The Holy Spirit Is Experiential | Pastor Matthew Johnson

"The gift that God gives us is the Holy Spirit. It's his very presence in our lives." — Pastor Matthew Johnson

Pastor Matthew Johnson opened a new sermon series at The Tree Church this week by asking a simple question. What if God gave you a gift that could carry you through every struggle in life, and you never opened it? That question became the foundation for a nine week series exploring what it means to move past simply knowing about the Holy Spirit and into actually experiencing him.

Pastor Matthew began with two everyday pictures. He asked the church to imagine receiving a card loaded with enough money to pay off every debt, or medicine strong enough to heal every sickness. In both cases, he pointed out something obvious. If the gift stays in the box and is never opened, it does the person no good at all.

He used this picture to introduce the real subject of the message. He believes many Christians treat the Holy Spirit the same way. God has given his presence as a gift, but too many people never open it up in their daily lives.

Before moving further into scripture, Pastor Matthew took a few minutes to be honest about his own life. He shared that he has been walking through a season of real spiritual struggle, including anxiety and stress that feel far from normal for him. He talked about the pressure of being a husband, a father to five kids in five different seasons of life, and a pastor trying to lead a growing church and a large staff.

He said this not to complain, but to make a point every person in the room could relate to. Everyone carries a full life. Everyone has unique battles. And he believes God has given every believer a gift meant to help carry that weight, whether or not that gift has ever been opened.

From there, Pastor Matthew turned to a familiar question. Why did Jesus come to earth? Most people would answer that Jesus came to save us from sin through his death and resurrection. Pastor Matthew agreed that answer is true, but said it is incomplete.

He walked through John chapter 1, where John the Baptist points at Jesus and calls him the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. That title connected directly to the Passover lamb from the Old Testament, whose blood protected the people of Israel from death. John made it clear that Jesus was the fulfillment of that picture.

Pastor Matthew highlighted that John did not stop there. John also said that Jesus is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He explained that the word baptize means to soak or saturate. In other words, Jesus did not only come to forgive sin. He came so that people could be fully saturated in the presence of God.

Pastor Matthew connected this all the way back to the garden of Eden, where God walked closely with Adam and Eve before sin separated humanity from his presence. He said the cross and the resurrection were never meant to be the final point of God's plan. They were the means that made Pentecost possible, when God's presence would fill his people again.

Pastor Matthew then moved into Acts chapter 2, where the disciples waited and prayed in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came upon them like a rushing wind, with what looked like fire resting on each person. He pointed out that this was clearly an experience. Something happened to them that they could feel.

He highlighted Peter as proof. Just weeks earlier, Peter had denied even knowing Jesus three times out of fear. After being filled with the Holy Spirit, Peter stood up in front of thousands of people and preached boldly, calling the crowd to repent and be saved. Pastor Matthew said this transformation shows that receiving the Holy Spirit was never just information. It changed Peter from the inside out.

To show this was not a one time event, Pastor Matthew walked through several more stories from the book of Acts. In Samaria, people believed the message Philip preached and were baptized in water, but the apostles Peter and John still came and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit. In the home of a Gentile named Cornelius, the Holy Spirit fell on everyone listening while Peter was still preaching, and the group began speaking in tongues and worshiping God. In Ephesus, the apostle Paul met a group of believers and asked them directly if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. When Paul laid his hands on them, they were filled with the Spirit and began to speak in tongues and prophesy.

Pastor Matthew said each of these stories points to the same truth. Being saved and being filled with the Holy Spirit are both real, but they are not always the exact same moment. God wants every believer to have a personal, felt encounter with his presence.

Pastor Matthew then addressed a tension he sees in the modern church. On one side, he described a group called cessationists, who believe the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit was only meant for the time of the apostles and has since ended. On the other side, he described what he called the hyper charismatic movement, where he believes strange or bizarre behavior has been wrongly credited to the Holy Spirit, even though it is never described in scripture.

He was clear that he considers himself charismatic and believes in the gifts of the Spirit, including speaking in tongues. But he said his goal in this series is not to find a balance between these two extremes. Instead, he wants to show what scripture itself actually teaches, which he believes is more powerful and more grounded than either extreme.

Pastor Matthew then walked through several more scriptures to make a central point. He read from John 14 and John 16, where Jesus tells his disciples that the Holy Spirit will come as a helper who will actually be better for them than his physical presence had been. He read Romans chapter 8, which says the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. He also read Ephesians chapter 1 and 2 Corinthians chapter 1, which describe the Holy Spirit as a seal and a guarantee, and 1 John chapter 4, which says believers know they belong to God because he has given them his Spirit.

Pastor Matthew summarized this by saying that without an experience, there is no proof. He explained that if the Holy Spirit was only meant to be understood intellectually, the early believers already had that knowledge. What changed everything for them was an actual encounter with God's presence.

Pastor Matthew was honest that the Bible never describes one single way the Holy Spirit shows up. Sometimes it looks like tongues. Sometimes it looks like prophecy, comfort, courage, or simply an overwhelming sense of peace. He shared a personal example from that very morning, describing a moment during his church's prayer time when he said the presence of God became powerfully evident in the room, bringing him to tears and giving him chills.

He said this kind of encounter is meant to be personal, and it is also meant to happen again and again, not just once. He used the phrase normally supernatural to describe what he believes should be an ordinary part of the Christian life, where believers invite the Holy Spirit into everyday moments and situations.

Toward the end of the message, Pastor Matthew answered a practical question. How does someone actually receive the Holy Spirit? Based on what he sees throughout scripture, he said the only requirement he finds consistently is genuine salvation. That means turning to Jesus, admitting the need for a savior, and surrendering control of one's life to him. From that starting point, he encouraged the church to simply stay open and ask God to fill them.

He closed the message by inviting the church into a season of increased prayer, sharing that his son Titus had been sensing that God wanted to do something significant in their church. Pastor Matthew invited the congregation to an 8 a.m. prayer gathering each Sunday and prayed over the church, asking God to saturate every person present, both in Lancaster and in Logan, with his presence.

If you are searching for a church in Lancaster or a church in Logan, we would love to have you join us at The Tree Church. Our Lancaster campus meets at 721 N. Memorial Drive, Lancaster, OH 43130, and our Logan campus meets at 36 Hocking Mall, Logan, OH 43138. Both campuses gather every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. We would love to welcome you home.