 There was an event in 1871 a Very significant event. Does anyone know what happened in 1871 the great Chicago fire? I know I so I knew that one now not a lot of people have the great Chicago fire on their minds the great Chicago fire started on the on the shore of Lake Michigan and There's a river that the Chicago River Flows through the city and at the time that the Chicago River would flow through flow through the city and emptied out into Lake, Michigan And aligning the Chicago River Were slaughterhouses? That's where the you know so much the Midwest cattle was processed and They decided that because there were no standards No sanitation no thought they would just dump all the waste from the cow slaughter pig slaughters everything into the Chicago River in addition The poor people who did not have plumbing in their homes Would empty their chamber pots and whatever they had into the river So much so that by as the Chicago River a fire great Chicago fire before it happened The Chicago River was known as the stinking River. Can you imagine there's actually pictures and I've seen them online Go look them up of ducks standing on the surface of the river because it's sludge filth and waste and when the Chicago fire burnt broke out The fire the river actually caught on fire. That's how it spread to the rest of the city Had the river been a clean river. It would only affected the downtown area Unfortunately, it was sewage and it burnt very bright very hot and it spread and destroyed most the city through the 1800s and into the 1890s 1880s into the 1890s as The city tried to recover from the fire and the in the pollution that was still in the Chicago River Nearly a hundred thousand people died of dysentery and other diseases in the city of Chicago to the point where the city planners and all the Officials were gathering to decide maybe we should just level the city and start over again or move somewhere else It becomes so polluted The future of the city of Chicago was on the line and that's when the Army Corps of engineers and some other engineers got together They said I think we can solve this problem because what was happening was all this sludge The river was coming down and then emptying into Lake Michigan right by where the pumps were drawing the drinking water For the city of Chicago So they were actually all the sewage was flowing into Lake Michigan And it was being sucked up into the pipes into the system and going into people's homes and making them sick and there was no solution Until they had this crazy crazy idea. Let's reverse the flow of the Chicago River Wait, wait, you reverse the flow of a river. It has never been done in the history of mankind It's so crazy. It's just not the work, you know So they decided and what they did is they built a series of locks and canals You know and these locks would actually cause the water that was flowing into Lake Michigan Now water was flowing from Lake Michigan into the Chicago River But where was it going? What was going into this specially designed canal? 28 miles long That connected from the Chicago River down to the Displanes River, which then flowed into the Mississippi River Then which flowed into the Gulf of Mexico Problem solved They moved millions of tons of dirt and rock This is one of the greatest engineering feats done at this time But within just a few short years of them doing it the flow of the water the fresh water coming in from Lake Michigan Had cleaned out the Chicago River Had restored the health of the people in the city of Chicago and it saved the city And what I think when you hear a story like this, you know, you're thinking wow That's such an amazing thing But every story that we can find that amazes us it's because it reflects something about God in some way Think about the stories you love like we just celebrated Memorial Day And I love to watch the the classic war movies Some of them are newer like I always make it a tradition of mice of mine to watch two war movies on Memorial Day weekend saving private rhyme Because because then right after Memorial Day, we celebrate the anniversary of the storming Omaha Beach in Normandy and then we were soldiers with Mel Gibson If anyone's ever seen that that is the most intense one of the most intense war movies you'll ever watch But I love them because they say they show men laying down their lives heroic acts of bravery people willing to die for their friends So the fulfillment of Christ's most intimate command that there's no greater love that we lay down our lives It's proved out in these movies in real time And when this I heard the story of the Chicago River it brought me to Ezekiel chapter 47 verses 6 through 9 where Ezekiel is being led by the Lord God and have this vision And this is how he says has how it's written in his his book in the Old Testament He says and he said to me son of man Have you seen this and he led me back along the bank of the river and he said to me the water flows Toward the eastern region and goes down into the araba and when it enters the stagnant waters of the sea The water will become fresh and wherever the river goes Every living creature which swarms will live and there will be very many fish For this water goes there that the waters of the sea may become fresh. So everything will live where the river goes Right now in our time our church our world our society needs to have