A public declaration of a private decision

On Baptism Sunday, with more than twenty people being baptized after the 11 a.m. gathering, Pastor Max Lyons opens with a story from his years at a church in Los Angeles. A man from a Hindu background gave his life to Jesus, at first intending to add Jesus to the gods his family already worshiped, and later chose to worship Jesus alone. Yet he hesitated to be baptized because his family would disown him. It illustrates how big a deal baptism is. Following Jesus without being baptized, he says, is like dating someone and wanting to keep it secret, and Jesus warns that whoever denies Him before men He will deny before the Father.

Dying and rising with Christ

Physically, baptism is being dunked and raised, but spiritually something far greater happens. Romans 6 says we were baptized into His death and buried with Him so that we might walk in newness of life. Going into the water, all your past, sin, guilt, and shame die and stay behind; coming up, you are raised to a resurrection life empowered by the Holy Spirit. In Acts 19 Paul meets people who had never heard of the Holy Spirit and concludes something was off with their baptism; once baptized in the name of Jesus and prayed for, the Spirit came on them. Repentance and baptism in Jesus' name is always marked by the Holy Spirit.

An impossible calling needs supernatural power

Jesus commands His followers in Matthew 10 to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons, which no one can do in their own ability. Pastor Max recalls sitting in a Naperville basement with Juliet in the 2021 lockdowns, with no people, money, or building, and giving up on doing it in their own strength; God Himself is building His church. He tells of his son Levi insisting on fixing a broken toy alone, growing frustrated, and finally asking for help; Pastor Max did not do it for him but guided his hands. God works the same way. His goal is not eloquent words but to make room for the Spirit, because Elan's first value is being Holy Spirit-led and "a firsthand experience always outweighs secondhand opinions."

Received once, filled continually

Picking up where the Easter message left off, Pastor Max turns to Acts 1, where Jesus tells the disciples to wait for the promise of the Father, a fulfillment of Joel 2. John 14 shows that the Spirit is both with us and in us, and He is a person, a him and not an it. We receive the Spirit the moment we give our lives to Jesus (Acts 2). Pastor Max recalls a despairing friend receiving unexplainable peace after praying in a Denny's parking lot. But receiving is the beginning, not the end. Using a balloon that slowly deflates, he shows why believers in Acts were filled again and again (Acts 2, 4, and 13). Without an ongoing filling, the Christian life goes flat.

Pastor Max's own story

Soon after coming to faith, someone asked Pastor Max whether he had been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and he had no idea what that meant. That night he asked God for it anyway, picturing himself submerged in the Spirit the way he had been submerged in a lake. He began praying in a language he did not understand. The filling of the Spirit activates the gifts of the Spirit, and Acts 1:8 says the evidence is power. People are typically filled either directly from God, as in Acts 10, or through the laying on of hands, as in Acts 19:6, and God meets people differently: tingling or warmth, shaking, tongues, prophecy, visions, overwhelming peace, or no visible sign at all. Do not judge your experience by the person next to you.

How to be filled

From John 7:37–38, Pastor Max names three steps. Be thirsty: you have to want the presence of God rather than be apathetic. Come to Jesus and ask, because Luke 11 promises the Father gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him. And drink: receive the promised Spirit through faith, as Galatians 3 says. "We can't make God move, but we can make room for God to move." The gathering closes with worship, a direct invitation for the Spirit to fall on all who hear, and the prayer team laying hands on anyone who is thirsty and ready to receive.