The Local Church That God Blesses - Power for Christian Living — Peter Brandon

The Power to Live a Holy Life

But tonight we're going to look at the power to live a holy life and we're going to look at that expression to be filled with the spirit. Would you please turn first of all to Ephesians chapter 5, Ephesians 5 reading from verse 40.

Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, or literally the dead ones, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing a making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Now the next part of the chapter we're going to deal tomorrow night, when we're going to speak on the subject, building a New Testament home in a permissive society.

Life in the Spirit According to Romans 8

Now so that we get the qualifying verses in regard to being filled with the spirit, would you turn back to Romans 8 and read from verse 1. Romans 8 verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.

And that last clause, as most of you know, is not in most of the original scriptures. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, meaning a sin offering, condemned sin in the flesh.

That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the spirit, the things of the spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and freedom. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

That ye are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of him. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin, that the spirit is life because of righteousness.

But if the spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead, shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh.

For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if through the spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now the Lord will bless to us those tall portions of his work.

I think it's true to say that one of the most important subjects in the Bible is the subject of the fullness of the spirit. If we're going to see real restoration in these last days, each one of us must get back to the practical meaning of this little term being filled with the spirit.

The Holy Spirit as a Divine Person

Now before we can really discuss this, we must look at the personality of the Holy Spirit. Now if my memory serves me right, I believe that there are 14 titles given to the Holy Spirit. In fact, every title that has been given to the Lord Jesus, with the exception of two, has also been given to the Holy Spirit.

But the three major titles are as follows. He is called the Spirit of God. He is called the Spirit of Christ. He is called the Spirit of Holiness or the Holy Spirit. Now the Spirit of God reveals to us his essential divinity.

The Spirit of Christ reveals to us his unique objectivity. And the Holy Spirit reveals to us his personal identity. Now the Spirit of God. When we think of the Holy Spirit, we must never think of him as an end.

Always think of him as a him. And we must remember that in every single detail, he is co-equal as God, and he is co-equal as the Lord Jesus. Sometimes we call him the third person of the Trinity, but you will never find that expression in the Old or the New Testament.

This may be surprising, but the first divine person ever to be mentioned in the Scripture is the Spirit of God. For instance, when the Scripture says, in the beginning God created the heaven and earth, the word God there is Elohim, and it refers to the Trinity.

And when it says the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep, that shows to us that the first divine person ever mentioned in Scripture is the Spirit of God. Now what makes God, God? Well, he must be infinite.

That means he is not limited by time, space or matter. That is what the word infinite means. But there are three great attributes that show to us the essential deity of the whole Trinity. Now what are they?

God is omnipresent. That means he is everywhere. If I may put that quite simply, he is transcendent. That means he is so great that he is outside of time and space and looks upon created matter as a small thing.

Think of that. Then God is imminent. That means God has projected his glory into everything that he makes so that the heavens declare the glory of God and the expanses show forth his handiwork. So is the Holy Spirit.

David said, Whither shall I fly from thy spirit? Whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there. If I descend into hell, thou art there. In other words, he caught this great truth that the Spirit of God was omnipresent.

And that means he fills the whole universe and at the same time can fill every single believer. Secondly, the Holy Spirit, like God, is omnipotent. That means he has all power. And that causes our mind to boggle.

We must remember this, that Job said, The Spirit of God created him. We must always remember this, that every single miracle in the Old Testament and every single miracle in the New Testament was performed and enacted by the Holy Ghost.

Even the great miracle, perhaps the greatest of all, the incarnation, was the marvellous work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of God shall come upon them. When the Lord Jesus was dying upon the cross, the Hebrew writer tells us that the Lord Jesus was being aided as he was making his atoning sufferings before God by the Eternal Spirit.

When he was raised from the dead, Roman faith tells us very emphatically that it was the Holy Spirit that raised him from the dead. And when the Lord Jesus comes the second time, it will be the Holy Spirit that will change your body from the body of humiliation to the body of glory when he hears the triumphant shout.

So can we see now that the Holy Spirit, like God, is all powerful? Thirdly, the Holy Spirit is omniscient. Now what does that mean? God never thinks. Can I repeat that? God never thinks. He knows. That means when he looks at creation, he says that he is the Alpha and the Omega.

He looks upon the whole universe as though it was a simple yesterday. You see, we think. God knows. And therefore, the Holy Spirit, says Paul writing to the Corinthians, and I want you to note this, searches the deep things of God.