a change of flow Right now we need the Holy Spirit to be flowing back into our church back into our families back into our world to restore its health We are on the brink of so many things collapsing Do you realize in the United States the suicide rate has gone up 13 years straight? We keep trying to create this ideal world apart from God But every year more and more people lose despair and we have not even taken into account the long-term and short-term effects of the pandemic it Is up 30% the suicide rate is up 30% since the year 2000 for young people the ages of 10 to 18 Suicide is the second leading cause of death The US which has 5% of the world population consumes 80% of the world's opioids the mood and pain killing drugs Because we're so miserable. We're in so much pain 5% of the world we consume 80% of the world's opioids in 2019 70,000 Americans died from drug overdose in 1999 that number was under 20,000 This number all these numbers are expected because of the pandemic to spike significantly in The church we see 30% of Catholics believe in the Eucharist 20% people of Catholics go to mass on a regular basis In some areas of our country former Catholics outnumber Practicing Catholics five to one This is The direct result of us trying to reshape the church into some sort of social club with the earthly mission Sustained by human effort rather than the mystical body of Christ that needs as its life blood the Holy Spirit flowing in power Which brings me to why we're here right now To be open to this idea that God wants to do something amazing In our hearts today to reverse the flow because he can only people say I want to renew the church I want to renew the church. Let me tell you God doesn't renew the church God renews renews individuals and individuals who are renewed together make a renewed church God wants to end of individually each one of us is intimate because he's called you each one of you by name to Renew your life in a very powerful profound and intimate way But he doesn't come to us. He doesn't look at us and say, oh, I've got a room full of grapes and I love grapes So you're a grape and I love you. He knows you what makes uniquely you You're all your strengths and all of your weaknesses all of your giftedness and all of your sin completely known by God And he says I love you You know when when when when God said I want you to make a place for me to dwell You know he made he made the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament and on top of the Ark of the Covenant There were two angels with their wings overshadowing the rest of the the Ark You've seen pictures of it like Indiana Jones. You ever see that movie like the these angels are on top of the Ark and The space between the two angels was called the mercy seat and God said when you build this That's where I will be sitting when you come to talk to me Well, let me tell you brothers and sisters God always sits on the mercy seat when he talks to us He always approaches us from a place of mercy God has never hated you. He has never been disappointed with you. He has never rejected you Yet how many of us have been disappointed with what he's given us and rejected him and and walked away from him at different times But the Lord is not like us our God is faithful And he will be faithful to those who will say I want all that you want for me God I come back to you in humility in trust and I open my heart to everything that you have for me Especially the power of the Holy Spirit Simply put baptism in the Holy Spirit is a gift It's an experience that has been given to our church to release and strengthen the effects of baptism and confirmation. I Want you to be very clear that that what we're talking about is not a third sacrament of initiation and we're not asking This from God because there was a default in our baptism in confirmation If there was something that didn't click it's because of us The grace that those sacraments were meant to give us is there the question is are we living in that grace? Are we collaborating with that grace? Are we cooperating with that grace? Are we praying for that grace to be released in our lives because grace that's unaccepted or received unworthily? Doesn't change the people grace is not magic God doesn't wave grace over you like a magic wand and poof. You're different God gives you grace and he gives you will and it gives you strength and you change in accordance to the cooperation that you make with grace now sometimes God makes You like sometimes it's like 50 50 God does his part and you do your collaboration other times It's God does 90% of it and you do 1% of it, but Cooperation and needs our submission to in order for it to have its full effect and I'll talk about more about that in a second But when Jesus says in Luke chapter 12 verse 49 I came to cast fire upon the earth and Wish that and we're already in kindled What we're saying is God has come to set us on fire fire of divine love The fire that purifies The fire that gives comfort in the dark the fire that lights our way when we're confused The fire that signifies his ongoing sustained presence in our lives that gives us hope Jesus himself says in Acts chapter 1 to two very important things. He says first he says He enjoyed them not to do apart from Jerusalem, but to wait for quote The promise of the father about which you have heard me speak