The Baptism And Filling Of The Holy Spirit
THE BAPTISM AND FILLING OF THE HOLY SPIRIT
1 CORINTHIANS 12:13
I want to begin by asking each of you as question; actually two questions.
(1) Would you say that you have reached as high in your growth as a Christian as you can go?
(2) Or, would you agree that God has infinitely more for you that you presently have?
Just as I thought. We know God has more for us in life than we have appropriated.
Let me ask one a couple more questions.
(3) If God has more for you than you’ve appropriated, and you want it, where do you get it?
If your answer is the Holy Spirit, then you’re correct.
(4) If God has more for you than you’ve appropriated, and you want it, how do you get it?
If you answer the “filling of the Holy Spirit,” then again you’re correct. That’s part of our discussion this evening.
HOW THE HOLY SPIRIT CHANGES US
The Baptism of the Holy Spirit
If, as Paul tells us, we’ve been baptized by one Spirit into one body, then why are many Christians confused as to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives? Let’s talk about it.
According to Paul, each one of us is baptized into the body of Christ at the moment we profess our faith in Jesus Christ. The baptism of the Spirit is a one-time event that changes our direction in this life, and secures our eternal destiny in the world to come.
The Filling of the Holy Spirit.
The baptism of the Holy Spirit changes our direction in life (we’ll speak about this more in a few minutes), and secures our eternal destiny in heaven. The filling of the Holy Spirit is what provides us with the power to live for Christ every day, and enables us to live in victory over sin and death.
WATCH OUT FOR THE EXTREMES
In an attempt to experience power and victory in their Christian lives, some Christians go to extremes.
(1) Preoccupation with Bible study. These Christians read and study the Bible constantly, listen to tapes and CDs, and attend Bible study conferences. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this as long as it leads the person to carry out in their lives what they’re learning. But many of them are simply looking for something new and different in the Bible. They study for the sake of knowledge rather than for the sake of maturity in Christ. Most of these people find that learning about the Bible, and what’s in the Bible, is much easier than living out what the Bible says. These Christian run the risk of drying up spiritually. Their minds are constantly active, but their hearts are less so.
(2) Being enamored with the Holy Spirit. There are many Christians who become enamored with what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit. Maybe they do this because they’re looking for some newer spiritual “high.” The joy in their Christian life consists of moving from one spiritual high to another. The sum total of their relationship to Christ becomes one of “mountaintop experience” after another. When they don’t have such experiences, they feel they’ve missed what the Christian life is all about.
The Bible teaches us that the proper approach to understanding the Holy Spirit is somewhere between these two extremes. We’re going to see this by using three images: the container, the contents, and the contract.
THE CONTAINER (Show the container.)
First Corinthians 12:13 reminds that “we are all baptized into one body.” To me that says each believers is made a part of the body of Christ by the action of the Holy Spirit. Paul informs us of another dimension of this baptism in 1 Corinthians 6:19. “Do you not know that your body of the Holy Spirit who is in you?” The Holy Spirit comes into each of us at the point of our faith in Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in turn baptizes us into the one body of Christ. Thus the church, which each of us makes up, experiences the power and presence of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 9:17. “Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
The new wine represents the gospel, and the old wineskin represents the old religious system of the Jews, that was filled with the rules and regulations of the covenant law, and self-righteous deeds of those who still lived by it. Jesus was saying that people have to be made new before they can contain the gospel. By the baptism of the Holy Spirit, we become fit containers for the power and presence of the Spirit.
If you have not been forgiven of sin through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, or your faith in it, you are not a fit vessel for the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:14 says, “...because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.” When we’re saved, the Holy Spirit takes us residence in us, and we’re baptized by the Holy Spirit into the Body of Christ. This is how God takes ownership of us, puts himself in us, and enables us to do His will.
One problem many Christians have with this biblical description of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that they have wrongly equated it with some emotional, ecstatic experience, such as being “slain in the Spirit,” or “speaking in tongues.” Some even say that where such an experience doesn’t accompany a salvation experience, they have not been baptized by the Holy Spirit. Scripture says they’re wrong.
REFER AGAIN TO THE CONTAINER.
Although we’ve been marked by the Holy Spirit as belonging to God, that doesn’t mean we’ve given the Spirit exclusive use of the container.
Let me explain.
(1) Whenever the Holy Spirit comes to live in us, in our spirits, He creates a tension between our desire to live totally by the Spirit and the sinful nature that’s already part of us. (Paul addresses this issue in Galatians 5). Two things can result from such a tension.
