Is the BAPTISM of the Holy Spirit a REAL Thing?! (What the Bible ACTUALLY Says) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Live Free with Josh Howerton - Lakepointe Church

In this episode of Live Free with Josh Howerton, the hosts explore the biblical concept of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, addressing common

Key takeaways

• The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a one-time event for some but a continual empowerment available to all believers.

Main topics

• Biblical teaching on the baptism of the Holy Spirit

Notable quotes

"You cannot argue somebody out of an encounter with a living God."

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a powerful prayer for spiritual renewal, ur

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) Some people get tripped up and they think, until I become nearly sinless, I'm never going to receive the gift of the Spirit. And I would just point out, it's called a gift, brother. We're going to talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Speaker 2 (0:10) What is it and how do you get it? There is one God and there's one story of salvation that he is writing. That's a continuous thing from Old Testament to New Testament. Speaker 1 (0:18) Well, hey, Live Free Nation. Before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our Church Online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Point. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now, enjoy the podcast. Speaker 3 (1:07) Let us keep this big. Let us keep this big. Well, hey, Speaker 1 (1:10) welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Orazco, and today I am excited because I'm here hanging out with two great men of God. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham. Speaker 2 (1:19) Woo-hoo! What's up? Speaker 1 (1:20) Coming to you from Lake Point Church in Dallas, Texas, and today we're going to have a great episode. Pastor Josh, I'm excited for this one. Me Speaker 3 (1:25) too, but we've been commandeered by the Mormons. Speaker 3 (1:29) Okay. You Speaker 2 (1:30) went ahead and went there. He went there quick. That's a joke. We'll explain that here in a second if you don't know what we're talking about. That escalated quickly. In addition to Speaker 1 (1:38) what you just brought up, we're going to be addressing today 2 Timothy 1. God did not give us a spirit of fear or timidity. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is it and how do you get it? Or is that a thing? Or is that even a thing? There's a lot of Speaker 3 (1:53) people who are like... Hey man, not sure that's a thing. That just happened at Salvation. We Speaker 1 (1:56) ask people on Instagram to submit their questions and literally it's like, hey, would you submit questions on the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Literally one question was, what is it? Okay, there you go. Continuities and discontinuities between the old covenant and the new covenant in the Bible. Very nerdy. And of course, Talk nerdy to me. It gets better. We're going to be asking. Speaker 1 (2:16) It took me a second. We may actually have to edit that out. You're talking to Paul, right? Let's just keep going. We're also going to be asking, should Christians try to legally stop mosques from being built in their cities? Okay, I'm Speaker 3 (2:30) just going to go ahead and give a quick, like, buckle your seatbelt. I know, you know, let me just, we're going to talk. I spent an inordinate amount of time this week trying to get my head around this question. So let me just get this out the gate. I need you to listen with an open mind when we get there. We may have time to get to it this episode. We're going to do our best. There's a lot there that may need its own episode. And I'll just let listeners know the reason we're doing this, we're not trying to like, I think some people are like, dude, you guys keep talking about Islam. Well, it's like, A, we live in Dallas. That's like a thing here. And B, it's like, if people don't know, there was just a national news story came out of McKinney just a few miles from us. Future McKinney campus coming in the next little while. Good news? Yep. Maybe, maybe it is. But I don't think I'm. Anyway, let me just keep going. And so it became a national news story because there was a massive. I mean, I think about a thousand people at a city council meeting protesting, opposing the building of a pretty significant Moss site. We're going to talk a lot of this here in a second. Became a national news story because despite all the opposition, city council approved