Interlude Part 2: The Fullness Of The Spirit (Galatians 4:6)
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Open your bibles to Galatians 4…
This week I must again call our attention to the wonderful gift we have been given of the Holy Spirit. I know I said we would be moving on, but again, the Lord has his timing and it is perfect. So, I want to again look at the 6th verse of galatians 4….
Last week I began with a correction of my sermon from the week prior and said that in my interpretive work I lumped my thoughts into a presupposed theological system and denied the chronology that is happening in Galatians 4:6… I had been pricked in my study about it. But with my questions, read a commentary in which it explained away the chronology and left it at that. However, I was brought throughout the week to be convicted about that Chronology, and what I would now call sin, for I sinned against my conscience that pricked me in the first place that there was something more there in Galatians 4:6….
And then I went and talked about the process which follows. I talked about the fullness of the Spirit. And it was my intention to underline this fullness, which drives the Christian to cry out, abba father.
However, after some feedback from a dear friend, I went back again and listened to me exposition of the text and saw that I was too careless with the terms that I used to describe such things. I used the terms baptism, and sealing, and really delved into waters which I had not primed the pump for. I moved through my understanding way too fast. And here is the issue, that I did not provide doctrinal clarity on the matter. And that is what we are doing in this fourth chapter of Galatians… We are seeking right doctrine in which to filter teaching through. So that when we hear gospel preaching and teaching we can have a filter of what is right and wrong.
If you listened closely my sermon could have sounded sort of pentecostal or charismatic Which I never intended. But again, it is something I moved to fast to and through. I wasn’t even considering that I might come across that way, because I was so excited to talk about this. I wasn’t careful to explain my terms or what I mean.
So, I want to again, clarify terms and help bring light to this wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit that has been secured for us through the death and ressurection and ascention of our Lord Jesus Christ.
So lets read the text again, Galatians 4:6
6 And because you are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!”
Now, we need to first understand this, that Paul does not linger on verse 6. He doesn’t explain it, or go into a theological diatribe. He simply states it. It is something they know. Look back at Galatians 3:2-5
2 This is the only thing I want to learn from you: did you receive the Spirit by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things for nothing—if indeed it was for nothing? 5 So then, does He who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the Law, or by hearing with faith?
Paul draws the Galatians attention to this fact of receiving the spirit, how it happened, and the undeniable fact of it all. He is appalled at them. How could they recieve the gospel but also bear proof that they were receievers of the gospel through the promised holy spirit, only to turn away from it. He is going to say it again in chapter 4:9…
9 But now, having known God, or rather having been known by God, how is it that you turn back again to the weak and worthless elemental things, to which you want to be enslaved all over again?
The Spirit of God was proof. He is their seal. Now, I use that term and I want to shore up here that every believer has the holy spirit. And that holy spirit is not taken from them. He is theirs. However, it is possible to be a believer and to not know the seal. The holy spirit if our sign, he is permanent. And the first fruit he bears is the fruit of repentance. But he goes on to produce much more. But what I meant last week is this, that a believer can have the holy spirit but not know the experience of crying out Abba Father. They can have the holy spirit, and He produce many good things in them, but they never have this fullness of assurance.
Should they be assured? Yes. But when this fullness comes, there is no doubt in their mind. They know it. It is clear and certain. But here is the second thing… this assurance, or this fullness is, is not the thing to be sought for the experience itself.
This is where last weeks sermon could come off sounding pentecostal. For it is is the end of their doctrine that causes them to seek the experience. Everything comes down to this, have you had that experience. And then they continue to chase that high as it were. They make their life and their religion about experiencing the holy spirit in this emotional kind of way. Paul doesn’t tell the Galatians to chase anything. It is something that happened to them in God’s timing. He is move, as he says later in the letter, perplexed at them that their experience has gone away so fast. Which is how the pentecostal church treats the holy spirit. They are always seeking some sign, some wonder, some supernatural movement. And for the sake of what? Well for feeling good, to get another hit of that rush through their body.
This is not what accompanies salvation when a sinner is saved by grace. My friends, the gospel does not produce christian junkies. We are not chasing the high. We are to be walking in, looking to, living for, learning from, glorifying, praise, and honoring God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what a believer does. How much more someone who has been given this fullness of the spirit. Someone who has had the spirit poured out on them in this fullness What accompanies the fullness of the spirit is holiness. What accompanies the fullness of the spirit is faith and love and obedience.
5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are eagerly waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love. 7 You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?
Now, I used a phrase a moment ago that needs to be explained. When the spirit is poured out. The Spirit being poured out is not a one time thing. It is an ever increasing thing. It is not that some people have more of him or less of him. We have him! But we are told to walk in the spirit.
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Now look at what Paul does after explainin gwhat this means, Galatians 5:24-26
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become those with vain glory, challenging one another, envying one another.