· We continue to struggle with sin until the Spirit’s power enables us to get that sin out of our lives.
· We tire of the constant struggle and the desires of our bodies (“the flesh”) and we don’t give the Spirit power over us anymore.
The end result of this struggle is that we either are filled with the Holy Spirit and achieve victory over sin, or we’re not. Most of the time the reason the struggle becomes excruciating is that we refuse to empty ourselves (our containers) of every known sin, and allow the Holy Spirit to work His life and power into us.
So the first step to being “filled with the Spirit,” which we turn to next, is repentance.
THE CONTENTS
Acts 2:4 says, “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” That means there were no human or religious delineations as to who was filled. Men, women, boys and girls, apostles, etc. When this happened, they became empowered for the Christian task. The book of Acts reveals that their task was to share Christ with the world and make disciples.
Landrum Leavell says we “walk a trail that leads from Calvary and conversion to Pentecost and power. But our problem is that far too many of us weep at Calvary and balk at Pentecost.” (The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, p. 69) Although we know we don’t possess everything the Holy Spirit has for us, we’re not sure we want all that He has to give. Some people may call us fanatics.
The Holy Spirit gave our ancestors in the faith a holy boldness. What has the Holy Spirit given you and me?
EVIDENCES OF THE SPIRIT-FILLED LIFE
What, in your judgment, are the evidences for a Spirit-filled life? These could be some possible responses.
· Speaking in tongues
· Gifts of healing
· Prophesying
But note that Jesus didn’t say, “You will know them by their gifts.” What he said was, “You will know them by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16) Many Christians live without the power of the Spirit because they have missed this distinction.
The Holy Spirit does confer gifts to believers, but not the same ones to each one. Just because you can’t speak in tongues doesn’t mean the Holy Spirit hasn’t filled your life, regardless of what our charismatic brothers and sisters say. But you may evidence more love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, meekness and self-control than they ever do. In fact, that’s exactly what happened in the church in Corinth. They were so gifted by the Spirit that their fruits spoiled. They became so boastful of their spirituality that the contents of their container spoiled.
In this situation, two extremes are possible.
(1) Either we want everything that the filling of the Spirit points to; or,
(2) We don’t want any of it.
We shouldn’t be afraid of what we perceive as the excesses of emotion. As someone recognized, it’s better to be perceived by others as called God’s people on fire than to be perceived by them as God’s frozen people.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE HOLY SPIRIT FILLS US?
· People are saved
· People’s lives are changed
· The church is revived
· And God calls people to serve Him
The difference between a church hung up on ritual, and dare we say “tradition,” and one filled with Spirit is stark.
ILLUS. “Preacher, I haven’t seen this church on fire in 25 years!”
When the Holy Spirit fills a properly prepared container, what results is nothing less than the working of the dynamic power of Almighty God.
THE CONTRACT
Jesus told his disciples when he ascended into heaven that he would be with them until the end of the age (Matthew 28:20). Ephesians 5:8 commands us to “be filled with the Spirit.” Note that Paul didn’t say we’re to be baptized with the Spirit. Nowhere in the Bible are we commanded to be baptized in the Holy Spirit.
ILLUS. Talk about tradition. Larry Oakley took me to task one Sunday after I baptized someone for not saying “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Nowhere does God’s word say do that.
THE BAPTISM OF THE HOLY SPIRIT IS NOT A SEPARATE EVENT FROM OUR SALVATION EXPERIENCE THAT WE MUST STRUGGLE TO EXPERIENCE.
If someone asks you, “Have you been baptized by the Holy Spirit,” they probably mean, “Have you had some kind of sensational, emotional, ecstatic, otherworldly experience?” You may kindly tell them, “No, but I was baptized by the Holy Spirit into one body when I accepted Christ as my personal Savior.”
The contract, if we see it as such, is this: TO BE FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT REQUIRES THAT WE RECOGNIZE THE PRESENCE OF THE SPIRIT WITHIN US AS A REQUIREMENT TO BE FILLED.
The Spirit fills us only when we ask Him to. But the Spirit will not fill us until our container is empty and ready to be filled. For the contract to be ratified, or consummated, each of us must come to the point where we abandon ourselves to Christ, crucify our bodies of all sin, and allow our bodies to become the dwelling places of God in the Spirit. When this occurs, the world will know that there’s a church around.