Sunday School | Foundations - The Spirit Filled Life

Introduction

So glad that you're here. What is this, week three or four of Foundations? If you're new with us, we have been walking through some of the essentials of the Christian faith. What does it look like to actually walk with Christ? We've been walking through the Gospel of John. We looked at it today, and it is necessarily experiential, not theoretical—that to follow Him comes with some very real implications, things that we experience and taste and receive, and we see that He's good.

So we've been talking about some things. Can you remind me what we talked about in week one? We talked about the gospel. What was kind of the bombshell or the punchline of Tim's Sunday school lesson? He is king. He is king. He has become king. That is the good news—that we have a King, that all authority has been granted to Him, and we live under His gracious and strong reign. That's the good news.

The second week, we talked about what it means to live in the light or walk in the light as opposed to walking in darkness. And what can you tell me about that? What does that mean? Constant confession. Okay, constant confession. Did you turn on the microphone? That walking in the light is not walking in moral perfection. It is walking exposed, open, honest—admitting perpetually and continually, I am a sinner, I need your grace. And that is what it means to walk with Him, to walk in the light, is just remaining in His posture.

Last week—I wasn't here last week, but Tim talked about the assurance of salvation, eternal security. And I’m just interested to hear from you. What are some things that landed with you or that you took away from Tim's lesson? I listened to it; it was so good, I thought. But I’d love to hear what your thoughts were. Maybe you didn't like it as much as me. Should we move on? Sorry, Tim. Tim’s not here this week, but I’m sure he'll listen to this.

The Role of the Holy Spirit in the New Covenant

Let me ask a question. How can we be sure? Why do we have assurance? What is our security? Pardon? Christ's work on the cross. Christ's work on the cross. I said it this morning in our message—if you were at the 08:30 service—if we didn't earn our salvation, we can't lose it. If we didn't do anything to merit God's favor, then we can't unearn it. It is His work from start to finish.

And there is tremendous rest in the security that is available to the believer. 1 John was written in chapter five to tell you the reason he wrote that book is so that you would know that you have eternal life. We're not supposed to live wondering, am I in or am I out? The truth is, if we have come to Him, it is evidence that we belong to Him, and that He has promised to keep us and to bring us across the finish line. Salvation and sanctification—that is a work that belongs to Him.

And I’m telling you, there is rest and peace and assurance that is available in so many of us. We don't always live under that security, but we have it. If you didn't hear or weren't here, you should go onto our podcast. I heard someone say that it's the best Sunday school lesson Tim ever taught. It was remarkable.

This week, we're continuing to talk about some of the most important things about faithfully walking with Christ. We’re going to be looking at the role that the Holy Spirit plays in our ongoing relationship with Him. And in order to do that, I want to look—actually, let me just ask this as a question. If I was to ask you, what is the most important place in the Old Testament where the Holy Spirit is discussed? What would you say? I'll give you a hint—if you're at the 08:30 service? Dry. Okay. The dry bones, yes. And even the chapter right before that is, it is the new covenant.

That God is saying, the old covenant served its purpose—but its purpose was not to produce righteousness; it was to expose man's inability—that we, on our own, would never become who God wants us to be. Amen? We're just not going to. We require more than a list of rules that we're supposed to follow to make Him happy. What we find when we try to keep the law is that we can't. And the whole reason for the new covenant is not because God's plan A didn’t work. The new covenant was always plan A, and the old covenant was never meant to work. In fact, I should say that slightly differently—it did work. It worked in exposing man's inability. And the new covenant is God's solution to our inability to follow Him faithfully.

And this is an exciting doctrine that we're going to talk about today. But what I want to do to emphasize this point is to look first at the new covenant as it's stated in Ezekiel 36, from verse 24 to 27. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to turn there. We're going to be reading some significant chunks. If you don't, feel free to listen along as I read it to you.

For I will take you out of the nations. I will gather you from all the countries and bring you back into your land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will—hear this—give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Here is the climactic promise:

I will put my Spirit in you and I will cause you to follow my decrees.

