?» They said, «No, we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.»
So Paul asked, «Well then, what baptism did you receive?» «John’s baptism, » they replied! Remember, John said, he said, «Hey, there’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world! Repent! Be baptized!» So that’s John’s baptism. Paul said, «John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told people to believe in the one coming after him—that is, in Jesus.» So that was John’s baptism.
Okay, on hearing this, they were what? They were baptized! By the way, some of you, you need to, in obedience to God, to experience a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in your life—you need to be baptized at baptism weekend this coming weekend! Like Jesus is calling you to do that; you need to do that!
Okay, so this immediately on hearing this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus! When Paul placed his hands on them, what’s it say? The Holy Spirit came on them! So let me just recap. Do you remember? Had they already—had they already believed? Yes or no? Had they already been baptized? Yes or no? But had they been filled with the Holy Spirit? Yes or no? No, they hadn’t!
Some of you, you’ve believed, you’ve been baptized, but you need to be filled with the Spirit in a fresh way! And here’s what God said! Yeah, I want you all to go ahead and stand! But I don’t want you to pay attention to anything except me! Stand, you pay attention to only me! And I want our prayer teams to start coming down right now at all of our locations! But while they’re coming down, you stay with me; y’all look at me!
Some of you, you’ve believed, you’ve been baptized, you need to be filled with the Spirit! And it’s very easy! You go, «How do I do that?» Jesus said this; He said, «Man, what father among you, if his son asked for a fish, is going to give him a stone? How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?» So this is all you’ve got to do: you just gotta ask! You gotta ask! You cannot live a supernatural life in natural strength!
Now at all of our locations here, these prayer teams, they don’t know I’m going to do this! I love you all so much! Thank you! Just exactly what they did in the New Testament is they laid hands on people and they asked God to fill them with the Holy Spirit! That’s what y’all are going to do at all of our campuses! That’s what our prayer team is going to do!
Final Response and Altar Call
Now right now, every person in the room, you need to respond in one of three ways: like Revelation response—God has spoken; it’s your turn! So, one: some of you need to pray! Some of you need to—right now you’re like, «Man, I am not experiencing that power! I read my Bible; I look at my life; something’s missing!» And you just need to, with a humble heart, a broken heart, you need to confess sin! Get the unholy out! You need to ask for the Holy Spirit; get the holy in!
So some of you, what I want you to do, I’m not going to try to work you up; I’m not going to tell a big emotional story! You just, you know, obey God and receive everything that He has for you! There’s more! And so what I want you to do is, if that’s you, as soon as I call you, I want you to, I want like run! Like I want you to be like, «Man, I want that so bad! I’m going!» And I just want you to come down; I want you to find a prayer team member! And prayer team members, I want you to just get out any sin that you need to confess, and prayer team members, I just want you to lay your hands on these people and ask God to fill them with the Holy Spirit! That’s all I want you to do! Say, «God, I want you to fill this person with the Holy Spirit from the top of his or her head to the bottom of their—»
I want you that! All of our campuses best pray! Some of you, you need a singing! Is anyone among you cheerful? Y’all cheerful? I’m cheerful! Man, how am I sure? I’m sure! And so now what we’re going to do is, now we’re going to sing! And man, like, man, we’re going to go all out! We’re going to offer a sacrifice of praise; we’re going to do that! Something you need to bring!
And again, at every campus, we got these crosses all around the room! And some of you, you got to sin that you have not been able to stop holding against yourself! You need to be lying to one of those crosses! Write that on a sheet of paper and nail it to the cross because you need to be reminded that you need to stop crucifying yourself for the thing Jesus was already crucified for, and that your Savior loves you! That there’s a power that He has that’s available to set you free from that thing! That you can be—man, your Heavenly Father, He just loves you! He’s so excited!
So that’s it! Praise, sing, bring! But man, what I hope happens right now, what I’m praying for is that there are a lot of people who are like, «Man, I want to be filled with the Spirit in a fresh way, and I’m not leaving this place without that!» So right now, pray, sing, bring; let’s go, let’s go!