Month: May 2014

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business;
Acts 6:3

Last week, we began looking at God using men in whom His Spirit dwelled to fulfill His sovereign purposes. There are many examples in the book of Acts that show individuals equipped for their calling by the Spirit of God. One such example is in our text today where the early church was instructed to identify men who were qualified to care for certain widows that were being overlooked. A key characteristic of these men was that they had to be “full of the Holy Spirit”. This qualification prompted an important question: how can you tell a man is full of the Holy Ghost?

I think the best way to answer this question is by our Lord’s statement in Mat 12:33: “a tree is known by its fruit”. If a person has not been saved, he is in one of two states as described in Luk 11:24-26. In this passage, a man is previously filled with an unclean spirit that has now departed, most likely from the effect of the preached word of God; however, the man’s soul remains empty. The word of God can have a powerful effect on people, and they may clean up their act for a season though not truly redeemed. As the story goes, this man ends up being in worse shape because the wicked spirit returns, finds his previous home tidy and empty, and moves back in with seven other demons worse than himself! The point is that a lost person at any given time is either filled with one or more unholy spirits or he is empty. That is not the state of a person who has been born again! As Jesus is casting out demons earlier in this chapter (Luk 11:20-22), He describes Himself as the stronger Man who rescues the sinner from the power of a strong man (the devil). When Jesus saves a soul, He doesn’t leave it empty and unguarded.  He kicks the evil spirit(s) out, and the Holy Spirit moves in permanently! As we read in our text last week,  the Spirit that Christ gives will “abide with you forever“! (Joh 14:16)

When a person then becomes filled with the Holy Ghost, there will be clear evidences of the indwelling Spirit, and you will be able to recognize that tree by the fruit it bears! What fruit is produced? Well, Gal 5:22-23 tells us very clearly that “the fruit of the Spirit is…”

love – “God is love” so it is no surprise that the first and foremost evidence of the Holy Ghost would be love. “…everyone who loves is born of God and knows God” per 1Jo 4:7.

joy – Jesus acknowledged that His disciples would have sorrow when He went to the cross, but their experience after His resurrection would be that “your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you”. (Joh 16:22) Such is the case for the Christian…happiness is short-lived, but joy which our Lord gives is eternal!

peace – The child of God knows a unique peace that only comes from the Lord. “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” (Joh 14:27) It surpasses all understanding per Php 4:7. Not only does the Christian possess peace, but he strives after it.  In fact, he makes it according to Mat 5:9! “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”

longsuffering – I like this word! It is a little weightier than simply saying “patience”. The Christian suffers long. He puts up with a lot because he knows God put up with a lot from him! How can he not forgive and patiently endure with others when God has been so merciful to him? Therefore, he walks “with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:2-3)

kindness – This word implies nothing less than the love and grace bestowed on us by God in giving His only begotten Son for our sins! “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph 2:7) The Holy Ghost produces the same level of self-sacrificial kindness in the believer.

goodness – This word comes directly from the Greek word translated “good” in Mat 19:17 when Jesus says “there is none good” but God. It is impossible to produce the “goodness” this word conveys except the God who is good lives in you! Now we understand why the standard is set so high for us by God in 1Pe 1:16: “Be holy, for I am holy.”

faithfulness – Though the NKJV translates this word “faithfulness”, it is simply the Greek word “faith”. The idea here is that a person in whom the Spirit dwells is continually guided by his faith and not by his natural sight for “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. (Heb 11:1) The Christian lives with an awareness of eternity, setting his “mind on things above, not on things on the earth”. (Col 3:2)

gentleness – There is a meekness and humility in the man filled with the Spirit that is not common in the world. He is burdened for the souls of men regardless of who they are or what they’ve done.  He is a servant to their souls and “in humility [the same Greek word “gentleness” in our text] correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth”. (2Ti 2:24-25)

self-control – Finally, the Spirit-filled individual is under the power of only One, namely Christ! Peter, John, Paul, James, and Jude (see 2Pe 1:1, Rev 1:1, Tit 1:1, Jam 1:1, and Jud 1:1) all refer to themselves as servants (literally, slaves”) of Jesus Christ. They are not slaves to the lustful desires of the flesh and shun anything that would seek to replace the Lord in their lives. Paul puts it like this: “All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.” (1Co 6:12)

As Gal 5:23 continues on concerning these fruits of the Spirit, “Against such there is no law.” No law can stand against a soul in whom God’s Spirit dwells! As Rom 8:1 confirms, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”

Jamie

 

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, who the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
Joh 14:16-18

We have been recently studying Act 8, a passage that some would use as a proof text to say that as believers we should look for a “second blessing” of the Spirit of God. In other words, some teach that after salvation, there is a baptism of the Holy Spirit we should seek. In Act 8:16-17, after the people of Samaria believed the word of God, we do read the following concerning the Spirit: “For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.” So, should we be dissatisfied after salvation until we receive a “second blessing”? To answer that question we must acknowledge the uniqueness of this period in the early New Testament church. Miraculous events were happening in order to prove the fulfillment of the promised Spirit. Now that we are fully on this side of Pentecost (i.e., we know the promised Spirit has indeed been given), Rom 8:9 teaches us clearly that, if we are saved, we possess the Spirit of God: “But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”

If you don’t have the Spirit dwelling in you, you’re not saved. That passage can’t be any clearer on that point. So, if you are saved, the Spirit of God dwells in you!! I say all of that because my desire is that we understand the fullness of that which is presently ours if we have indeed been born again. We live in a thrilling time being on this side of Pentecost, and the promise by Christ in our text above has now become reality! There is a distinct difference between the presence of God’s Spirit then and now, and Christ sums it up by saying of the Spirit: “He dwells WITH you and will be IN you”.