If we belong to Jesus Christ we crucified the flesh. Take up your cross daily. The two things can be held in tandem. We died, but we are to take up our cross daily. And here Paul says, If we live by the spirit, meaning we have been brought to life through the spirit, again past tense, let us also walk in step with the Spirit. There is the present tense day by day… And what happens as we walk in the spirit?
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
We are being transformed, by the spirit, as we walk with him, from Glory to Glory. Walking in the spirit produces holiness, faith, love, and obedience to God. It is not signs and wonders we are to be chasing. It is not an emotional high we are to be seeking. But I say again that we are to seek the fullness. And what I mean and meant by that is this growth in the Holy Spirit. If we can have more of him, why wouldn’t we want more of him! He was given to us by God Ezekiel 36:26-27
26 “Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. 27 “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to do My judgments.
He is not to be quenched or extinguished. 1 Thessalonians 5:19
19 Do not quench the Spirit;
The Holy Spirit is to be desired to walk in so that we glorify our father in heaven by knowing him and looking like him on earth. We do not receive more of him, but become more aware of Him. We know him better as we walk in Him. Like, the longer your are around someone, the more you get to know them. He, the Holy Spirit isn’t an it. He is a person. He is God. And He is the illumination of God in our heart. His full potential is there the moment you believe, but you are not fully walking in Him. You are but a babe in that moment, but are to grow into maturity
11 And He Himself gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the full knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming, 15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, that is Christ,
The Lord, the Spirit, The body is all pointed at one thing… as Paul puts it in Galatians 4:19
19 My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you—
Forming Christ in us… That is maturity.
I fear the pentecostal church idolize the holy spirit in such a way that they worship the idea of being baptized in the spirit. They get some sort of power, some sort of high when weird things happen. It keeps them and or their congregants coming back for more, and thus they must keep up the “flame” if you will by putting on a good show. Their version of maturity is mastering the gifts of the Spirit. They put a lot of time and effort and teaching into the gifts. To go and show them off… And they will say they do it for the name of Christ. Yet it is always their wallets, their bank accounts, their popularity that grows.
This is the last correction I want to make this morning. I do not believe the fullness of the spirit is a second baptism in the sense of making you a part of the church or useful for the church in witness or zeal. I could see by my words that what I said last week could be taken that way. I used that term baptism carelessly. No, Christians have one…
1 Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, exhort you to walk worthy of the calling with which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 being diligent to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
A proof of this fullness is not speaking in tongues. The proof of this fullness is greater faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a greater love for God and neighbor, a greater obedience and bearing the fruit.
So what is it that I urge you to seek out? It is a greater awareness of the Holy Spirit. This fullness is to be able to say, I know God, and have been walking in the Spirit, and following Christ, and leaning on the Father that I don’t just know something about them, I experience them. I have an undeniable, certain, love shed abroad in my heart for the Father.
This fullness is a love for the Gospel. How could it be anything else? This is why Paul is so perplexed. But even the elect can be led astray. My friends walk in the spirit, turn away from the flesh and remember the great love of God which you had at first when you heard that you are a sinner, condemned, deserving of eternal punishment from God in the place called hell. But the steadfast love of the Lord provided a substitute. He provided a sacrifice. He provided and offers you a different ending. He sent His son to die, to offer you the forgivenss of sin, and to have his perfect righteousness given to you, without which no man will love God or stand before God’s judgment. Jesus Christ became sin, so that you could be reconciled with God and be his son.
No one knew this better than George whitfield. He was an evangelist who God raised up during the first great awakening in the 18th century. He Knew so much about GOd, and was being used as a great witness for God. And even after some years of doing this, he writes this account in his journal…
God’s Ultimate Purpose: An Exposition of Ephesians 1 Chapter 23: The Nature of Sealing [2]
Soon after this I found and felt in myself that I was delivered from the burden that had so heavily oppressed me; the spirit of mourning was taken from me and I knew what it was truly to rejoice in God my Saviour, and for some time could not avoid singing psalms wherever I was. But my joy gradually became more settled and, blessed be God, has abode and increased in my soul, saving a few casual intermissions, ever since. Thus were the days of my mourning ended. After a long night of desertion and temptation, the Star, which I had seen at a distance before, began to appear again, and the Day Star arose in my heart. Now did the Spirit of God take possession of my soul and, as I humbly hope, seal me unto the day of redemption.’
Whitefield had been saved for some time, and had been mightly used in ministry… but there came a time in his walk with God when the Spirit was loosed in his life, when he had come to this fullness that caused his heart to sore and to truly rejoice in God his Savior. I wanted to say last week, and affirm this week, that there is a brilliance in this privilege to be able to cry out from our heart, abba father… And make the case that no every believers knows it. Not every believer has the fullness in this way. But my urge to you is to seek it.
