Are You Experiencing the Holy Spirit? | Francis Chan

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Welcome to the Crazy Love Podcast. When the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives, something should be different. In this classic message, Francis looks at the ways scripture describes the Spirit changing us, giving us power over sin, courage to share our faith, and confidence that we belong to God.

We weren't given the Holy Spirit simply to know that He's there, but to experience His transforming presence in every part of our lives.

Francis Chan (0:40)

I want to ask you a question, and just forget that we're in church right now. This is just, forget that I'm a pastor, forget you're sitting in a church. Just from one human being to another human being, just honestly, I want to ask you a question.

Are you sure that there have been times in your life when you've experienced the hand of God?

Like something supernatural where you go, there's no way that was coincidence. You can't convince me that's coincidence, I know that was God. Have you had experiences like that in your life?

See, I have, I feel like I do all the time.

It's a little awkward for me to be talking about this because you gotta understand in school, I was taught not to ever preach about your experiences and not to emphasize experience. But when I read scripture, I feel like that's so unbiblical. Biblically, we are supposed to experience God. We are. In the Bible, when someone received the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit was in their life, no one had to tell them that the Holy Spirit was in their life. See, and that's not what I was taught growing up. Growing up in church, you know, I remember becoming a Christian, and I remember, you know, this evangelist preaching, you know, hell fire, brimstone. I was like, ah, save me, you know, and I just, you know, I had to go for it, and I remember just, this little old lady was counseling me, and I go, so that's it? And she goes, yeah, and what happens when the Holy Spirit comes in you? And she goes, oh, nothing. She goes, you just need to know that he's there. And I said, so, no experience, nothing.

You just intellectually know that he's there. And I don't see that in the Bible.

I don't. I gotta show me where that is in the Bible, because even last week, I went to my Concordance, and I looked up every single verse on the Holy Spirit. And I just read through every verse in the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. And every verse, when it talks about the Holy Spirit, just talks about this change, this experience. You know when the Spirit of God is in your life. I mean, you know there are things that happen, they're just supernatural. And you go, okay, I know that is God. You don't have to tell me. I don't need someone to show me theologically that the Holy Spirit has shown me biblically and proved to me that the Holy Spirit really is in my life. Man, I know he's in my life because of everything that I've experienced. Man, in fact, you could take away all the proof. You could take away all of the head knowledge and everything else. And I believe in this book a lot because I studied the prophecy, and I go, man, that's gotta be from God. I look at the history of this book and everything else and the way it's changed my life, but take that away. Take away the head knowledge, and I would still believe in God because of everything that I've experienced. Man, when I pray, when I ask God for stuff, I don't know what it's like when you pray. I don't know if you get surprised that God actually answers you, but for me, I get surprised if it's been a few minutes. You know, and I mean, because there's just this pattern, there's this system, and when I pray to God, I see answers, I see results where I go, okay, that was clearly God. No one is gonna tell me that that was just coincidence. It just happens, it happens, it happens. And every time when there's a few days, and I'm going, wait a second, I prayed for that, I'm not seeing a clear answer, that surprises me. See, I, my faith in God, so much of it is because of what I've experienced. Now, I recognize it's true that we can't base everything on feelings and experiences because we can be fooled. But to just downplay this whole idea of experience, I think is anti-biblical. In fact, Paul here in Galatians 3, when he's talking to the Galatians, and they're thinking about, they've, many of them have left their faith. They've left this simple faith of just believe in God and experiencing the Holy Spirit, and now they're being tested and tempted, and many of them have turned over to this new system of law where they try to obey all these laws and all these rules and kind of earn their salvation by doing all of these things. And Paul's going, why would you leave that? And he reminds them of their experience. He reminds them, he goes, don't you remember when you just accepted Jesus and all these things started happening? He goes, why would you leave that? He goes, you remember what you experienced. And in Galatians chapter three, verse one, it's like Paul, I love the way he starts it because he's so baffled by this. He's going, why would anyone leave this? Galatians three, verse one, he says, you foolish Galatians. That word foolish, it means void of knowledge, like you have no knowledge, like you're brain dead. He looks at these people and he goes, what are you, brain dead?