And that reveals to us the depth of his glorious infinite understanding. Now can we see when we talk about the Spirit of God, we're not talking about an influence, we're not talking about an active force, but we are talking about someone who is co-equal with God in every single detail.

Please do bear that in mind. Secondly, the objectivity of the Holy Spirit is quite simple. The work and the object of the Spirit is not to give you an it, but to give you a him. In fact, the Lord Jesus made it quite clear that when he would come, he would take of the things of Christ and reveal them to you.

Therefore, the purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make the Lord Jesus real to each one of us. Now there are two ways in which you can learn of Christ, and this is very important. If you have a good mind, you can study the subject of Christology, and you can know all about Christ through prophecy, you can know all about Christ through typology, you can know all about the attributes of Christ, and the sufferings of Christ, and the humanity of Christ, and the deity of Christ.

You may have a vast understanding of the glorification of Christ, and all the prophecies relating to Christ, but that doesn't mean to say that you know Christ. It's one thing to know about him, it's another thing to know him.

And when the Apostle says that I might know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable to death, he wasn't basically saying I want my mind filled with the doctrine of Christ, he had that of course, but he wanted to know the Lord Jesus intimately and experimentally.

Now beloved, it's only the Holy Spirit that can make the book Christ that we find in the scripture a living reality to you. And therefore, when you read of the disciples, you will find that when they were with the Lord Jesus, they were taught wonderfully well, but they all failed him.

But when the Lord Jesus was absent, and the Holy Spirit was present, they were transformed men and women. In fact, they knew him far more intimately when he was absent than when he was present. They had a greater power and they were far more like Christ.

Why? The Holy Spirit was making the Lord Jesus absolutely real to them. And beloved, the Holy Spirit can make the Lord Jesus as real to you as if Jesus Christ was standing before you, if we will let him.

Now he wants to do that in two ways. He wants to make Christ real to us objectively, as a man who now lives at God's right hand, our great high priest. Now that's the Hebrew epistle. And then he wants to form the Lord Jesus in our bodies, so that the whole of our personality is invaded by the beauty and the loveliness of Christ.

And that is the subject of the Philippian epistle. And therefore, the moment you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes into your life to make Jesus Christ real and precious and intimate, objectively and subjectively.

Furthermore, he wants to move in a local church in such a way that the Lord Jesus becomes the sovereign head of that company. And therefore, in that local church, he wants to reveal the Lord Jesus in all his sovereign glory, so that year by year, the members in that local church conform to his image.

That means, if a brother came among you, shall we say in the year 1991, he would see Christ in you. Should he come back in two years' time, he should see more of Christ in that local church. You see the church, or the local church, growing in conformity to Christ.

Or perhaps I should use a much better word, the local church being transformed by Christ. And then lastly, he is called the Holy Spirit. Now the Trinity is a mystery, and I'm so glad the Trinity is a mystery.

Wouldn't it be a terrible thing if our craniums could contain the Almighty God? How limited he would be. And isn't it wonderful to be able to preach someone that goes miles beyond your deepest thought.

You see, God is infinite. The glory of God is transcendent. And yet, he is so imminent that he can come and reveal Christ to you. Now in the Trinity, there is one glorious Godhead, only one God, comprised of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

You see, you couldn't be saved apart from a Trinity. You say, why? It was the Father that sent the Son. It was the Son who came in manhood and died upon the cross for our sins. So that our sins might be forgiven.

But it's the Holy Spirit that comes into you in order to bring the regeneration. So you can see, when God works, he always works in union. The Trinity moved in creation, and the Trinity moves in salvation, and the Trinity will move when there is a new creation again.

And you will notice this, everything that God does is a triunity. You are a triunity. You are body, soul, and spirit. Time is a triunity. Past, present, and future. And everything that God makes, whether it's matter or the atom, is all in threes.

Not fours, not fives, all in threes. Why? Because it was the Trinity that stamped itself upon the whole of creation. I would like to go into that fact in detail, but of course, we haven't got time for that tonight.

What It Means to Be Filled With the Spirit

Now, how are we going to look at this subject? First of all, what is the fullness of the Spirit? And I'm afraid I must make you work a little tonight, so that you turn to some scriptures and Ephesians to see how Paul uses this word, filled and fullness.