For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit So we see this this phrase baptized in the Holy Spirit first come from the lips of Jesus What does that look like? He says you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you Power to know that you're a child of God power to bring love to other people to make a difference in this world the power to pray the Power to know that that that God is real the gift of faith the gift of hope the gift of love these these virtues that we so badly want Are activated through the grace that comes to us through the Holy Spirit? You know the and it's also through our submission to that grace that these gifts are formed within us Remember at all times in your conversion. There's a potter and there's clay guess which one you are Clay, thank you You don't get to form yourself into the saint. God is calling you to be you can only be clay You can only cooperate by putting yourself on the wheel and letting God's handbeams upon you and form you and mold you Into what he wants you to be Your job is to be where God needs you to be and let him do his work in your life At no point do we become the potter of our own creation We're not in charge Jesus is the Lord that means that he is the craftsman that is going to form us in Lunching the second Vatican Council St. John the 23rd said renew your wonders in our time is through a new Pentecost You know St. John the 23rd was saying like we need a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit a new Pentecost St. John Paul the 2nd said the institutional and charismatic aspects are Coessential as a word of the church's constitution It is from this providential Rediscovery of the church's charismatic dimension that before and after the council a remarkable pattern of growth has been established for ecclesial movements in new communities Now he said those words, you know gosh back in the 80s. Here. We are in 2021. I Would say that the new Pentecost needs a new Pentecost Like we need to say like okay. What did we do with this this wave of Pentecost that came to the church? I didn't say we didn't submit enough to it. We didn't grab onto it with enough faith We didn't make it our own we didn't say okay How do we pass this on to the next generation and now we're sitting and saying like how can we raise up a new generation now? Open to this providential what John St. John Paul calls a providential rediscovery He's like when when we started experiencing baptism in the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church, we weren't inventing something The Holy Spirit revealed only the Holy Spirit can reveal himself and through this providential gift We rediscovered what was happening in the acts of the apostles and at different times in our church There's a there is a golden age of church and it's recorded in the lives of some of the saints where they would say they'd be in The prayers saying their prayers chanting their prayers in Latin when at the end of chanting their prayers in Latin They would break into spontaneous praying in tongues They were so full of the Holy Spirit and they went forth from their communities full of evangelistic zeal and renewed Different the church at different times. Do you realize that in 18th? Yeah 1830 in France? There were only 3,000 priests And they thought the church in France was going to die but by 1870 there were 30,000 priests in France There was a renewal of the Holy Spirit that was running through France at that time Marked by an apostolic zeal and people going out of themselves to live the faith dynamically and share it with one another Led by both clergy and laity. I know things look dire I know it'd be a lot easier for us to fold up the tent and pretend like let's just a matter I'll just go home But I believe that God wants to do something through us and in us that's going to empower this next generation to bring the church back to life For by us first saying to the Holy Spirit have your way in me because if we can't say have your way in me We can't expect for the Holy Spirit to have his way in anything else We can only control one thing in life and that's our own attitude and disposition before the Lord And when we say come Holy Spirit with an open heart he fills us with his grace Pope Benedict the 16th said In effect Jesus's whole mission was aimed at giving the spirit of God to men and baptizing them in the bath of regeneration This is on Pentecost Sunday, May 11th 2018 He said in concluding his remarks. He said today I would like to extend this invitation to all let us rediscover dear brothers and sisters the beauty of being baptized in the Holy Spirit I can't say it any better than that today. I want to invite you this afternoon in christ the king chapel The same chapel that when I was 21 and father dave was 21 We knelt by each other at a lot of masses And listened to father michael scanlan a man full of the Holy Spirit calling us out of ourselves to embrace the Holy Spirit and rebuild the church Father dave heard the call and went down the path and became a to r I heard the call went down the path. I've spent nothing but my entire professional career ministering in the church as well as raising five children And enjoying the beauty of my wife for almost 31 years But i'm telling you all this because You're sitting in the same pews that I sat in they haven't redone these pews in in 30 years This is the