I highly recommend first reading, ’What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?’ This is Part 2 of the message is builds upon what was covered in part 1.
How do I get filled?
Ephesians 5:
17 Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,
Not only is being filled with the Spirit offered to all, but it is God’s will that we be filled and we are commanded to be filled. Yet very few people will ever experience this power. Before we go into the ‘how-tos’, let’s look at the warnings Jesus gave on ‘how not to’. Look at Matthew 6:
6 "But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.
7 "And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.
The ‘heathen’ are those who do not know God. The world seeks many formulas to reach God or to get power. They are all deception. The heathen that Jesus was specifically referring to were those religions that thought that repetition would provide power. A vain repetition is something that is repeated over and over. Don’t mistake this for repeating a request to God. When we are earnestly seeking an answer from God, we may ask Him many times before we get an answer. A vain repetition is to chant something over and over thinking the ‘formula’ will have power. Many cults work themselves into trances by repeating a ‘special’ phrase over and over until they fall down and they reach a euphoric, blissful state of mind. The power really isn’t in the phrase, but in the self-hypnosis that usually results when the mind is focused on a phrase and repeated continually. This can even be a ‘Christian’ phrase or word. For example, some people teach that you must focus on, and continue chanting ‘Jesus’ until you are filled. It may be true that you will hit ‘euphoria’, but that isn’t the baptism of the Holy Spirit. If Jesus said, don’t use vain repetitions, how can we expect to be filled by His power by using what He clearly warned us not to do? Be very weary of anyone who encourages chanting – even if they call it prayer. Euphoric self-hypnosis is not of God. Satan will gladly use blissful illusions as a distraction to sway people away from the true power of God.
A Thirst for God
The next natural question is, ‘how’? There must first be a hunger and thirst for God. Matthew 5:6 says, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled.” Every great evangelist and theologian with this testimony has one thing in common – they all had that hunger for righteousness. They thirsted after God and could not be satisfied with anything less than God. King David had this desire for God when he wrote, “As the deer pants for the water brooks, So pants my soul for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?”(Psalm 42). It is not the longing for feelings or emotions that drive us to where God is calling, it is the thirst for God Himself. If I am longing to be filled so that I can have joy and euphoria, I will surely be led the wrong path. It is a pursuit of God, not a pursuit of personal benefit. I hunger to do His will to be satisfied, not my own will. Jesus said that His food was to do the will of the Father and finish His work (John 4:34).
Nothing has changed; we still find our satisfaction in the center of God’s will. Every testimony of great men who found this power from God has had the same direction and focus. They all wanted to do God’s will. They didn’t want glory, they wanted to glorify God. They wanted special power for special service. They wanted to lose their lives for the sake of being completely used for God’s will. The evidence of the Holy Spirit is seen in their lives. They lived holy; they proclaimed the truth of God’s word; they called men to repentance and pointed to the risen Savior, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit does not point people to seek the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit will not point to Himself, but to Jesus Christ. The Spirit of truth will not speak of His own authority, but point to the authority of Christ.
Persistence
Let’s look at the entire passage relevant to Jesus’ promise that the Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. It is a long passage, but it is necessary to grasp the entire principle.
Luke 11:
5 And He said to them, "Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight and say to him, ’Friend, lend me three loaves;
6 ’for a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to set before him’;
7 "and he will answer from within and say, ’Do not trouble me; the door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise and give to you’?
8 "I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs.
9 " So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
10 "For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
11 "If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish?
12 "Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
13 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!"
For now, I left out verses 2-4 where Jesus teaches His disciples to model the ‘Lord’s prayer’. The Lord’s prayer teaches reverence to God, acknowledgment of His hallowed name, seeking forgiveness, forgiving others, establishing ourselves in the daily word of God and submission so we can be led away from temptation and live holy lives set apart for Him. The relationship with God is the foundation everything else is built upon. If we are not right with God, our first step must be to get right with Him.
Jesus then makes two comparisons. First, if someone wants to borrow something from their neighbor in the middle of the night, they will not easily get their request answered. Yet if they persist, they will eventually get what they are asking for. The neighbor will get out of bed and give them bread, not because they are friends, but because he knows they will continue to persist until they receive it.
The second comparison is a son asking his father for his needs. If our children are hungry and ask to be filled, we won’t give a rock or a scorpion. If we, who are self-serving by nature and have impure motives can do good to our children, how much more of a surety is our petitions to God whose love is self-sacrificing and seeks our good?