Then we're going to have a look at how is the fullness of the Spirit procured? And then we're going to look at the subject, the evidence, or if you like, the evidences of a Spirit-filled life. Now, first of all, what is the fullness of the Spirit?

Would you go to the first chapter with me? And would you please look at Ephesians chapter 1, reading from verse 21. Now, the operative word there is head, and that refers to sovereignty. Then he moves on and he says this, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all.

So you can see in the first chapter, when he uses the word to fill, and he uses the word fullness that comes from the same root, it's associated with sovereignty. So when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, he comes under the sovereignty of the Lord.

Now that's vital. Secondly, he uses the word in the third chapter, and I want you to note how he uses it. The third chapter, we'll look at his prayer from verse 14. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your heart, not by feelings, but by faith, that ye be enrooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye might note the word, be filled with all the fullness of God, and therefore being filled with all the fullness of God, now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.

Therefore, we can see that the word fill, associated with the word fullness, is linked in that chapter, not with sovereignty, but with authority. And when a person is filled with the Holy Spirit, he has a new authority and a new power.

Now that's marvellous, isn't it? But when we come to the fourth chapter, you will see that he uses the word again in a different way. Look at verse 10. He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill, the same word, all things, and he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the faith, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

Now note verse 13. Till we all come to the unity of the faith, of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect, that means a matured man, unto the measure and the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So you can see in the fourth chapter, he uses the word fill, and it's not related to sovereignty, it's not related to authority, but it's related to maturity. And that's the main meaning of the word. When we speak of a person being filled, we mean someone that's come into full maturity.

I was once staying with a family, and they had two boys in Canada. And one boy was 18 stone, and you may not believe this, but it was perfectly factual, there wasn't an ounce of fat on him. He used to lift up these massive weights, and very stupidly, he was a Canadian, and I was an Englishman, and I thought he's not going to beat me.

But you know, when he wasn't looking, I tried to lift them up, and nearly got a hernia. I could write a book about that too. But you can see I was very, very foolish. But I used to look at his brother, who was much younger, and if I may say this, he looked a weed, thin and delicate.

And one day the mother must have caught me eyeing the boys up and down, and I was looking at this massive fellow, and then I was looking at this boy, and then somehow she started to read my thoughts. She says, Peter, I know what you're thinking.

I said, what's that? How did they come from the same stock? Well, I was. And then she got a bit cross with me, and she said, when he fills out, he'll be just like him. When he fills out, he'll be just like him.

Well, we received a photograph about two years ago of both these boys at a wedding, and would you believe it, he's filled out. And he's a massive boy. But you see, when he was a lad, he was a weed, withered, but he filled out.

Can I say this? There are thousands of withered Christians. They have never grown. And it hurts the Lord Jesus. Do you know why? They're not filled with the Holy Spirit. You see, and when people are filled with the Holy Spirit, they begin to grow, and they begin to come into spiritual maturity.

And then you begin to grow from one degree to another, and there's no such thing in Scripture as spiritual obesity. All growth is spiritual muscle in the New Testament. Now, I think you can see by that, roughly, what it means to be filled with the Spirit, but we must be more basic.

Every Christian Is Indwelt by the Holy Spirit

The first question I'm going to ask is this. Is every Christian indwelt with the Holy Spirit? And the answer is yes. If we went through the book of the Acts, we would find ourselves in very deep water.

Now, Acts chapter 2 is different from Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8 is different from Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9 is different from Acts chapter 10. And Acts chapter 10 is different from Acts chapter 19.

So you can see in the book of the Acts, the Holy Spirit is coming. And there are contrasts. But when you come to the Epistles, it's all fixed and settled. And this is what the Apostle says in the 8th of Romans.

Now, if we have not the Spirit of Christ, we're none of his. That means we're not saved. Again, when we come to the first chapter of the Ephesians, we find this. After, or as it should be rendered, since you believed, you were filled with the Spirit of promise.

Again, when you come to Galatians 3, the Apostle is arguing with the Galatians and he says this to them. How did you receive the Holy Spirit? By the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith. And therefore, a person receives the Holy Spirit when they hear the Gospel and believe.

And the moment you receive Christ as your Saviour, you're born again of the Holy Spirit and you are indwelt by the Holy Ghost. Now that is absolutely vital and essential. But the second question is a little more delicate.