Now, two quick questions. Number one, when you think of a new covenant and who ushers that covenant in, who do we typically think of? Who is the bringer of the new covenant? Jesus. It is Jesus. We think about the New Testament, we think about the coming of Christ, the Gospels, the story of His life, and what He has done. And He is the mediator of that covenant.

But what's interesting is when the Old Testament talks about the new covenant, who is the main character? The Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit moving in and creating life. He says some pretty interesting things in this passage. I wonder what landed with you as you heard it read—that He would put a new spirit in you, that He would give you a new heart, that He would cause you to obey everything that He commands. What are the implications of that? We will be changed. Something is going to happen.

In this day when the Spirit shows up, there will be life change. My Bible teacher, Tom Nelson, out of Denton Bible, used to say—and I’ve shared this so many times here—that the Bible knows nothing of a Christianity less than conversion. To be in Christ is to realize all the benefits that belong to Christ become mine in Christ. He died to sin, I died to sin. He raised to newness of life, I necessarily raised too. There’s no such thing as being forgiven of my sins but then not also having this new power, new Spirit-filled life in conjunction with that forgiveness. They go together; they’re a package deal.

Okay, now what's interesting—and I mentioned this also at the first service—is that what follows Ezekiel's unveiling of the new covenant is a metaphor or a vision that God gives him. In chapter 36, it's the valley of dry bones. And what happens—in fact, I’m just going to read it to you. He shows up, God gives him a picture, and here's what we need to understand: what He was giving him a picture of is what was going to happen when the new covenant comes.

So listen to this. This is Ezekiel 37—it's actually verse 1:

The hand of the Lord was on me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley. It was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I said, Sovereign Lord, you alone know.

That’s always a good answer, by the way. Then He says:

Prophesy to the bones and say to them, Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.

Skipping ahead to verse 7 and 8:

So I prophesied as I was commanded. As I was prophesying, there was a noise and a rattling sound, and the bones came together—bone to bone. I looked and tendons and flesh appeared on them, and skin covered them. And then—hear this—there was no breath in them. The valley of dry bones becomes a valley of skeletons, which becomes a valley of corpses. And the prophet sees it and says, Something’s not right here. No one’s moving. God has performed this miracle of bringing these bones together and covering them in flesh, but they’re still just lifeless. There’s no breath.

So he says:

Prophesy to the breath. (In Hebrew, the same word for breath and Spirit.) Prophesy, son of man, and say to it, This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come, breath from the four winds, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.

So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army. Skipping ahead to verse 11:

Then He said to me, Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, Our bones are dried up, and our hope is gone; we are cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I’m going to open your graves and bring you up from them. I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord when I open your graves and bring you up from them.

Now, that sounds like resurrection. And there is a day coming when God will raise everyone from the dead. But that is not what this is talking about. And if we doubted that, we can see it right here. It says:

I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live. And I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.

God is unambiguously telling us that this is a picture—not of resurrection at the end of time, but that this is a picture of what will happen to people who are spiritually dead but who will come to life when my Spirit moves into their hearts. This was a radical teaching when it was new—and it’s still radical today. We’ve just become familiar and comfortable with it. But back then, the idea that God would come and live in you, and cause you to obey Him, and that He would fill you like breath fills and creates life to a corpse—that was an exciting promise. And Ezekiel is telling us it’s coming.

Significance of the Spirit in the New Covenant

Now, let me briefly deal with the significance of this change being promised. The Holy Spirit—you're aware that God is omnipresent, He’s always been omnipresent, but His presence in the Old Testament existed in a particular place. It was in the Ark of the Covenant, carried in the Tabernacle behind the Holy of Holies. That was where His presence was—in that particular place.

And what Ezekiel is telling us here is that there will be a new particular place for the presence of God, and it will no longer be in the Ark of the Covenant; it will be inside His people. What a promise. Now, something else we need to know is that this promise of the Spirit, this coming Spirit, is a universal promise to all who come to Him. And it is given in full measure. If you come to Christ, you have His Spirit.

