“Strengthened in the Faith: Part III”

Selected Scriptures

            In our study of the great book of 1 Thessalonians, we have paused to take an extended look at a theme which is so dear to the apostle Paul’s heart in this letter—spiritual maturity.  Not only for the Thessalonians, but for everyone who came to faith through his gospel ministry, Paul had an earnest desire to see that they were strengthened in the faith.  “I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you,” he told the Galatians (4.19).  His aim, he told the Colossians, was to “present every man complete in Christ” (1.28).  And that is what we are talking about.  We’re talking about the doctrine of progressive sanctification, that process by which we as believers are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ.  That is the point of our existence in this present world: to become more like God for the glory of God.   

How Can We Be Strengthened in the Faith? 

            And as we sought to answer the question, “How can we be strengthened in the faith?” we saw last week that the most critical and foundational truth about this doctrine of sanctification is that God Himself is the One who sanctifies us.  That jewel of a statement we looked at in Leviticus 20:8 says, “You shall keep My statutes and practice them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you.”  We are called and commanded to obey God, but the fundamental truth which under girds that call is that the LORD is the One who sanctifies us. God is the One who sets us apart, who makes us holy, and who brings about true spiritual growth in our lives.  If we miss this, we miss the whole thing.  Every human effort to become like Christ will end in utter failure apart from the work of God on the inside.   

I. By the Spirit of God 

            So it is first of all by the Spirit of God that we are to be strengthened in the faith.  A significant part of being strengthened in the faith has to do with the extent to which we are successful in killing sin in our lives.  If we could summarize the commands of Scripture, we say it something like this: “Stop living sinfully and start living righteously; forsake the ways of the world and follow the ways of God.”  1 Peter 1.14-15 says it like this: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior.”

            So we can try to do that in our own strength—get up in the morning and say, “That’s it, I’m not going to sin today”—or we can “by the Spirit,” as it says in Romans 8.13, put to death the deeds of the body.  It’s about being led by the Spirit (8.14); it’s about walking by the Spirit (Gal 5.16), because if we are walking by the Spirit, we will not be carrying out the desires of the flesh.  In fact, the fruit of the Spirit will show up in our lives—“love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”  And if that fruit, produced not by us but by the Spirit of God who dwells in us, is evident in our lives, then we will be walking in obedience to God.  We will be strengthened in the faith; we will be spiritually mature; we will be like Christ.

            That’s the goal; that’s what we’re shooting for, and it all starts there.  It’s by the Spirit of God doing a vital work of transformation on the inside.  That’s what sets Christianity apart from every other religion in the world.  Many religions have noble morals, but they are absolutely devoid of the power to achieve them.  That’s why every Christian sermon in all the commands that it gives and in every call to holy living assumes the reality of a transformed inner man filled with all the resources of the Spirit of God which are necessary to become more like Christ. 

            So we closed last week with one vital question hanging in the balance.  If the foundational means by which we are to become more like Christ, to be strengthened in the faith, is the Holy Spirit; if walking in, being led by and filled by the Spirit of God is the means by which we will truly become spiritually mature, what does that mean?  What does it mean to be led by the Spirit; what does it mean to walk by the Spirit; what does it mean to be filled by the Spirit?   

FILLED BY THE SPIRIT 

            Well, I want you to turn with me to Ephesians 5.18 to find an answer to that question.  We will pick it up in verse 15: “Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil.  So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.  And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.”  This last verse gets at the heart of what we’re trying to figure out.  Paul’s readers are told, indeed commanded, “Do not be intoxicated with wine,” or you could say, “by means of wine.”  It is when you drink too much wine that you become intoxicated by it; you get drunk.  And what does that lead to?  “Dissipation,” Paul says.  It is a word (avswti,a asotia) which means “reckless abandon, debauchery dissipation, profligacy”[1] (cf. Titus 1.6; 1 Pet 4.4).  It is wasteful expenditure (dissipation), wild living, or reckless extravagance (profligacy), a giving of oneself over to the control of a substance that ironically causes one to lose control and so act without sensible inhibitions.   