The Old Testament church was not without the aid and influence of the Holy Spirit. There are multiple instances where we see the Spirit active in the lives of men for some special purpose. One example is in the life of Samson. In Jdg 14:6 we read, “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and he tore the lion apart”. This superhuman strength was not of Samson’s doing. Rather it was the Spirit of God acting through him. We read a second time in v. 19, “the Spirit of the Lord came upon him mightily, and he…killed thirty of their men,” and then again in 15:14, “the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him; and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that is burned with fire”. But when Samson’s hair was cut (an act of disobedience to God), we find that his strength failed because “the Lord had departed from him”. (16:20)

We find then that the church’s relationship with God’s Spirit in the Old Testament was conditional and transient. The Spirit would come in response to a present need or leave as a result of disobedience. We see the saints’ awareness of this coming and going of the Spirit in David’s confessional psalm. One of the fears following his sin with Bathsheba was that the Holy Spirit would leave him. He cries out in Psa 51:11, “Do not cast me away from Your presence, and do not take Your Holy Spirit from me.”

If this Old Testament experience describes the present relationship of the church to the Holy Ghost, then we absolutely should seek a “second blessing”, and a third, and a fourth, etc. But, I’ve got some good news, brethren! The Spirit of the living God is in you to stay!! He was merely WITH the church before, but now He is IN you. When Peter writes concerning the saints suffering for Christ’s sake in 1Pe 4:14, he says this suffering is evidence that “the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” That word “rests” is the same word Jesus uses of the rest He will give those who come to Him! (Mat 11:28) We know Christ’s rest to not be a temporary thing but rather an eternal one; likewise, the Spirit is now a permanent resident with the believer! Let us rejoice today at the fulfillment of that which Christ promised in Joh 14:16-17: ” And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth”.

Jamie

“Be angry, and do not sin”: do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.
Eph 4:26-27

A question was raised in our study last week concerning the text above. This verse seems to suggest that anger is okay at times. Is that true? After all, Jam 1:19-20 says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” Is there then such a thing as “godly anger”? If God is love, do those two terms even go together?

Well, we can be certain that God does indeed display anger. “God is a just judge,
and God is angry with the wicked every day.” (Psa 7:11) Nah 1:2-3 tells us that though God is slow to anger, He gets angry nonetheless: “God is jealous, and the Lord avenges; The Lord avenges and is furious. The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserves wrath for His enemies; The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked.” God gets angry at people. In fact, Eph 2:3 tells us that prior to salvation we “were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.” I read a bumper sticker the other day that said, “God is not mad at you.” The truth is that if you are outside of Christ, He is! The passages above remind us that there is no peace with God except in Christ. If outside of Him, you are daily under God’s anger and wrath, and only His patience and longsuffering prevent your destruction.

So, if God is angry, then there must be valid reasons for us to be angry at times. We see that Jesus was angry as He entered the temple filled with moneychangers. After making a whip, he chased them out saying, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” (Joh 2:16) His example here gives us a clue as to the valid basis for anger. Why did Jesus behave that way? Joh 2:17 tells us, “Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.'” He was consumed with a desire to glorify His Father! He couldn’t stand to see this place reserved for the worship of God turned into a supermarket to fill men’s wallets.

This account gives us the key to testing whether or not we are sinning when we become angry. Often, anger comes from a self-centered desire to not be mistreated. Jesus never responded in anger to personal attacks (which he received often). Rather than defend Himself, He left us this example: “‘Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth’; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously”. (1Pe 2:22-23) His teaching in the sermon on the mount of Olives was to “love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you”. (Mat 5:44) When we get angry, we should check to see if we’re focused on ourselves or on the Lord. The primary issue isn’t the anger itself but rather the motive behind the it. According to 1Co 10:31, “whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” So be angry only for God’s glory!

Inevitably, we fail on this point. What then? What about the times anger gets the best of us? As our main text today instructs us, “do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil.” Don’t open the door to Satan by leaving this sin unconfessed. Even if our anger was in reaction to someone who first mistreated us and probably should apologize, we should admit our wrongdoing in our sinful anger and forgive that person. Don’t let the sun go down without dealing with those things. Don’t hold on to anger and let it fester. It will still be there in the morning and only get worse. Honor the Lord by being the one to apologize first! Remember, “A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger.” (Pro 15:1)

Jamie