We don't believe in what many traditions believe—that there’s a second blessing—that you get part of the Spirit, and then when you become a varsity Christian, there are new gifts available. That is, I think, a teaching that some hold. And I don’t think that’s biblical, but it is a way people answer the question: why is it that some people seem to experience God more deeply than others? That is a fair question. And I would suggest that there is a reason, but it’s not because some people have experienced a second baptism—that you get a miniature version of the Spirit, and at a later time, it gets bigger. That’s not what’s happening.

So what is the distinguishing mark of someone who—have you met people that you just interact with and think, man, this person is on a different plane? What is it that they’re tasting and seeing and experiencing that I am not—and why am I not, and why are they? That should cause us to wonder. And it should actually whet our appetites to know that there is more available. And there’s a simple answer for why.

Now, to answer that question, I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians 2, and Paul is going to tell you about what this looks like in the life of a believer who has accepted Christ, who has received what He has done for them, and who has moved into their life—which is what He does for everyone who receives Him. Starting in verse 14:

The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

What is another word that we might use for someone who does not have the Spirit? Unsaved. Non-Christian. Someone who just doesn't believe. He's saying that’s one. There are only two kinds of people in this chapter: those who have the Spirit and those who don’t.

Then he says:

The person without the Spirit hears spiritual truths and sees spiritual things, and they go, Uh-uh, makes no sense. I don’t get it. Why? Because spiritual things are spiritually perceived, and we need His Spirit to see, to seek, and to understand. Even the inclination of our hearts toward God is hostile. Do you know, we're enemies, we're at war with God in our flesh? It takes a divine touch of His Spirit to change that inclination—so that we’re open to God.

He continues:

The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments. For who has known the mind of the Lord as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

There are people who don't have the Spirit and there are people who do. And the people who understand spiritual things—it's not because they’re smarter or better or more humble—Paul says the reason they understand is because God has given you access to something, the mind of Christ. When you get His Spirit, hear this, you start to think like He thinks. You start to love what He loves. To the degree that we are yielded to the Spirit living in us, we become like Christ. He changes our affections.

Does anyone remember this as part of your testimony—that when you came to Christ, when you received Him, when you heard the gospel, suddenly I remember riding the bus from Winnie Gap home, and I was reading a book I’d never wanted to read in my entire life. It was called the Bible. And I’m on the back of the bus, just taking it in. Something had changed. My ear was inclined. My heart turned. I felt an affection and a longing for a God I used to not like.

Now, moving ahead to 1 Corinthians 3, Paul describes—although there are only two kinds of people—something even they can be categorized differently. Starting in verse 1:

Brothers and sisters, I could not address you as people who live by the Spirit, but as people who are still worldly. Here's what he's describing: you have the Spirit, but you're acting like you don’t.

He says:

You're just mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you're still not ready. You're worldly. Since there's jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere humans?

Paul is addressing Christians. He's saying, you have the Spirit, but you're acting like you don't. And he teaches us something: it is possible to have His Spirit but act like you don’t—something we need to avoid.

Now, what description might we use for someone who is doing the opposite of what Paul talks about here? Someone who is letting the Spirit guide and control their life—what might we call that person? Theborn again. Surrendered. Spirit-filled. That we would be filled with the Spirit.

This is the language the Bible uses—that’s what we long for. We long to be people who are filled with the Spirit. But that word can give the impression that maybe God fills some people more than others—that He gives the Spirit in increasing measure, or withholds His Spirit from some. They get less, a smaller dose.

And that’s not what it means. The filling, I would say, has way more to do with you—and in fact, everything to do with you and me—than it does with God. He put His Spirit in you. And when He did that, He put all of His Spirit in you. That Spirit, by the way, is the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. And the reason Paul tells us that in Romans 8 is so we understand just how vast the power of that Spirit is.

It should impact us, change us, and cause us to live differently. Now, the question: what does it mean to be Spirit-filled? How do I become one? If His Spirit is really in me, but I’m not experiencing the power, freedom, joy that seems linked to that feeling, what am I missing? What is the missing piece?