it 7-0. And so then, dude, this is a major question Christians are getting is, should Christians legally organize to try to stop a mosque being built in their city? Or, Speaker 2 (3:54) and here's the tension, Speaker 3 (3:54) I'm going to go ahead and pull my punch and give the tension, or religious liberty is an explicitly Christian concept. Like, that's our thing. Like, we kind of came, we're a religion of invitation, not imposition, and First Amendment and all the things were made by Christians. So how should Christians think about that? And there's a lot there. So we'll see what we can do. I Speaker 1 (4:15) have a couple questions about that. It's going to be fun. So either on this episode or the next one or a bonus episode, because there's quite a bit that we're going to be covering as well. Hey, a couple of things I want to celebrate here at Lake Point. Mr. Josh, we just came from At The Movies. And man, how did you feel this weekend? Speaker 3 (4:29) Well, we can't. So this weekend was our first week not At The Movies. So we came out of the series. We started last week. Obviously, we started Fight The Good Fight. This week's week too. Bro, honestly, I was so proud of our church because, you know, we kind of did the thing, hey, for four weeks we reached wide, now we're going deep, and it's just verse by verse through 2 Timothy. Let me brag on the people of Lake Point. Everybody new coming into this week, here's all we're doing. We're deep diving and verse by verse in 2 Timothy, and it was our first week ever, non-holiday, non-ATM, over 30,000 people in person. I'm at the Rockwall campus, obviously. Both services on Sunday. Stairs are covered with a bunch of college students with Bibles in their laps. And, dude, it was stinking awesome. So that was last week. And then, partly because of Live Free Nation, we told everybody to go get these little Crossway 2 Timothy journals. So not only did we sell out all the ones at Lake Point. We sold out Amazon. We broke Amazon. We broke Amazon. Amazon's like, what is going on with this popularity? Speaker 1 (5:33) This Speaker 3 (5:34) random $7. We sold out all of Amazon. So sorry to everyone. And we'll do our best to see what we can do for you. Speaker 1 (5:43) We need to figure that out in the future whenever we have people. buy things from Amazon. Like it's a, it's going to be a thing. Well, Speaker 3 (5:49) we actually had like an emergency meeting afterward and realized we're going Speaker 1 (5:52) to Speaker 3 (5:52) change our strategy because between Lake Point and live free, when we say stuff like that, like 250,000 people go looking for it. So, but here's what I love. I love that everybody listening, everybody at Lake Point loves the word of God. That's Speaker 1 (6:05) what I love. People came hungry. They came hungry. Yeah. They did, man. Hey, also, if you are listening to this and you're in the DFW area, part of the Live Free Nation, come hang out as well. We always love to meet people from all over the place. Every single week we do a giveaway. So comment hats on YouTube or Spotify and maybe even Chad G. Palsy might sign one and, you know, it's going to be a special one. We'll see. Also, subscribe on YouTube or Spotify as well. Thank you for supporting to download the Lake Point Church app. How many of those hats have we given away? You may know. I'm curious. Thousands. Thousands? I don't know. Speaker 3 (6:36) You may know the answer to that. We Speaker 1 (6:38) don't know. I don't know that, but I do know that if you want to download the Late Point app, you can. Just go ahead and text the word aptitude 0411. How many people have texted me? Speaker 1 (6:48) And so it's going to be great. Okay, so on that note, Pastor Josh, I have a question for you, but that's not the question I usually ask. It's Speaker 3 (6:54) a Speaker 1 (6:54) different one. Oh, okay. You brought up Mormonism at the beginning of this episode when we were saying hi. So let me— Wait, do Speaker 3 (7:01) we have a picture of the announcement? Hang on, Trinity. I'm going to send you a picture of the announcement. Can Speaker 1 (7:07) I Speaker 3 (7:07) pull it up? Is Speaker 1 (7:07) that Speaker 3 (7:08) weird if I do that? No, you can pull it up. All right, go ahead and keep talking. So this is what— This is what resulted in many, we're going to call them frequently shouted questions. Speaker 1 (7:15) Oh, Speaker 3 (7:17) can you pull it up? No, no, hang on. I'm going to send you the one I'm talking about. Speaker 1 (7:20) There's one there. Speaker 3 (7:21) Look at that guy. Speaker 1 (7:22) Okay, so for the one or two