same wood same ceiling new carpet New paint job same spirit Some things have changed some things haven't changed what has changed is i'm standing up here in your city in there But if you want the Holy Spirit The way that I received the Holy Spirit the way father dave received the power of the Holy Spirit It's simply saying yes right now today baptize me in your Holy Spirit Our own pope current pope pope francis he said the charismatic renewal You have discovered a great gift from the lord your movement's birth was willed by the Holy Spirit to be a current of grace It was willed to be a current of grace. I don't think we fully embrace what that means yet as a renewal movement You know alisha talks about pentecost today usa this this organization that she's the director of I sit on the board right now Why because it is my desire With hers and everyone else on the board with my good friend johnny bertucci who's been on that board himself sitting in the back There he's trying to hide and look all humble, but he's a great holy man That's probably why he looks so humble as he sits back there You know we are committed to sharing the grace of baptism in the Holy Spirit with as many people as possible because we have discovered that it is the Prayer and satisfaction in our hearts that have given us the ability to stand before you and do what we do It's only because of the grace of the Holy Spirit And it's necessary and I'll share you I'll tell you why because every sacrament has two What's the one sacrament that made you a child of god that filled you with the Holy Spirit changed your life forever How many baptized Catholics are there in the United States? A lot 70 million Really 70 million baptized There are 70 million Why is it that when you go to your church you feel like you're watching the movie? The sixth sense I see dead people They just don't know they're dead Why do we approach? Why do we not them? Because it's easy to make create the straw man and say those we's or they or them us Why do we receive the Eucharist so poorly at times? So with such a lack of attention and fervor for the fact that a miracle is taking place that heaven literally is coming down And taking place on the altar in front of us Why is it so hard for us to see that? You know, we need the Holy Spirit. We all need the Holy Spirit And the only the only grace that we have is the Holy Spirit to do that when you were baptized everyone received this grace But every sacrament Eucharist confirmation Baptism confession has two parts. The first is the opus operantum. That's God's part That that says that this lavish gift of grace that comes to us in super abundant That's president present in every sacrament will accomplish What Christ intended the grace to do it's always present to you every time you receive the Eucharist the same grace the same Super abundant grace is available to you So then why does it move us at different ways at different times? Well because there's our part Which is called opus operantis Our part is that we are in the proper state of receptivity Namely, we're free from mortal sin Our hearts and minds are attuned to God and our will is desirous of the grace that is of the forest in the sacrament And if we don't have that Then the grace can be lost or untapped or unrealized In fact, if you go to communion in a state of mortal sin, you actually do more damage to your soul This is what this is like a class of teaching of the church that we don't want to talk about anymore Don't receive this the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin If you have mortal sin that God has made you aware of you need to confess that Because you're not in the proper state of receptivity When you say yes to that Eucharist, you're saying yes not just to that host that is Jesus But you're saying yes to all the church teaches And yes to all that the church stands stands for and if you're rejecting the morality of the church And it's and living apart from its teachings It's an affront to say yes to this Eucharist. That's why it's such a big deal that pro-abortion politicians need to get right with God Before they go to communion. It's not because we think they're unworthy or God doesn't love them It's that they do damage to their own souls if they receive the Eucharist in a state of mortal sin And to publicly promote abortion is a mortal sin Because abortion always kills a baby and is always a mortal sin So when the church you hear these bishops who are standing up and and just throwing out the question like maybe we should say something They're not being judgmental They're probably doing the most loving thing they can to for a Catholic politician to say look your soul's at risk here and for us for us right This baptism what's the opus operantes? What is our part in baptism? Our faith our yes But you were a baby most of us were babies when we were baptized, right? You didn't even know how to say yes All you were worried about is like maybe giggling and filling hyper with something I don't know what you're doing at your baptism, but you had parents who loved you and god parents that loved you So they said that yes for you But when were you ever invited to say yes? Now we've renewed our baptismal vows many times right every time we go to Easter Sunday We we do that kind of thing But even renewing the baptismal vows is that really? Going to the heart of that spirit