I want to share some examples from the New Testament of people operating from a posture of fullness. Listen to this in Acts 4:8:

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them—and he boldly preached. He said some hard things. Being filled with the Spirit is what enabled him to do so.

In Acts 4:31:

After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the Word of God boldly.

In Acts 6:3 and 5:

Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. You know what this teaches? People can see. They chose a man everyone knew, and that man was full.

And in Ephesians 5:18:

Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

And in Galatians 5:25:

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Now, instead of asking you what it means to be filled with the Spirit, let me ask: how would you describe that experience based on these verses? If you were to put it in other terms, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? How would you communicate it? Joy. Power. That's great. Yeah. Resisting, yielded—that’s good. Telling others—that’s what happened here; they filled with the Spirit and they preached boldly. Those are all great.

I love the metaphor of do not get drunk on wine, but be filled. He's giving you a metaphor, telling you that the filling of the Holy Spirit is similar in some ways to being drunk. What happens when you’re filled with wine? Some of you know. It influences your behavior. Changes how you act and think. Your inhibitions are down. Why? Because you’re under the influence of something you’re filled with.

He’s saying, don’t do that—there’s another agent you can be filled by that influences your behavior and affections in a good way. It would be good to be filled by the Holy Spirit. Paul is inviting us to become aware of another controlling influence in our life. And the question: why don't we always experience this? Why isn’t it automatic?

Tim is the first I heard these next two metaphors from—they are from Campus Crusade for Christ, Bill Bright, who is one of the best communicators on the Spirit-filled life. This is a classic illustration. Many of you may have heard it.

If there was a cup of milk here, and I squeezed Hershey chocolate syrup into it, and I took a sip—what would it taste like? It would taste like milk with no chocolate. Because it’s not stirred up. It’s all in there, but it’s sitting at the bottom. The reason? It hasn't been stirred. Once you stir it, what changes? The appearance. It merges together. It almost can't be distinguished anymore. It tastes sweeter and is different.

And I just tell you: this is what happens to the believer when the Spirit in you, all in full, is stirred—when He’s stirred up in you—you look different, and your life becomes sweeter to those around you.

Let me give you another example. How many of you, Adam Mosley—are you here? Okay. How many of you sail? All right. I’ve been on a sailboat before, but I don’t know how to sail. I think Adam is really good at sailing, isn’t that right, Fats? Yeah. What does a sail do for the boat? What does it give to the boat? Power. Yes. It gives you power and direction.

What is necessary to receive that power and direction of the wind? The sail has to be—what? Open. The sail has to be. The wind has to be blowing, but it’s possible for the boat to miss the wind—not because there’s no wind, but because your sail isn't oriented right or it’s crumpled up. It isn’t open.

This is a great metaphor for us. Turn your sail to the wind of the Spirit. See, the problem for many of us is that we don’t realize our sails aren’t really unfurled. Or maybe they’re open, but it’s like this: "God, lead me"—except for my finances, I want to stay in control of those. And my sex life—I don’t really want you to speak into that. But other than those, Lord, lead me. Pray.

What happens is every time we don’t give Him complete access, we close the sail. We crumple it. And then we’re disillusioned when we feel like, where’s He? I’m praying and asking for His help, and He isn’t there. What we don’t realize is that our sail is crumpled.

And I think one of the biggest reasons people become disillusioned by the Christian life is this. I remember a kid named Nick. It’s hard even to talk about this kid. I sat with him as he prayed to begin a relationship with Christ. And he tried to follow Him afterwards. And, you know, let me just say: it’s not for us to know whether someone’s coming to Christ is genuine or not. Eventually, there will be fruit; there’s going to be evidence that Christ came into your life, in the way you act, the things you love or long for.

Nick, a few months after meeting Christ, came to me and said, "Sloop, I’m trying, man, but this just isn’t fun." He said, "I get it—I get everything I learned at camp about Jesus and the cross, and I understand—I want to be forgiven. You said this was full life, and I’m not tasting, I’m not experiencing that at all." And like the rich young ruler, he walked away sad, thinking he gave Jesus a shot, but Jesus wasn’t all He was cracked up to be.

