Living The Spirit-Filled Life Series

Living the Spirit-filled Life

Galatians 5:18

March 12, 2017

Spirit-filled = under the control and leadership of the Spirit.

The Bible paints a picture of 3 different kinds of people:

The Unbeliever: The person outside of Christ 1 Corinthians 2:14

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The Spirit-filled Believer: one who is directed and empowered by the Holy Spirit

1 Corinthians 2:15, 16

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The Carnal Believer: one who has Christ in their life, but is deceived and/or defeated. 1 Corinthians 3:1-3

flesh(ly): dominated by fleshly, earthly desires and appetites.

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So how do we become filled with the Spirit?

1. Express to God your desire to be filled John 7:37-39

2. Confess your sinful desire to run your own life Luke 18:13-14

3. Thank Jesus for the forgiveness of ALL your sins: past, present, & future!

Colossians 2:13-14

4. Present every part of your life to God’s control Romans 12:1-2

5. By faith claim the fullness of the Spirit 1 John 5:14-15

One of the great challenges and burdens of any pastor is seeing His people struggle and suffer. For many of you, the abundant life that Jesus offers seems to more of a pipe dream than a reality.

There are many here who don’t have a lot of struggles in life; marriage is good, job is good, health is good, money is good. But the problem with evaluating the abundant life by those factors is that it leads to the cancer of complacency.

Either way, many if not most of us here this morning are not really living the abundant life Jesus talked about.

When you think about it, the only way to evaluate whether or not you’re experiencing the abundant life boils down to this: Am I living the Spirit-filled life?

The phrase, Spirit-filled means simply to be under the control and leadership of the Spirit

Ephesians 5:18 “And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless actions, but be filled by the Spirit.” Once you have too much alcohol, you’re not in control of it but it is in control of you. so Spirit-filled = under the control and leadership of the Spirit.

So how can you determine you’re Spirit-filled? You can’t determine it by a lack of suffering. Luke 4:1 says, “Then Jesus returned from the Jordan, full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for 40 days to be tempted by the Devil.” Jesus, under the control of the Spirit was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for the purpose of temptation and suffering. In fact, it goes without saying that Jesus was under control of the Spirit as He was in the garden, sweating great drops of blood, controlled by the Spirit when He was getting beaten by Pilates’ soldiers, and controlled by the Spirit when He was hanging on that Roman cross.

The book of Acts records that Peter and Paul and the disciples were routinely beaten and stoned while under the control of the Spirit. In Acts 7, one of the church leaders named Stephen preached under the control of the Spirit and look at what happened to Him: “When they heard these things, they were enraged in their hearts and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, filled by the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw God’s glory, with Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said, 56 “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Then they screamed at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They threw him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. 59 They were stoning Stephen as he called out: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!” 60 Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin!” And saying this, he fell asleep.”

Now, I say all this to countermand the teaching that some of you are getting exposure to on T.V. and in books. The Spirit-filled life, the abundant life has NOTHING to do with health and wealth and prosperity. Nothing!

Now The Bible paints a picture of 3 different kinds of people:

The Unbeliever: The person outside of Christ

“But the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.” 1 Corinthians 2:14

This is the person who does not have Christ in his life and so therefore he/she is on the throne of their own life. They are in control of their life—or so they think.