Is every Christian aware of the Holy Spirit? And the answer to that question is no. Let me prove it to you from the Scripture. When Paul went to Ephesus, he found a group of disciples that were following John the Baptist and they had been influenced by a great preacher whose name was Apollos.

And Paul could not identify whether they were Christian or not. Now what was his acid test? Did he say to them, have you been baptized by immersion? No. Did he say, have you got a letter of commendation?

No. Did he say, are you a member of the local church? No. What did he say? Now note, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? That's the question. Have you been born of the Holy Spirit? But when he writes to the Corinthians, who had really received the Holy Spirit at conversion, and some of them were living carnally, he did not say to them, have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?

Now note what he says. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? And it dawned upon you that your body is the inner shrine of God's dwelling. How can you live a carnal life? In other words, he was saying, haven't you by divine revelation understood that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in you?

Now my dear friends, every single Christian who is born again of the Holy Spirit has the Holy Spirit. But not every Christian is aware of it. That's why in Romans chapter 8 verse 2 the Apostle Paul says, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made, not us, me free from the law of sin and death.

And even with the Apostle there came a moment when his eyes were opened to see that the Spirit of God was dwelling in him. Now this does not mean to say at that moment the Spirit of God came upon him.

But his eyes were opened by divine revelation to see that the Spirit of God was dwelling in him. Let me illustrate to get to the point. We were having a series of meetings in sleep and I shall never forget this.

And every morning we had these seven o 'clock prayer meetings and I would come out about ten to eight and I would climb a little hill that was over a bridge and I could hear a man coming along on a bike and he was puffing and panting and whistling and wheezing.

I thought he had asthma. And I looked at the man and he was trying to cycle over this bridge manually and he had a moped bike. Underneath him was an engine. Underneath him was power. But he was afraid of it.

And he was using the bike manually and you could see he was almost on the verge of having a heart attack. And I felt like saying to him, why don't you turn on the power? The next morning I came out of the prayer meeting and I was just climbing the hill and I could hear his heavy breathing.

And I looked and the man was as red as a beetroot, sweating, and there he was trying to get over the hill with his moped bike. And I was amazed. But the last morning I was there and quite frankly I hate to hear a motorbike engine.

That irritates me more than anything and I was glad when our boys got rid of them. And I heard this pop-pop engine of a moped bike and you know it was like a symphony orchestra. And I could hardly wait.

Could it be him? And I looked and would you believe it, there he was. No redness in his face. No puffing and panting. And he was whistling in contentment and he was going over the hill without any effort.

Why, he had learned to discover the power that was under him. Have you learned to use the power that's in you? Or may it be tonight that God will say to us, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?

And quietly thank God for his indwelling. And if God opens our eyes to see that, that will be a blessing for us all. But then what is fullness? Is awareness fullness? No. What basically then is fullness?

Consecration and the Sovereignty of Christ

Now there is a case of fullness seen in the book of the Acts that I believe is classical. Would you turn to Acts 4 and just read it with me just for a few moments.

Acts 4 verse 23.

We won't read the whole narrative because of our limited time. And being let go they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. Now verse 24. And when they heard that they lifted up their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, or as it should be rendered, Sovereign Lord, Lord thou art God, which hath made heaven and earth and the sea and all that in the midst.

Now come with me down to verse 31. And when they had prayed the place was shaken where they were assembled together and noticed this, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they spake the word of God with boldness.

Now if you look at that first recorded prayer you will notice that they never even prayed to be filled with the Spirit. They prayed that they might heal in the name of that child Jesus and that signs and wonders might be done through his name and they prayed that they might receive boldness to speak the word.

Why then were they filled with the Spirit? The secret is in the way in which they addressed the Lord. They called him Sovereign Lord God. Now that word Lord is a jagged word. If you were a slave you would be bought from at least 30 pieces to 8 pieces of silver and you would be taken into a Roman house and you would address your master with that word, Sovereign Lord, Absolute Master.

Now what did that mean? It simply meant that every part of your body belonged to your master. Beloved, when we can honestly say that the Lord Jesus is our Sovereign Lord that means when we have laid ourselves upon the altar and fully given ourselves to the Lord then we shall be filled with the Spirit.

And the more we give ourselves to the Lord Jesus the more he will fill us. We cannot have more of the Spirit because he is a divine person but he can have so much more of us. Wouldn't it be lovely if before we started the mission we had a real consecration service and many of us got together and for the first time made the Lord Jesus Sovereign Lord of our lives.

