- [Preacher] The fullness of the spirit.
To imagine a person filled with the Holy Spirit,
close your eyes
and think of a home supplied by a reservoir
fed by two mountains springs.
These two springs on the mountain
above that house do not fluctuate whether rainy season
or dry, they remain exactly the same.
This gives you a great privilege
as you can draw on the water whenever you need it,
and the springs continuously flow into the reservoir,
keeping it filled to overflowing.
This is literally what it means
to be filled with the spirit.
You must be committed to be filled with the spirit.
Anything short of a wonderful spirit
filled life places you less
than God's design for each apostle.
What does the Bible mean
when it speaks of the fullness of the Holy Spirit?
To be filled with the spirit
is to be controlled or ruled by the spirits occupancy
and influence.
In Ephesians 5:18, Paul tells us
and do not get drunk with wine,
for that is dissipation,
but be filled with the spirit.
Here he draws a contrast between two things.
A person who is filled with alcohol is dominated
or controlled by alcohol.
Its presence and power
have taken over his normal intelligence and actions.
Interestingly, we often say
someone is under the influence of alcohol.
Now, that is somewhat the sense
of being filled with the spirit.
We are under the control of the spirit.
Rather than doing things
only with our strength or skill,
he influences our lives.
Rather than doing only something we need to do,
we now are guided by him.
Unfortunately, many of God's people
do not enjoy the unlimited spiritual wealth
at their disposal because they are not filled
with the Holy Spirit.
Ruth Paxson a predominant Bible teacher,
missionary and author says
"the lives of many reflect the practices
and standards of this present world.
True, they have been baptized
with the Holy Spirit into Christ's body,
and they are going to have it,
but they are missing a lot of what God wants them
to have in this life.
Knowingly or unknowingly.
They are more interested
in copying the world system dominated by satan
than an imitating Christ.
They do not want to share the reproach of Christ
outside the camp."
Hebrews 13:13 says,
"Let us then go to Him outside the camp
bearing the disgrace He bore."
Their gifts often remain unused,
and spiritual fruit is absent from their lives,
nor do they have any great concern
to evangelize the spiritually needy in their community.
Their zeal to walk in compliance
with the commandments of Christ grows weak.
Their devotional life is uneven,
if not ignored,
and they anticipate studying the newspaper more
than exploring the Bible.
If they do pray, it is a sad duty
and a tedious chore rather than a joy.
As with Lot and Sodom
sin for them has lost some of it's sinfulness.
Their sensitivity to sin has been numbed
and the edge of conscience blunted.
Known sins remain unconfessed.
Christians have more tools
and devices for evangelizing the world today
than ever before,
and there are better trained workers.
But one of the great disasters
of the present time is this,
Christians so often lack the fullness of the spirit
with its real dependence on God's power
for their ministry.
Illustrations of the kind of spiritual power
desperately needed,
but lack abounded in the 1st century.
It was said of the Christians in a particular city,
these men who have turned the world upside down
have come here also Acts 17, six, RSV,
and from time to time and later ages,
the same Holy Spirit power
was unleashed upon the world.
Isolated instances of it exist right now.
But let us think if the full power of the Holy Spirit
were to be set loose today through all true believers,
the world could again be turned upside down.
What is the biblical basis
for being filled with the Spirit?
It is proper to say that anyone who is not spirit filled,
is a partially broken Christian.
The command of Paul's to the Ephesian Christians
be filled with the spirit
is binding on all of us Christians universally in every age,
there are no exclusions.
We must conclude that
since we are ordered to be filled with the spirit,
we are sinning if we are not filled
and our failure to be filled with the spirit
creates one of the greatest sins
against the Holy Spirit.
It is interesting to note
that the command to be filled with the spirit
actually has the idea of continuously being filled
in the original Greek language.
We are not filled once for all like a container.
Instead, we are to be continuously filled.
It might be translated,
be filled and keep on being filled.
Ephesians 5:18 says keep on being filled with the spirit.
The overflowing rivers and abundant life
are available blessings for all Christians.
Rivers of living water fail to flow in our lives
not because God withholds them to us
but because we do not want them
or refuse to meet the requirements to get them.
This endless filling by the Holy Spirit
is also what Jesus was teaching in John four
and talking to the Samaritan woman at Jacobs well,
everyone who drinks of this water
shall thirst again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him
shall never thirst,
but the water that I shall give him
shall become in him
a well of water springing up to eternal life.
John 4:13-14, Jesus spoke of the Holy Spirit
in the same way in John 7:38.
He who believes in me,
as the scripture said,
from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
The overflowing spring
and the continual river speak of the regular supply
of the Holy Spirit's blessing available to all Christians.