            A.  What it Does Not Mean                        

1.  It is not the indwelling of the Spirit

             That is the negative command—“Don’t do that,” Paul says.  But in contrast, he says, and the contrast is stark, “Be filled with the Spirit.”  Now we need to understand, first of all, what that does not mean.  There is a lot of confusion in the church today about the Holy Spirit.  This is not suggesting that the Holy Spirit is some impersonal magic potion that is poured out in varying degrees in the lives of different believers.  The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Trinity.  He is fully personal; He has all the characteristics of intellect, emotion and will.  You either have Him or you don’t.  Scripture is very clear on this matter.  Paul says in Romans 8.9, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.”  Every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God.  If you don’t have the Spirit, you’re not a believer.  It’s that simple.  That is what Paul is saying.  Paul told the Corinthians, “The Spirit of God dwells in you” (1 Cor 3.16; cf. 6.19).  That is the doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit—all believers have the Spirit of God dwelling within and He is in fact the One by whom we are “sealed unto the day of redemption” (Eph 4.30).  The Spirit of God will always fully dwell within us and He will never leave us.     

2.  It is not the baptism of the Spirit 

That is not what Paul is talking about here.  Nor is he talking about the baptism of the Spirit.  The baptism of the Spirit is that one time action concurrent with salvation by which we are all united as one body, the church.  “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Cor 12.13).  There are some people who want to tell you that the baptism of the Spirit is something that happens to believers subsequent to salvation, and if you really want to be spiritual, you’ve got to have the baptism.  And that experience will be accompanied by speaking in tongues, they say.  This way of thinking is so detrimental to true spiritual growth, because it’s telling people, “You’ve got to have the baptism; you’ve got to wait for it; you’ve got to seek it; you’ve got to pray for it.”  It suggests that you are never going to be truly spiritual until you have this experience.  And when you have this “second blessing,” when you have this “Spirit baptism,” you will speak in tongues and you will enter into a whole new level of Christian experience.

            And people who hear this, they want to be spiritual and they want to experience a new level of Christianity, so they try and try, they pray and pray and cry out to God asking for this second blessing, and ……what do you get?  You get this whole group of people in the church who are unspiritual; they can’t grow because they can’t get this “second blessing,” this “Spirit baptism.”  And some of them get themselves so worked up into a trance like state in which they actually train themselves to fabricate a sort of ecstatic speech and so deceive themselves into believing that they have actually spoken in tongues.  And they go seeking one euphoric experience after another all the while left as infants in Christ because they have replaced the one resource they need to grow—the Word of God—with so called “spiritual experiences.” 

            But the wonderful truth of Scripture is that the baptism of the Spirit is a one time action that occurs at the moment of salvation for every believer.  Again, Paul says, “For by one Spirit we were all [that’s every believer!!] baptized into one body.”  This is a past tense event; we have all experienced it.  It’s a spiritual reality (he’s not talking about water baptism) that secures for us our union with Christ; we are all united as part of His body, the church.   

            B.  What it Does Mean 

            As believers, we are all indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we have all been Spirit baptized into the body of Christ, and we have all the resources in our spiritual bank that we need in order to be strengthened in the faith.  And this takes us back to Ephesians 5.18 and Paul’s command, “Be filled with the Spirit.”  The verb (“be filled”) is passive and it is present tense.  It means, “Be being filled (continually) with the Spirit.”  It is not a one time event; it is to be an ongoing reality.  And the implication, because it is a command (the verb is an imperative), is that it can be resisted; it is possible that this “filling” may not be a reality in every believer’s life.  

                        1. It is being controlled by the Spirit 

            So what does it mean to be filled?  The verb (plhro,w pleroo) was used of a ship’s sail filled out by the wind (Martyrdom of Polycarp, 15:2, post II A.D.)  In such a case the “filling” resulted in the pushing along of that ship.  It was also used for certain emotions “filling” an individual—“Sorrow has filled your heart” (Jn 16.6).  Note that a person who is filled with sorrow is essentially controlled by that sorrow.  In acts 5.3 Peter asks Ananias, “Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?”  In this case it could be said that Satan himself entered in so as to fill (i.e., control) Ananias and cause him to lie.  Or it could rightly be said that Satan was the agent who filled Ananias’ heart with the desire to lie.  In either case an appropriate synonym would be: “Why has Satan controlled your heart;” or “Why has Satan compelled/led/driven your heart to lie?”