Then we should see God really working. But I know what you are saying. Alright Brother Peter, we see now something of what it means to be full of the Spirit but how do we get there? How do we get there?

At the moment someone might say I feel dry and spiritually dead. I feel that my life as a Christian is full of spiritual malaise. How do I move from a place of spiritual deadness to that place where I can say Sovereign Lord?

Hunger and Exposure to the Holy Spirit

Now if you're asking questions like that God's going to meet with you. First of all there must be a hunger. The psalmist says as the heart pants after the water brook so pants my soul after thee. My soul thirsts for God, yea the living God.

Again the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 5 the Sermon on the Mount Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled. Again the Lord Jesus said to the Jewish people at the Feast of Tabernacles If any man thirst let him come unto me and drink and out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.

This he spake of the Holy Spirit. Now can you see the first step is thirst. Now I know this is a very difficult matter to share with a group of people and please beloved brothers and sisters don't think that I'm using surgery on you.

I want to speak night after night in love. But in some places where we go we cannot give ministry on the Holy Spirit. Do you know why? There's no hunger. No thirst. They're quite satisfied with a mediocre Christian life.

We have mortgaged our time. If the Lord Jesus Christ doesn't come we only have another 10 years in our life for this aggressive form of traveling and preaching. And what we are saying to the Lord and what the Lord is saying to us now is this.

Go to those places where the people of God are hungry. Don't worry about those places where the hunger's gone. And in some places we go and there's a real hunger for God. In other places the hunger's all gone and all they long for are the things of the world.

May I say this in date love. I trust that everyone in this room has a hunger for a deeper experience with God. Can I ask a question? Are you satisfied with your Christian life? Do you think you've got all that God wants to give you?

Or do you read the scriptures and look at your own life and say Lord what's missing? And when there is that deep hunger God can meet us. The next step is exposure. There are three operative words. Resist not the Holy Spirit.

Stephen uses that phrase when he speaks to the nation of Israel, Acts 7. And I do not believe for one moment there's any person here that would resist the Holy Spirit. Then when Paul writes to the Thessalonians he says quench not the spirit, despise not prophesying.

That means don't hinder the power of the spirit in your local churches. Don't put fire or water upon the fire of God's spirit. But when we come to Ephesians he uses there an expression, grieve not the Holy Spirit.

Now I think we ought to look at that because this is very important. And he will show to us the way in which we can grieve the Holy Spirit. Let's turn to it the fourth chapter and this is so important that I'm not going to quote it.

I'm going to read it so that we can see what he is basically saying. Ephesians 4 verse 28. Let him that stole steal no more. But rather let him labour working with his hands the things which is good. Or the thing which is good.

That he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt unclean communication proceed out of your mouth. But that which is good to the use of edifying. That it may minister grace unto the hearer.

And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God. Whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and evil speaking. Be put away from you with all malice. And be ye kind one to another tender hearted.

Forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you. Now can you see that the word grieve not the Holy Spirit. Is associated with bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour, evil speaking. Now the word grieve is a very emotional word.

And basically it means for a person to be in a state of mourning. Now you will notice this that we read in the Old and in the New Testament. The wrath of God. The wrath of the Lamb. But you will never find in scripture in relation to the Lord's people.

The wrath of the Holy Spirit. But this word grieve means to deeply deeply. How can I put this over to you. With both my boys we had to use psychology on them. And it was the psychology of the slipper.

And when they were naughty they had the slipper. Spare the rod and you'll spoil the child. Well one of our lads had been rather naughty. There was too much of his dad in him. And when I got home I said to him Andrew I hate to do this.

But you have been a naughty lad and I've got to give you three of the slipper. And I said you know it hurts me far more than it hurts you. Well he said dad if it hurts you like that I wouldn't do it. What do you think of that?

Well I gave him three of the best. But it did nothing. I don't think he said amen. And you know I looked at him and I thought well. I wonder if it's any good giving him the slipper. You see his understanding was corned.

And it didn't worry him. But he went into the lounge and he looked at his mother. Then he got closer and he almost put his nose on her nose. And said mother you're crying. What's that for? She said because of you Andrew.

And that broke him completely. He wept and wept. The slipper hardened him. The tear broke him. Beloved the Holy Spirit will not use the slipper on him. On you. But you can make him weep. And there comes a time in your private life.