people that are... What Speaker 3 (7:26) a Speaker 1 (7:26) punchable face. I'm joking. Hey, bro. Speaker 1 (7:33) I Speaker 3 (7:34) know Speaker 2 (7:34) the story behind that. Hey, we got a Speaker 1 (7:39) podcast to record here. Hey, for the people that actually have no idea what we're talking about, Pastor Josh, why are you bringing up the Blaze Media announcement? Okay, Speaker 3 (7:47) so this announcement became public this week. Well, I won't go there. So essentially, this is what was announced. Speaker 3 (8:01) And first of all, let me just say— Wait, we're reading it for the people that are listening. I'm not reading that. It feels weird for me to read that. I got you, bro. I'm not reading that. Okay, Speaker 2 (8:07) let Speaker 3 (8:07) me just say, Speaker 1 (8:07) America's fastest-growing Christian voice is joining Blaze Media, Blaze TV staff. It says, Josh Howerton, Lake Point Church pastor and host of Live Free, joins Blaze Media to share the gospel and apply scripture to the issues of the day. And that Speaker 2 (8:20) is exactly what Speaker 3 (8:20) we're doing. Okay. That's exactly what we're doing. First of all, I would just like to say— We did not tell them to say fastest growing Christian place. No, we did not. That's Speaker 2 (8:28) why Speaker 3 (8:28) I didn't want to read it. But this resulted in, it's called a distribution partnership. Is that the right thing to say? With Blaze, where they're starting to put live free on their platforms. And this resulted in a significant number of, we will call them frequently shouted questions. That's right. So we would like to dispel some frequently shouted questions. And then we'll actually talk about the Bible and it'll be great. Let me start with the first one. And Speaker 1 (8:53) mosques. Pastor Josh, you are now— No, Speaker 3 (8:56) you have to shout them. Speaker 1 (8:57) Oh, okay. Speaker 3 (8:58) They're frequently shouted questions. This is going to be really interesting. Speaker 1 (9:00) Pastor Josh, you are now working for a Mormon. Speaker 3 (9:04) He can't even do it. He can't do it. He can't even do Speaker 1 (9:06) it. Speaker 3 (9:06) He can't do it. That's like a fake shout. So first of all, let Speaker 2 (9:08) me just— Speaker 3 (9:08) Oh, my God. All right, so first of all, number one, I'm not working. I'm working for Lake Point Church. Okay. We're not employees. of the Blaze. This is a distribution partnership. Essentially, they came to us. And by the way, we've had people approach us before about potentially acquiring the podcast or, hey, you know, can we put it on our networks? And we just didn't feel awesome about it. And I'll talk about why here in a second. All this is, is they are putting our content on their platforms. That's number one. So I'm an employee of one. I have one employer, Lake Point Church, the elders and the people of Lake Point Church. Number two, a lot of people don't know this, dude, but I realized this this week amidst the frequently shouted questions. First of all, let me just say, I have met Glenn Beck. Dude's awesome. I stinking loved Glenn Beck. He was amazing. But he doesn't own The Blaze anymore. So, in fact, I talked to the CEO this week of The Blaze, and both the current ownership group and the board. is entirely comprised now of Bible-believing Christians. So that's my answer to your frequently shouted question, Carlos. Boy, you know what? You know what? Okay. Speaker 1 (10:20) Oh, you know what? I got another one. Shout Speaker 3 (10:22) it. Shout it, Pompadour from El Salvador. After this Speaker 1 (10:26) partnership, Pastor Josh, you're going to be distracted. You're a pastor. Yes, Speaker 3 (10:30) I saw this a lot this week. This was a frequently shouted question. Literally, we're not doing anything different. We're just... recording the podcast like we've always done, and then they're putting it on their channels. So literally the exact same amount of time that goes into the Bible teaching and the production of Live Free is the exact Speaker 1 (10:50) same thing we'll keep on doing. Speaker 3 (10:51) Except Speaker 1 (10:52) more people are going to be listening to the Word of God. Okay, that's great. Speaker 3 (10:55) More Speaker 1 (10:55) people will Speaker 3 (10:55) hear the Word of Speaker 1 (10:56) God. Speaker 3 (10:56) But there's one more. Pastor Speaker 1 (10:57) Josh, you're also aligning with a political organization. What are you doing? Speaker 3 (11:01) No, that's just not true. So first of all, again, This is a distribution partnership. They're just going, hey, can we take Live Free and put it on our