that was poured into our souls and saying I want all the grace To explode in my life the way it's supposed to the natural progression would be your baptized That's that that gift of faith through proper evangelization and catechesis and pastoral care from family from friends From a church that supports you would be fostered and you would grow Day by day into the saint that god had called you to be but a lot of us didn't have that We didn't have that support system. We didn't have somebody so that gift left was still sitting there untapped unrealized For me it was it was about 18 years after I was baptized that I asked god to release that gift for some it was longer We can all go for go before the lord and say okay god release that gift And experience what we call baptism in the holy spirit. It's just releasing and cooperating and saying yes To the grace of these sacraments your compromise your baptism and your confirmation. That's what pope benedict said Like let it is let us remember These these sacraments and pray for baptism in the holy spirit that release of the grace That we would go back to the fundamental grace that makes us children of god and ask god to just release it in our lives For our benefit and for the benefit of the church Whom we're called to be a blessing for And we must be willing to respond For me when I was 18 years old I'd been on a retreat when I was a senior in high school. I've been confirmed a year earlier In confirmation didn't mean anything to me didn't get anything out of it. Did it because my parents wanted me to I remember kicking and screaming the entire time rebelling But I went on this retreat when I was a senior in high school and Heard somebody first mentioned the gospel in the way that I could relate to it, you know that god loves me that there's sin But because of our sin god was willing to send his only begotten son down to earth to become one of us It always accepts sin and become the perfect sacrifice to pay the price for all this sin So that I could be restored to the father made new And I was intrigued but it didn't move me to open my heart to jesus at that moment. I don't know if I could I'm not going to go into every detail, but at that point in my life I was regularly abusing drugs and alcohol I was living an immoral and pure life I was far from god I wasn't praying I was lying to my parents all the time I was using negative humor with people not very acting very prideful and unloving with them I was pursuing the world and not pursuing god at all And I was on the outside looked like I had it all together was captain of the football team national honor society had a job Had a car had friends had gone to parties Living what everyone would say like oh you got the full high school life and everything's great But on the inside I was miserable scared lonely And I knew that if I went into off to college like this I would probably Like burn out really quickly and probably get kicked out of college or or flunk out of college And so I decided you know at the end of this retreat They said what we're doing this other retreat at this camp up in northern Minnesota when you go there It's like this beautiful camp. It's a week long. We do a lot of teaching and prayer and it'll be a great experience And I just thought okay This is my last shot at god I'm going to give god a chance to work in my life And so as it turns out I had to go um a day early Because my mom was dropping me off because she had to go visit her grandmother Anyway, the circumstances where I ended up in st Paul, Minnesota with one of the persons who was leading the retreat who was going up a day early to get planning and preparing So we're driving up there and he's telling me all about himself and about his relationship with Jesus He was really nice. I do remember this we stopped and he bought me A blizzard at dairy queen And it was it was actually pretty good Uh, and we get to the camp And you know, he's like, okay, you're gonna be in that cabin over there So I go and I throw my stuff in the cabin. I'm looking there is this beautiful lake this dock. I'm like, okay, where's the fishing equipment? Because when I'm thinking, you know, what what makes a good retreat The first thing that comes to my mind is lots of fishing and quiet out on the lake, of course That's why people go on retreat And as I'm looking for the fishing equipment, he goes, hey, the team is going to get together and pray Would you like to pray with us? And I'm like, okay, how do I work this out and be able to say no And not feel bad saying, no, I don't want to pray on your stupid retreat. I want to go fishing I couldn't figure out how to do that. So I said, sure. I'll go pray with you. Yeah, why not? So I'm standing in a circle with about 20 young adults I'm 18. Most of them are 22 to 27 not much older And one of them has a guitar so I'm playing on this guitar And he starts singing a jesus song and I'm sitting there like wow Because like they were all I started singing really loud like they were really into it And I was like I grew up in a parish in northern michigan where the people learned how to sing without moving their lips It was awesome. Like no one was like Well, these people like yes, jesus, we love you You know, and I'm like wow there were and then their hands started going up in the air, right? Like and I'm like you need to use the bathroom. Just go