Stay Filled by Faith
Pastor Cole Parleir
Focus: The same faith that enables us to ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit enables us to be filled again and again.
Don’t Be Foolish
Be Free-er
Expect More
Don’t Be Foolish
“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.”
Galatians 3:1-7 NIV
We can be filled again and again by avoiding spiritual foolishness.
The fool says in his heart there is no God.
The “Christian fool” is so nearsighted they forget that Christ was crucified for our sins.
There is no other Gospel than the gospel of grace by faith, for we were spiritually dead in our trespasses and sins.
To be a fool is to reject or forget that we are saved by grace through faith.
This free gift of grace is so that no man may boast and that the flesh may be crucified.
“Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”
Luke 9:23 NIV
Part of this denial of self is “self effort” to deserve or purchase that which is priceless.
““For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!””
Galatians 2:19-21 NIV
The forgiveness of sin leading to salvation is a miracle.
Miracles are not deserved and cannot purchased.
It is the nature of the flesh to take credit for that which God alone miraculously has done.
This is the pride of life.
It doesn’t stop there.
If we forget salvation is a miracle we will fall into the trap of endless toil trying to produce miracles by the flesh rather than by faith in our miracle working God.
One may say “I am saved now and don’t need any miracles from God.”
This is a slippery slope.
This sounds like contentment but is actually fear, selfishness and an abdication of the command to love others as Christ has loved us.
We then being deceived ourselves, become deceivers preaching a gospel of self-help rather than Christ’s unmatched and unmerited help.
The Christian life can only begin, be lived, and finished by the filling and subsequent power of the Holy Spirit by faith in Christ alone.
Theological Questions
Does the Christian always have the Holy Spirit with them? Yes.
Is the Holy Spirit always working in the Christian’s life? Yes.
Can the Christian quench the work of the Holy Spirit? Yes.
Are miracles normal in the Christian life?
The Bible makes it seem so with exhortations to love people with spiritual fruit and by using spiritual gifts to reveal Christ in power to them while preaching the true gospel.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 ESV
What do you have to serve God with that he did not provide? (A negative form of the question)
We need to daily embrace the wisdom and power of God by faith to walk in the miracles he wants us too that others may be healed and saved.
He wants to fill us with his Holy Spirit all day everyday, so let’s ask.
Be Free-er
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”
Galatians 5:1 ESV
By faith in Christ God HAS set you free from sin.
You ARE forgiven, cleansed, and free by repentance and faith in the blood of Christ.
God wants you to remain free and experience that freedom here and now in increasing measure.
This is what it means to stay in step with the Spirit.
This increasing experience of freedom requires an increase of obedience by faith in his grace to work powerfully in you.
Faith makes room for this grace by emptying ourselves of selfish ambition and becoming servants whom look to the interests of others and not just ourselves.
“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”
Philippians 2:3-8 ESV
This attitude is the opposite of quenching the Spirit of God.
Again, this is how we stay in step with the Spirit.
It feels like we are being filled over and over again because we vacillate in our level of obedience.
Biblically, the promise is that the Holy Spirit becomes a river inside of us. We just keep damming up the river with unbelief. (Maybe the logs in our eyes are being used to build the dam?)
“Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’””
John 7:38 ESV
That river can flow freely out of us bringing salvation, healing, and any miracle God wants to a despondent world as we grow in discipleship (obedience) by faith.
As we get Free-er those around us see Christ more clearly and experience him more powerfully.
Expect More
In our walk of faith by the Spirit of God we will experience highs and lows, mountain tops and valleys, prosperity and persecution.
The promise of God’s presence and help remains.
“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.””
John 16:33 ESV
The ups and downs are God’s boot camp for faith.
He breaks us down to build us up like a work out.
When our faith is stretched it is permanently increased and our minds are permanently expanded regarding God’s greatness, ability, and goodness.
God fills us to the level at which we are satisfied.
This increased faith leads to greater applications as God allows new opportunities to serve and share the gospel.
When we repeatedly apply faith to our challenges a spiritual momentum builds.
We find ourselves seeking God more and more because we now need Him more and more as engage in his mission.
Come to Jesus today to be saved from your sin and filled with His Spirit to live a new life of eternal purpose.
Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. - Matthew 10:39
Second City Church - Pastor Rollan Fisher