Sermon in a Sentence: Once a person has been filled with the Spirit, he or she must maintain the Spirit-filled walk, witness for Christ, and grow in grace.

Sermon Purpose: That believers be filled with the Spirit and learn how to live the Spirit-filled life.

Texts: Galatians 3:2-3; 5:25

Are you crazy?

Galatians 3:2–3 The Message

2 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? 3 Are you going to continue this craziness? For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it?

The Apostle Paul is asking the Galatians, and, at the same time, he is asking us 2000 years later. He is asking :

Are you crazy?

Because only crazy people would think they can complete by their own efforts what was begun by God.

Only crazy people think they can live FOR God in a world hostile TO God without the power of the Holy Spirit.

Only crazy people think we need the power of the Holy Spirit LESS in the 21st century than the 1st century Christians did in their time.

Only crazy people think we need less of the Holy Spirit when the spirit of antichrist is running amuck in our world.

Only crazy people think we need less of the Spirit the closer we are to coming of Jesus.

So the question stands:

Are we crazy people?

May God help us to answer the question honestly.

The Apostle Paul asks:

How did your new life in Christ begin — by your own efforts or through what the Holy Spirit does in us?

Understand, he is asking a rhetorical question.

The obvious emphatic answer is that our life in Jesus is birthed ONLY by the Holy Spirit.

By surrendering to what He is doing in us.

Our own efforts at godly righteousness that leads us to relationship with God are doomed to failure — and they will NEVER EVER be enough.

We are absolutely dependent on the Holy Spirit for relationship with God.

1 Corinthians 12:3 (NLT)

… no one can [even] say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit.

If our life in Christ BEGINS with the Holy Spirit, how could we ever think it could possibly CONTINUE by any other means?

We would be crazy to think that life in Jesus continues any other way but through the Spirit.

And not just a tiny sip of the Holy Spirit, a speck, a tad — we need the abundant supply that Jesus talked about in John 4:14 — a gushing fountain of the Holy Spirit flooding us with eternal life.

I, and tens of millions like me, believe that the Bible teaches that it is vital that every believer be baptized in the Holy Spirit.

So, if you are not Baptized in the Spirit, search the scriptures.

Pray to God in Jesus Name.

Pray that God will reveal to you the truth — be open to the truth.

Then, in faith, lift up your hands to God in prayer — in a posture of receiving — and receive what Jesus said in Acts 1:4 was the “Promise of the Father” — receive the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.

You will know you have received when, like the 120 on the day of Pentecost, like the Samaritan believers, like Cornelius and his household, like the Ephesian believers in Acts 19 you speak in tongues — a language you have not learned.

Receive — BUT DON’T STOP THERE!

Because even when a believer IS Baptized in the Holy Spirit, all too often, they don’t know how to LIVE the Spirit-filled, Spirit-controlled life.

Often it is the choice of the believer.

Every Spirit-filled believer has to make a decision to learn everything they can about living in the Spirit.

Learn and the APPLY it.

Still other times it is because Spirit-filled believers have not been discipled in the things of the Holy Spirit.

That’s what I want to do this morning — disciple Spirit-filled believers in LIVING the Spirit-filled life.

Counsel us NOT to be crazy people who begin in the Holy Spirit and then try to continue in our own ability and efforts.

Our text talks about the importance of CONTINUING to live our Christian lives under the control of the Holy Spirit.

Let’s go further — deeper

Let’s look at four things we must do to live a Spirit-filled, victorious life:

Consider 4 responses to the statement:

Now that we have been filled with the Spirit…

I. First, WE SHOULD REMAIN FULL OF THE SPIRIT.

A. Even after we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, we must seek fresh infillings of the Spirit.

1. Being filled with the Spirit is not a one-time-only experience.

Many passages in Acts describes fresh fillings with the Holy Spirit. But ...

Ephesians 5:18 TPT

18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which is rebellion; instead be filled with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

The tense of the Greek verb here in Ephesians is the present imperative that tells us to to do the action as an ongoing lifestyle.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit and keep on being filled — EVERY DAY.

We must be refilled with the Spirit every day!

How do we do that? How do we receive fresh infillings?