man. We're all adults there You know no one needs to have just go, you know And so they're singing their jesus song and the song ends but they don't stop singing They burst into like praise you jesus And then like, you know, and I'm like I'd never seen anything like this and I'm like, I'm not I don't think they're catholic And I'm looking across and like okay So like all of a sudden like the guy next to me starts saying something and I'm not sure what he's saying But I think he was upset that he bought the wrong car because he's like I should have bought a honda I should have bought a honda. I should have bought a honda And the and the person across the circle had lost their cat and they're like here And then like the person over here is like all full of themselves like see my new bow tie see my new bow tie, you know, like they're like And I'm like, you know, we're in a bow tie, buddy, you know And I'm like, okay, how do I like slowly back up Disappear into the bushes go to the cab and grab my my my backpack and get out of here without them noticing I've left Because this is just too weird These people are so bizarre And I probably would have left except In a moment of perfect clarity like the spirit allows you to experience like I say sometimes the spirit has to do 99 of the work and you just have to do the 1 And the spirit took a big leap for me and I looked across the circle and there was a girl a couple years older than me And uh, yeah, she was cute, but that wasn't the point She was there like this just with a big smile on her face going. I love you, jesus I love you jesus jesus. I love you and I realized at age 18 As a guy who went to a church on a regular basis received all the sacraments and you know, pretty consider myself You know, okay. I'm better than most. I'm catholic, right? I realized I'd never said those four words in a row and meant it I love you jesus and she looks so happy saying those words And I thought okay god I'm here Whatever she has that gives her the ability to love you. That's what I want I want to be able to love that was that was the it right there. It's like I don't have love in my life I don't know if I know love. I don't know love like she does and I don't love like she does I don't have what she has. I want what she has god. Will you make that happen? We ended prayer started the retreat Three nights later. They're having a reconciliation service And I'm very nervous because reconciliation was something I had only done one other time in my life And I was a little kid second grade had walked into the old school confessional with a sliding little map So I sat down in the dark and all of a sudden there's like Oh Son telling me all sins and I think I'm thinking I'm confessing to Darth Vader or something Like I think maybe an evil clown on the other side of that I didn't know what was going on and I remember saying something like I I stole my brother's gi joe And then I punched my little sister and and I'm really sorry And I walked out of there and not having confessed not having received forgiveness and determined never to do that again And I didn't Until this fateful night It was actually june 9 june 9th 1983 So i'm coming up on my anniversary being what I would consider born again My baptism day I was born again, but on june 9 1993 I asked god to release that grace in my life I walked into the confessional Not knowing what to say so I sat down. I looked at the priest. He looked at me. I looked at him He looked at me. I said who goes first I like seriously. I had no idea what to do and he's like well first. Just tell me. Why are you here? And I said i'm here because I see all these people You know who have all this joy in the lord and they're You know like everyone's coming out of confession with tears in their eyes and just with big smiles on their face I don't have any of that joy in my life. I don't know if I feel god I don't know if I know god. I feel I feel like I want god, but I feel I'm apart from god Well, why do you feel apart from god? Well, I started telling my story when I was in junior high school I saw my grandfather killed in a car accident As a result my grandmother became an alcoholic my mom started abusing prescription drugs My dad was taking care of two businesses And his alcoholic grandmother and my mom and so I never saw him And this went on for the better part of three years and at the end of two years I was so angry With how Crappy my life was going and how alone I felt that I just decided to turn my back on god Blamed him for everything and just shut down spiritually God didn't shut down on me. I shut down on him Basically went through the next you know a few years of high school Just fully embracing the world My grandmother like I said she became an alcoholic and and and my dad would sometimes In the evening go say go check on your grandmother And at the time I had such resentment towards her So when I'd go and check on her I'd also Check in on her wallet and maybe take 20 40 bucks Had no problem stealing from her. I figure she owed it to me. That's how I rationalized it Which was another mortal sin that was weighing me down You know and I already talked about the line of my parents, you know And when I say I was immoral and pure I didn't have a girlfriend I wasn't sleeping around but I was certainly not living a righteous life I certainly wasn't You know glorifying god