Or—is what’s really going on—that if our lives aren’t yielded. See, the Spirit-filled life is the yielded life. It’s the life that says, "God, you have all of me. You have access to every thought, every behavior, every belief. You have permission to challenge my presuppositions, to remove things I think I need or deserve." It’s a complete laying down of my life, yielded to the King of Kings who had the audacity to put His very life inside of me.

And if we would but yield, we would begin to experience His power and His direction. But when we don’t—when we become disillusioned and ask, "Why am I not experiencing Him?"—our boat turns into a rowboat, Bob. That’s right. And we try to look like Christians moving with His power, but it’s lifeless, empty, and not fun. And like Nick, eventually, we throw in the towel: "This isn’t what I was promised. It’s not what it was cracked up to be." Why? Because our sail isn’t yielded. Our life isn’t yielded.

Practical Steps and Conclusion

So here’s my question: what do we do? What are the practices that keep our sails unfurled, so to speak, and that enable us to experience His wind? It’s simple. It just takes honesty and walking in the light. That’s another point from Tim—there’s two ways we can walk through life.

In fact, all believers will walk in one of these two ways: sin and repentance. You’re going to sin. 1 John will tell you, if you try to make the case that you’re not a sinner, you’re making God a liar. All we can do is repent. But the question is: will our lives look like this—sin and repentance, sin and repentance, with immediate confession?

Or will our lives look like this—sin, repentance, sin, repentance, where we confess quickly? The yielded life isn’t sinless; it’s a life of honesty, quick confession, and repentance. Think of Peter walking on the water—taking his eyes off Jesus, starting to sink—and immediately saying, "Lord, save me." That’s a yielded life. It’s not perfection; it’s quick confession.

What are some other ways we can have our sails unfurled to receive His power and direction? Anything else? Prayer. Prayer is how we talk to God. How many of us forget the wonder and mystery of that? Matthew Henry, an old commentator, was writing on Jonah praying from the belly of the fish, and he said, "He that has Christ dwelling in his heart by faith carries an altar with him everywhere he goes." There’s no place you can escape God’s presence—you have access to Him all the time, everywhere.

What else? Go ahead, Catherine. Ask for more. When you pray, ask for more—"God, give me more. Help me." Those are good prayers. If prayer is how we talk to God, what’s the primary way God speaks to us? Through the Scriptures.

We’re going to talk about that more in the next few weeks—the role of God's Word in our walk with Him. We pray, we confess, we come to His Scriptures, and we come yielded.

And if you weren't at the 08:30 service, this is an opportunity. For those coming to the 11:00, I want to challenge you with my sermon—it's a hard one. It’s an opportunity to say, "Okay, You’re the King. I don’t know better than You. I don’t understand this, but I want to." I believe that You can—by Your Spirit, which lives in me—and remember, the same Spirit that carried along the authors of Scripture lives in you. He can help you understand.

The Spirit is active and alive, and to the degree we are yielded to Him, we will experience His power, His direction, and something else: the fruit of the Spirit. That when the Spirit shows up, when we are filled, when His fullness is stirred in us, it shows in peace, patience, joy, gentleness, and self-control.

I think I’ve got them out of order, but you know them—Galatians 5. That is the invitation. And now we have ten minutes. I think we’ll stop there. Let me pray.

Father, thank you for your Spirit. I thank you that you did not leave us to ourselves, knowing we would never seek you, see you, or obey you. Thank you that you came to this earth, died on the cross, raised from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father, promising that when you leave, you would send your Spirit. You said, Lord, it’s better that you leave because then you send the Spirit. Father, give us the courage to believe that’s true—that it’s better to have your Spirit, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, living in us. Teach us what it means to live the yielded life, that we might walk in your power and your promises. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Thank you all for coming. And for those sticking around at 11:00, we’ll see you then.