These two illustrations tie together to communicate how we ask for the promise of the Holy Spirit. What was the purpose of the neighbor asking for bread? Not to serve himself, but to meet the need of someone else. He did not seek for himself alone. He also showed persistence. Those who successfully seek for God are always persistent. If you are serious and truly hunger and thirst for God, you will never be satisfied until you are filled with God. You will find God “when you seek for Him with all your heart”. Saying a prayer is not seeking Him with all your heart. Pleading on your knees until you get an answer is seeking, knocking and asking. The person who is not persistent, does not hunger and thirst after God and is not truly serious. We know for a fact that God wants to give us good gifts; the only hold up is on our end. God is not the barrier. If God isn’t the hold up, then we know we need to pray, seek and humble ourselves.
God gives grace to the Humble
Without brokenness, we will not find God. Look at the following passages:
James 4:
9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Psalm 10:17 LORD, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear
Psalm 25:
9 The humble He guides in justice, And the humble He teaches His way
Psalm 29
19 The humble also shall increase their joy in the LORD, And the poor among men shall rejoice In the Holy One of Israel.
Isaiah 57
15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
There are so many passages that apply here, but I have picked out a few that I believe communicate this point. We must humble ourselves before God before we can expect Him to lift us up. Ecclesiastes also tells us that the wise will be in the house of sorrow, but the fool will be in the house of laughter. When we humble ourselves and are broken before God, we are given several promises. He will lift up those who make themselves low, He will hear their desire; He will prepare their heart; He will cause His ear to hear their prayer; He will guide them in justice and teach them His ways. God also promises that those who humble themselves will not be sorrowful because the Lord will increase their joy and cause them to rejoice. We humble our spirit, but God revives our spirit. We enter the house of sorrow, but God not only gives us joy, but also increases it beyond what we could have found. God’s spirit dwells with the humble and contrite. Until I humble myself, I am all the power behind my Christian life – and that is not much at all. When I bring myself low, God exalts me to reflect His glory and point others to Christ.
Why doesn’t God answer?
After my testimony, I was recently asked by a skeptic, “If God answers prayer, why did your prayers fail for all those years before God answered?” He asked the question to be cynical, but in reality it was a very good question. I prayed off and on for God’s power to live as an overcomer for over twenty years without an answer. Why? Why do people today pray at the alter of churches across the world asking God to fill them, but it never happens? Obviously, I can’t speak for others, but I can look back on my own life and compare myself to scripture and get some answers. Look at James 1
6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.
7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;
8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The focus in this passage was on asking for wisdom from God, but the principle is the same for any prayer. A double-minded person is unstable and can’t expect to receive anything from the Lord. The person who lacks faith is unstable in all their ways. That describes my past perfectly. Disbelief in God always leads us into sin. We want God, but we really don’t believe He will fulfill His promises. Therefore, we seek satisfaction from the world. I sin because I trust myself over God. I don’t believe that God can satisfy me, so I have to go outside of His will to pursue pleasure or fulfillment. Then I am driven to back to God when I am not satisfied or I feel the burden of my sin. I grow discontented again because my heart is in the world and I am driven by my desires to seek fulfillment in sin again. Like the wind driven waves, I followed the tide of my selfish desires into the waves and cried to be rescued when I felt lost. I continued to be driven back and forth, again and again.
The heart of the problem was that I tried to cling to God while pursuing the world. God was ready to answer my prayer from day one and there was no reason for me to have gone through 20 years in the ‘wilderness’. My barrier was not from God, but from my torn allegiance. I prayed for God to take control, but in my heart I still held on to the last thread leading to the world. I wanted a safety line to the world in case God didn’t meet my expectations. There was a war raging within me and I was not ready to cut my ties. I wanted the benefits of God and at the same time, I wanted the lust of the world. I did not want the consequences of sin, but I did want the pleasure of sin. Even at the time of my breakthrough, God was ready to answer on the first day of prayer, but I needed three days to fight the battle. There was more than just a prayer involved. Satan had many strongholds in my life and he was in control of my desires. Even though I didn’t understand, a spiritual battle was raging. I hated the sin, but I was drawn by the deception. Deception mixed with truth is still deception. God could not answer my prayers until I truly yielded myself to Him.