This living water of which Jesus articulates
this continual filling by the Holy Spirit
fails to flow in our lives,
not because God rejects it to us,
but because we do not want it
or refuse to meet the requirements God sets up to get it.
In reading John 7:38 one day,
we were hit with all by the beauty of Jesus's words.
He did not converse of drops of blessings few
and far between as in a light shower on a spring day.
He talked of rivers of living water.
Consider the rivers
however much may be taken from them,
they do not run dry but remain to flow generously.
The sources from which they come keep
sending H two O down their way.
These rivers illustrate the life
of the spirit filled Christian.
The supply is never weakened
because it has its source in the Holy Spirit
who is inexhaustible.
Bishop once said,
"never shall I forget the gain to conscious faith
and peace which came to my own soul,
not long after the first decisive
inappropriate view of the crucified Lord
as the sinners sacrifice of peace."
What was the cause of this gain?
He says it was a more thoughtful
and conscious hold upon the living
and more gracious personality of the spirit
through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed view.
It was a new contact
as it were with the inner
and eternal movements of redeeming goodness and power,
a new discovery in divine resources.
We must make ourselves accessible
to the Holy Spirit so that when he fills us,
we will become vessels of blessings to the world,
whether large and beautiful
and excellent service
or humble and ignored by men.
The Corinthian Church
was one of the most tragic churches in the New Testament.
Its members had been baptized with the spirit.
They had been given many of the gifts of the spirit
and therefore, they had much to commend them.
Yet Paul said they were fleshly and unspiritual.
First Corinthians 3:1-3 says,
"brothers and sisters,
I could not address you
as people who live by the spirit,
but as people who are still worldly,
mere infants in Christ,
I gave you milk,
not solid food for you are not ready for it.
Indeed yourself still not ready.
You are still worldly.
For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you,
are you not worldly?
Are you not acting like mere humans?"
This means that you and I
may have one or more gifts of the spirit
and still be unspiritual lacking in the spirits fullness,
to say that having the gift of evangelism
or of a teacher,
or the gift of tongues,
or the gift of a pastor,
or the gift of healing
is proof that we have the fullness
of the spirit is misleading.
Moreover, any gift we may have will never be used
to its fullest potential for God
unless it is brought under the control of
and enabled by the Holy Spirit.
There is nothing more tragic
than a gift of God that is misused for selfish
or unspiritual purposes.
So we must be filled with the spirit,
and considering this however,
we must not be confused by mere vocabulary.
Some Christians have used terms
like the second baptism
or the second blessing
or a second work of grace.
None of these terms are used in the Bible.
But I realized that for many people,
they are simply semantic equivalence
for the fullness of the spirit.
The name we give the encounter is less important
than what we actually are filled with the spirit.
The Bible teaches there are many fillings
we are to be continuously filled by the spirit,
one baptism, many fillings.
When we receive Christ as Savior and Lord,
you and I receive him in full,
not just in part.
Then as we come to understand more and more
of Christ's lordship,
we surrender and yield more and more.
So seeking the Spirit's fullness,
we receive and enjoy his filling
and His fullness more and more.
When we receive Christ as Savior,
our spiritual capacities are minimal.
At that moment,
we have yielded to Him as Savior and Lord,
as best we know how.
It may also be just to say
we are filled with the spirit at that time
in the sense that we are under his power and control.
However, there are still many areas of our lives
that need to be yielded to his control,
and we may not even be aware of them at that moment.
As we grow in the grace and wisdom of Christ,
our spiritual potentials enlarge.
We soon find in our Christian life
that we are not yet perfect.
We often trip and fall into sins,
including sins of which we may not be conscious
at that moment.
There are many sins of omission also.
Things we should be doing
or attitudes we should be having,
but they have not become part of us yet.
Part of the Holy Spirit's work
is to convict us of those sins
and bring us to authentic repentance.
At such a time,
we need a new feeling of the Holy Spirit
that He might control and rule us.
They're all maybe new tasks
or challenges that God gives us
and this should always make a seek a fresh
the filling of the Holy Spirit.
It is also typical for a young Christian
to think that he must rely on his own wisdom
and power to fight sin in his life
or to tackle some tasks God has supplied him.
Such a person may realize
that his salvation is based totally
on what God has done in Christ,
but at that same time,
be unaware that he is just as dependent on God
the Holy Spirit for his Christian growth.
Heavenly Father, thank you for Your word today.
We pray that the words
you have for us stay in our hearts.
We pray that the individual message
that you also have for us find roots in us.
We are constantly blessed by your presence,
and we submit our wills to you.
Grant us the grace to forgive everyone against us
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one
for thy kingdom and the power
and the glory. Amen.
We hope you were blessed by this message,
click here to watch our other videos.