platforms? And for us, we're going, more people hear about Jesus, more people hear about the Word of God. Oh, that's great. We also, no one. And this was a part of us just making clear. And they had no problem with this. They were like, hey, we don't want you to change anything. We're not changing absolutely anything. No one has editorial control over anything that we do. In fact, they just love what we're currently doing. We're going to keep doing that, exactly what we're doing. So Lake Point works and has partnerships with tons of organizations. Are you talking like tons of organizations? So when we partner with an organization, really, we're not. that's not us endorsing everything that comes out of any organization. When we order food from a restaurant, that's not us for a catering thing. That's not us going, we now approve of everything every employee of that restaurant ever said. No, this is just us going, hey man, more people hear the life-saving message of Jesus Christ and hear the word of God preached. That's all that is. Speaker 1 (12:13) But will you still be able to— Speaker 3 (12:15) You literally, you can't shout, can you? Well, Speaker 1 (12:17) man, I'm being mindful of the people listening in the car right now with the family. Will you still be able to talk freely about the Bible? Yes, that's all we do. Speaker 3 (12:26) So again, nothing whatsoever changes about the pod except— More people see it. That's great. Speaker 2 (12:31) What I've told some people is basically like I watch Seinfeld on multiple stations that they syndicate the show that they did not create. They just syndicate. Same thing like sometimes you have radio shows that it starts in one city and then other radio stations elsewhere, they distribute it. They syndicate it. That's all that's happening here. That's great. Speaker 1 (12:47) That's great. That's Speaker 2 (12:47) all Speaker 1 (12:47) I got. Speaker 3 (12:48) Hey, good Speaker 2 (12:48) job with the frequently shouted questions. Thank you, Brian. Speaker 1 (12:51) Semi-shouted. Hey, Speaker 3 (12:52) dude, can I ask you something about your neck of Speaker 1 (12:54) the Speaker 3 (12:54) woods? Yeah, sure. Kind of your neck of the woods. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. Speaker 1 (12:57) Yeah, go ahead. I'll allow it. I'll allow it. Speaker 3 (13:00) Something pretty significant happened in Colombia, South America last Speaker 1 (13:05) week or so. Catch me up. Okay, so Colombia some days ago had this massive earthquake. I think it was like 7.4. And by the way, if you've ever been in an earthquake, I have, it's really scary. Obviously, there's like buildings falling. ground literally shaking. Like if you've ever been in one, it's like apocalyptic. And that happens. 7.4 is a big deal. And so what a lot of people are asking right now is... Why does it seem like there's so many different earthquakes happening, like literally all over the world? Like you see this in like Venezuela, obviously this happened last month. There's like two earthquakes happening, Mexico, Japan, Indonesia. These are like massive earthquakes. And what I want to do is I want to help you think biblically about this. So it's interesting when you look at scripture, there's only one time that Jesus actually specifically explicitly addresses earthquakes. And the one time he does it, it happens in the context of the end times and the return of Jesus. And so let me just read it. Matthew 24, 7 and 8. It says, for a nation, this is Jesus speaking in the context of the end times and his return. He says, for a nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines and there will be earthquakes in various places. All of these are but the beginning of the birth pains. So this photo right here, Trin, if you can pull it up. This photo right here, it is an image showing the 10 earthquakes that have been over 7.0 and above in magnitude, which is like devastating. That's Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Indonesia. Again, more than just numbers. This is like literally people dying, buildings falling apart. A lot of these countries are not even ready to sustain that damage. This is literally what Jesus said 2,000 years ago would happen. like there would be earthquakes literally in all a bunch of different places and somebody might be hearing this and be like yeah okay but there's always been earthquakes uh there's always this has always happened and that's true but it we haven't always had these amount of earthquakes in the context of literally everything else that we're seeing right now happening and unfolding in our world And so let me just give you another one real quick. Wars and rumors of wars is what the Bible says. So studies show today that in the last four to five years, there's been an increasing number in, quote, active armed conflicts involving government. 