Self-deception is the subtlest form of deception. I don’t know I am lying to myself until after I am standing in God’s truth. All those years I was convinced that I was sincere, when in reality, I was playing games with God. I confessed my sins with the suppressed intention to do as I pleased. Look at Jeremiah 17:
9 " The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
10 I, the LORD, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings.
There is nothing more deceitful than your own heart. Because we truly have a sin nature, our heart desperately seeks wickedness. When my desires are in control, I will always justify my actions and find a way to feel right about my disobedience to God. Repentance is lost once I begin to justify my sins at any level. My heart will always deceive me if it is my guide. Only God can search our heart and reveal our intentions. Only God can test our minds and direct us to His ways. The Bible tells us, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death”. There is no way around it – our motives are not pure. We may deceive ourselves into thinking we are justified, but unless God is in control, we will be driven back and forth by our own desires. Look at Proverbs 16
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, But the LORD weighs the spirits.
3 Commit your works to the LORD, And your thoughts will be established.
Only God can establish our thoughts. It is not until I commit my ways completely to Him and cut the strings to my own control that can He direct my steps. True prayer is not drawing God to our will, but drawing ourselves closer to God. When you are driven by your own will and your own desires, satan has a stronghold that he will not willingly release. Jesus said that the strongman must first be bound and then the house can be plundered. Satan is bound by our submission to God. Our flesh is satan’s domain, but God has the power to overcome. The prerequisite to the baptism of the Holy Spirit is found in the Lord’s Prayer. Luke 11:
2 So He said to them, "When you pray, say: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
3 Give us day by day our daily bread.
4 And forgive us our sins, For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one."
Understand and acknowledge God for who He is. He has the right to be God. He has the right to our lives. He has the right to do His good will. We align ourselves with the bread of His word. We seek forgiveness as we forgive others. Bitterness is always a barrier to God’s will in our life. You can’t be bitter and blessed. Satan is bound from our lives as we pray for deliverance while allowing God to lead us away from temptation. Only then will God open the door and fill us. The Holy Spirit will not dwell in a life filled with what He hates. We are commanded, “Do not quench the Spirit”. We quench the Spirit of God by disobedience. Sin and the Spirit are not cohabitates. God will not fill a heart filled with selfish desires. We first empty ourselves and humble ourselves by pouring out our hearts before Him. Then we have the promise that God will give us His Holy Spirit.
Seek and you shall find. I was completely unaware that there was such a thing as being baptized in the Spirit, yet God answered my sincere cry. Those who are persistent and seek God with a hunger and thirst for His righteousness will be filled. Those who mumble a prayer and never seek, knock and ask with a deep longing and faith in Him, will not find. God longs to fill anyone who asks with His Spirit, but we must yield and submit themselves to Him.
It is important to understand that God saves us by His Spirit and we are sealed as His born-again child. The event of our new birth is not the same as the event of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. It is possible that these two could happen at the same time, but all the testimonies I have found show that this is rare. In Charles Finney’s case, he was saved in the morning and filled by the Spirit in the evening. In most others, the realization that there is more came later in their ministry or Christian walk. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit is not necessarily a one-time event. Charles Finney was one of the great evangelists of last century and he testified that he frequently withdrew to pray and be anointed with the power of God to do ministry. It is vital that we continuously withdraw to seek God’s face and humble ourselves before Him. Without this time of deep prayer, our lives and ministries that God has called us to will not have His power. If we allow ourselves to increase, the power of God will decrease. It is only natural to drift away from God, but the wise man or woman will continue to humble themselves and be broken before God so that He can lift them up and empower them by His power and for His glory.
Never fall into the trap of thinking you have arrived. The deeper my faith and the closer I get to God, the more I see how short I fall. That in itself becomes a blessing because I see the need for surrender and the value of God’s grace. Always be satisfied with who you are in Christ, but never be satisfied with where you are. The journey does not end until you stand before Jesus Christ in Heaven and the process of conforming to the image of Christ never ends. The promise of being filled is to those who hunger and thirst. When you quit hungering and thirsting for God, you will quit being filled. Regardless of where you are spiritually, there is infinitely more to God that you are yet to experience. Always be content with what God has given, be satisfied with God and who you are in Him, but never grow complacent by being content with where you are.
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This sermon can be downloaded as a Word document by following the link at http://www.exchangedlife.com/Sermons/topical/holyspirit/baptism_spirit2.htm
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