with the way I talked or what I looked at or what I thought about And I had all this sin in my life And it was just like the stone that needed to be rolled away And when I went into that confessional And I started sharing all this I started bawling my eyes out And I'm telling a priest things I'd never told anyone else in my life and he leans forward He puts his hand on my shoulder And as he does His stole kind of swings forward and hits my face And I'm positive it was a handkerchief because I grabbed it and I blew my nose I realized what I did and I felt really bad And the priest was really cool about it. He kind of laughed about it. I was mortified But after he laughed about it, he thought it was very funny and I was like Which was just great because I needed a priest with a sense of humor You know to to help me through this And at the end he just said John is there anything else that you want to tell god anything else you want to get rid of in your life? I said no I think that's everything and I'm sure there's more but that's all I have right now. And he's like, okay, let me pray for you He extended his hand to pray in persona chris day the prayer of absolution And I swear he could have put the the uh electric, you know, the the the fibulators on my chest Because in that moment that he prayed that prayer I felt a shock of grace go through my entire body from my head to my toe And all of a sudden something in my soul was alive that hadn't been alive two seconds earlier I was brought back to life. I was dead in my sins And I knew it and I had a life inside of me that wasn't there that was palpable Like there's something inside of me that just this joy and it was like, oh my gosh, what just happened I mean like did you just zap me like really with electricity? Did you just like give me a drug? I mean like I've never felt this before And he just said no you've been forgiven and god is giving you back your heart And uh, I walked out of the confessional and I walked back out onto the lake out onto the dock and I sat down And under a beautiful northern sky full of stars thousands of them so dark yet so beautiful I just looked up into the sky and said god now that I know you're real I will do whatever you ask me to do And I just felt more of his grace fall upon me Two months later Okay Okay, I should say the next morning I wake up And I just feel like a new creature of new creation and I'm like so excited and and and like he's like praise god and uh The guy who started net ministries this was a retreat started by net I don't know if you're familiar with that it stands for national evangelization teams They travel around the country doing retreats for high school students He comes up to me. He says I was praying last night And in my prayer the lord just really spoke to me and I'm Pretty sure that you're going to be a missionary with net ministries next year And my first reaction is I'm pretty sure you need to drink some coffee and wake up because you are not No, no, I mean like I just Had an awakening to my faith and like I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I mean like be a missionary preach the gospel do retreats. That's just not me I'd been accepted at college I placed my deposits down on the dorm I was going to live in my friend Doug and I were going to room together We knew which fraternity we wanted to pledge I had my plan And this was not it But as even as I'm like struggling to kind of wrap my brain around what this guy just said to me the lord just said look What did you say to me last night? And I said well, I said I'd do whatever you asked me to do god. He's like just trust me I'm like what he's trust me So I said yes Show up for net training in august Within a couple weeks of being there they're praying with me to receive the holy spirit and power And I I get all these gifts and all these things are happening in my life so much more that I can't even I don't have time to share So my point and I'm saying all this is that There was this initial encounter and it was all about the love of god bringing my soul back to life And as I continued to be prayed with And received more outpouring of the spirit. I got new gifts And new ways of serving god So baptism in the spirit is not a one-off event Baptism the spirit is is like a jump start for us to get moving But we're like race cars. We need to refuel. I refuel laps We don't get very far in the race if we think, you know, we're just going to keep going without having to stop and be refueled And so whether you've been prayed to receive the holy spirit before this is your first time or your 50th time We're going to turn our hearts to pray right now and ask god to fill us with his grace his love his power The first thing I want to pray for is just generally god release the holy spirit in your life And let the foundation of that be your growing in your intimate knowledge of god's love for you And as we go we're going to pray for more gifts to be poured out on what gifts to gods want to want to give you I don't know We'll let god decide that he's the giver. We're the receiver And we have to come to god with empty hands without demands without a list Without a things god i'll take this gift, but don't give me that gift We have to come with a complete whatever you want Mary didn't give conditions She gave her heart We can't give god conditions today and ask god to fill us