B. It happens as we do what 1 Thes 5:17 says: Pray without ceasing.

1. Prayer is a key element in maintaining the Spirit-filled life.

2. Our prayer times should include prayer in the Spirit

In Ephesians 6:18 we are encouraged to “pray at all times in the Spirit” How? “in the Spirit.”

1 Corinthians 14 leaves no doubt what the Apostle Paul meant about praying in the Spirit — he means praying in a language we have not learned — praying in tongues.

C. To remain full of the Spirit we must live a holy life.

1. Unholy living will grieve the Spirit of God (Eph 4:30 ).

2. Instead let us allow the Spirit to sanctify our lives as spoken of in (Ro 15:16) — let’s allow the HOLY Spirit to make us holy

D. Live a submitted life (Jas 4:7 ).

James 4:7 calls us to submit to God.

1.Let’s DAILY submit ourselves to God’s will.

2.Let’s DAILY commit ourselves to God’s mission.

Now that we have been filled with the Spirit...

II. WE SHOULD BECOME A POWERFUL WITNESS FOR CHRIST.

A. Power for witness is the main reason we are filled with the Spirit (Ac 1:8).

B. We are to faithfully tell others about Christ and what He can do in their lives (Lk 24:46-48; Ac 5:32).

Online at I posted prayer guides for today. Taken from Dick Brogden’s devotional, Missionary God, Missionary Bible they are EXTREMELY challenging.

Go to NewLifeBlairsville.org

Click on “Connect” tab and select “Community”

The devotional dated today, August 8, 2021 states:

Fifty-thousand people walk out of church every week in America. That averages to 200,000 every month and 2.4 million leaving the faith of Father Abraham each year. We cry with Jeremiah: “O my soul, my soul! I am pained in my very heart” (v. 4:19).

Church, we have a lot of witnessing to do — a lot of people to win.

I am so sorry for all the sickness that is in our church right now. And I am praying that God will heal your sick bodies. But NOT so that we can go back to living a comfortable, self-indulgent, self-absorbed life.

I pray that God will heal us AND give us a burden for souls.

Souls lost and headed for a devil’s hell.

Oh that we, like Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, would “writhe in pain and agony” for lost souls.

Not just in Blairsville and Blue Ridge

Not just in Morganton, Mineral Bluff, or Murphy

Not just in Young Harris or Hiawassee.

But that we would weep for the nations who do not know the love of Jesus

We must, under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, tell the NATIONS about salvation through Jesus.

I repeat:

Now that we have been filled with the Spirit...

WE SHOULD BECOME, AND CONTINUE TO BE POWERFUL WITNESSES FOR CHRIST.

Now that we have been filled with the Spirit…

III. WE (each of us!) SHOULD BE USED BY GOD IN THE MINISTRY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS.

A. Since the gifts reside in the Spirit, when we are filled with the Spirit we are ready to be used in the ministry of spiritual gifts.

B. A list of spiritual gifts is found in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.

C. The Spirit wants to use you:

1. To speak to others (revelation prophetic gifts).

2. To work through you (power gifts).

D. 1 Corinthians 14:1 tells us we should each earnestly desire the gifts of the Spirit .

Finally, now that we have been filled with the Spirit…

IV. WE SHOULD ALLOW THE HOLY SPIRIT TO PRODUCE SPIRITUAL FRUIT IN OUR LIVES.

It is my sincere belief that Spiritual Gifts without the Fruit of the Spirit is an abomination to God.

Repeat

A. The fruit of the Spirit are produced in our lives as we…

1. … walk in the Spirit (Gal 5:22-25 note v. 25).

2. … abide in Christ (Jn 15:4-6).

B. The nine fruit of the Spirit describe the how Jesus lived on the earth. In ...

Love, Joy, Peace

Patience, Kindness, Goodness

Faithfulness, Gentleness and self under the continual control of the Holy Spirit

Christ wants us to live as He lived (1Jn 2:6).

1. We can only do that the way He did.

2. Through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Conclusion and Altar Call

We need to be filled, continuously filled with the Holy Spirit.

Let’s pray for that filling.

2. As you do…

a. Commit yourself to being Christ’s Spirit-filled witness.

b. Ask the Spirit to begin to release spiritual gifts in your life.

c. Commit yourself to allowing the Spirit work in your life to produce spiritual fruit.