2025 set an all-time record high since World War II. In 2026, the amount of countries that were involved as well in conflict outside of their own borders nearly doubled in the last 20 years. And according to the same report, it says, quote, global peace is at its lowest level since 2007. And again, this is just one more example of so much more we could keep going. But here's the point I want to put on my pastor hat on. When people see, and by the way, this is not the last one. You will probably see more of these for the rest of the year, like a significant earthquake and things like this. When you see stuff like that, earthquakes, wars, persecution. the insanity happening out there, chaos, Jesus said this would happen. And he said, when you see these things, what you need to understand, if you're a Christian, like you need to be reminded, this is literally what Jesus said would happen before he said, hey, I'm gonna be back soon. I'm gonna return soon. Now, if you're not a Christian, what you need to understand is like, this should scare you. It means that you need to know, like Jesus spoke about birth pains, and this is just the beginning of something that's gonna get worse. But what's interesting, a lot of people don't know this, that if you are a Christian, in the same verse where Jesus is speaking about the end times and what's going to happen, he literally says this, Matthew 24, 6, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see that you are not alarmed. And so if you are a Christian and you are seeing all this chaos, what you need to understand is Jesus is saying, hey, you... believer, you should not be afraid because this is actually a divine plan that is unfolding. And so again, the world is expecting catastrophe, but Christians are expecting Christ to return. The world is expecting tragedy, but Christians know that Jesus is still on the throne and we don't put our faith in possibilities. We put our faith in a person and his name is Jesus. So Lord Jesus, please come soon. Amen. Amen, Carlos. Okay, bro. Speaker 3 (16:55) How are they doing down there? Do you know? Speaker 1 (16:57) We sent some resources, I think. Yeah, yeah. And the same with Venezuela. I mean, better. I mean, again, there's rescue mission. There's a lot of effort. Some countries are better positioned to their infrastructure. The thing with all these countries, they don't have the infrastructure that we have necessarily here in the U.S. So, again, the damage is significant. We partner with Convoy of Hope. Yeah, that's right. And they're the ones that get in there. So, yeah. That's great, man. Yeah. Pastor Josh, now I do have a question for you that you're somewhat familiar with. What did it make it to the sermon? Speaker 3 (17:27) A lot, dude. And I'm excited about this right here as well. I love having the podcast because for real, dude, there's this thing. Hey, by the way, great Speaker 1 (17:34) job Speaker 3 (17:34) this weekend. Thank Speaker 1 (17:35) you. Thank you. Speaker 3 (17:36) Thank you. I'll be honest. This is a little thing. I don't know if it's just like trends or age. It's the older I get, dude. I just really don't like any sermon series that's not just preaching through a book of the Bible. I don't know what that is. It's just like. The best, man. I don't know. I don't know. There's just something about it for me. I'm excited about this. This is why I like having the podcast. There's one thing in particular. I've been trying to get into a sermon for like, it's probably been three years, and I can never do it. I've been like, okay, at Speaker 2 (18:10) least I have the podcast now. So I'll get there in a second. Speaker 3 (18:12) So a couple things. First of all, this sermon, 2 Timothy 2, and we picked up in verse 6. And then we went down all the way to the end of chapter one. We're just going verse by verse of the book. What this is, is this is Paul's exhortation to young Timothy. Remember, Timothy's young. Paul probably picks him up when he's around 15, starts discipling him, takes him on a whole bunch of mission trips, that kind of thing. What we know, everybody's got what the Puritans used to call a besetting sin. What we know about Timothy from context clues is his besetting sin was fearfulness. I don't want to say cowardice. Timothy makes too many decisions that are courageous to call them cowardly decisions. But I'll give some context. Here's why Bible scholars think this. You have 14 times. Very interesting. You go through 2 Timothy 14 times. Paul encourages Timothy. And by the way, 14 times, if you're looking at a camera, this is 14 times in just this. So it's like, that's it. It's literally. It's like front and back, one and a half pages. So 14 times in this one little book, Paul says something like, endure suffering. 14 different times, endure suffering. Number two, I'm going to read it here in a second. He tells Timothy, you have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and of a right mind. By the way, I got thoughts. I'm interested to see if you guys think the same thing. I got thoughts on what that means. There's theories on what that means. I am very... I'm very, very convictional about what I think that means. So he says, hey, Timothy, you haven't been given a spirit of fear. Number three, he says in 1 Timothy, things like don't let anybody look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers. So it just seems over and over like Timothy struggled with fear. Now, there was good reason for this. So let me just, I'm going to toss some pictures up here. So this is the kind of stuff where it's like, one, you start figuring out, hey man, the Bible really happened. Number two, it just starts like, I don't know, the Bible goes from black and white to color. And so I'm going to show some, pop some stuff up here. So Paul leaves Timothy eventually in Ephesus. Timothy becomes a pastor of Paul's favorite church. in Ephesus for a long, long time. You can still go to Ephesus today. I know Paul has never been anywhere over there before, but it's not in Israel. Speaker 2 (20:32) That might change someday. It will change. Listen. Are Speaker 3 (20:35) we allowed to say that? I Speaker 2 (20:37) mean... I almost hesitate to. I don't want to jinx it. God willing, two and a half weeks. God willing, two and a Speaker 1 (20:43) half weeks from now. Speaker 2 (20:43) We are people of faith. Speaker 3 (20:44) Listen. Speaker 2 (20:45) That's right. That's right. People of Speaker 1 (20:46) faith. That's right. Speaker 2 (20:47) Not a spirit of fear. Don't Speaker 1 (20:49) be Speaker 2 (20:49) timid. Don't be timid. Okay. God willing, two and a half weeks from now. Be on the ground there. Speaker 3 (20:54) Don't let anybody look down on you because you're bald. I set an example. Speaker 2 (20:59) Wow. I'm sorry, Joe. Speaker 3 (21:01) Let's keep going. That Speaker 1 (21:02) went very personal. I'm Speaker 3 (21:03) sorry, dude. I got my hairline screaming. I don't Speaker 1 (21:07) know. It just came out. Speaker 3 (21:08) Let's keep going. So Paul leaves Timothy in Ephesus. Ephesus is not in Israel. It's in modern-day Turkey. By the way, that's Speaker 2 (21:22) a Speaker 3 (21:22) whole other Islam conversation. So now it's in a Muslim country. used to be like the center of Christianity, by the way. It's the, of every site I've ever been to. Now there's like more significant sites. Like dude, when you're standing at Golgotha. It feels more significant. But as far as like just archaeological impressiveness, there ain't nothing like Ephesus. It's the stinking coolest thing I've ever, ever, ever seen. So this is, when I did that series, Letters to the American Church, this is me standing in front of the library at Ephesus. It's stinking cool, man. Speaker 3 (21:58) Because archaeologists, they took all these ruins and reconstructed it accurately. So those are the actual original stones of the library at Ephesus. So when I'm showing you these pictures, I'm going to give a little context. What you need to do if you're a Bible reader is I'm going to show you the Bible actually mentions some of these specific places. So if you go to Acts 19, it says that when Paul and Timothy—so Paul's got Timothy with him in Acts 19. It says that Paul, quote, lectured from day to day in, quote, the lecture hall of Tyrannus. Some people think that the lecture hall of Tyrannus was either synonymous with the library or underneath the library. So it starts being cool because you're standing there at Ephesus, you're reading these verses, and you're like, bro, this is literally where this verse is talking about, man. Okay, so what happens in Ephesus, massive outpouring of the Spirit. I'm going to show evidence of that in a second. There is actually, really cool, there is archaeological confirmation. of the outpouring of the Spirit that happened in Ephesus that is all over Ephesus. It's one of the stinking coolest things. I'll show it here in a second. So, Lecture Hall