            This, it would seem, is the idea being conveyed in Ephesians 5.18.  If the Holy Spirit is seen as the content with which believers are to be filled (in contrast to wine), then the idea must be that they are to be so filled (permeated) with the Spirit (meaning the Spirit’s influence) that they are in fact controlled by Him.   If the Holy Spirit is seen as the agent (“be filled by the Spirit”) who fills them, then the synonym controlled is appropriate—“be controlled by the Spirit”—i.e., “be so permeated and saturated with the Spirit’s influence that your life might be characterized as being totally under His control.”

            And that idea forms the perfect contrast to being drunk with wine.  When a person is intoxicated by wine, he is controlled by that wine, right?  Likewise, when you are filled by the Spirit, you are controlled by the Spirit.  To walk by the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, and to be filled by the Spirit is to so submit your life to the control of the Spirit of God that it may be said He is living through you.  You are so permeated, saturated and filled by His influence that your life is characterized by the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, etc.  And remember, the verb is passive.  It doesn’t say, “fill yourself,” or “fill someone else,” it says “be filled.”  And yet while it is passive, it is also imperative; it is a command.  What it is saying is that you can’t fill yourself, but you can resist that filling.  To obey the command, then, is to open oneself fully to the Spirit’s control.  If you’re going to get drunk with wine, you’ve got to drink the wine.  If you’re going to be filled by the Spirit, you’ve got to submit yourself to His control. 

            Look back at Ephesians 4.30: “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.”  As believers, we will always have the Spirit.  He’s not a commodity; you either have Him or you don’t.  But He can be grieved.  When we choose to sin, the Spirit wants no part in that; He is grieved and so withdraws His influence in our lives.  He won’t participate in our sins; He won’t sign His name to them, if you will.  So the one who grieves the Spirit is not controlled by the Spirit, right?  He still has the Spirit, but he has closed himself off from the Spirit’s influence in his life. 

            The opposite is also true.  The one who chooses to do right, the one who chooses obedience will find that the powerful influence of the indwelling Spirit is immediately there to enable that obedience.  It’s like we are a glove and He is the hand.  The minute we lay ourselves open to His control, the minute we chose the right path rather than the wrong path, He rushes to fill us (the glove) and so animates us and empowers us to do what we could not do on our own.   

                        2. It is being dominated by the Word 

            This is where sanctification is uniquely both a work of God and a work of man.  He is the One who sanctifies us, but He does not do that in violation of our own will.  He works in and through and with our wills toward the end of making us more like Christ.  So let us not grieve the Spirit, but let us submit ourselves to His control.  How, more specifically, can we do that?  Well, look back at Ephesians 5.18.  The results of being filled by the Spirit are given to us in the following verses.

            If we’re controlled by the Spirit, we’re going to be “speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with [our] hearts to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father” (vv. 19-20).  Wives are going to submit to their husbands (v. 22), husbands are going to love their wives, children are going to obey their parents (6.1), and slaves are going to obey their masters (6.5). 

            Now look at Colossians 3.16.  Here the command is not, “Be filled with the Spirit,” it’s, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”  But notice that the results are the same: “teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God . . . giving thanks through Him to God the Father.”  Wives are going to be subject to their husbands (v. 18), husbands are going to love their wives (v. 19), children are going to obey their parents (v. 20), and slaves are going to obey their masters (v. 22). 

            So we have two different commands, which if obeyed bring the same results.  What does that mean?  Well, it means that being filled with the Spirit and being filled with the Word of God are almost one and the same.  Do you want to know what it is to be filled with the Spirit?  It is to let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.  It is to saturate your mind with the Book that contains the mind of Christ.  It is to be so filled with the Word of God that it becomes the dominating influence on your thinking so that your will and God’s will become one and the same.  And when God’s will dominates your thinking, when God’s Word controls your mind, then you will find that God’s Spirit is controlling your life.  And when God’s Spirit is controlling your life, you are strengthened in the faith. 

II.  By the Word of God 

This brings us right to our second point.  It is by the Word of God that we are strengthened in the faith.  And this is so basic.  This is so apparent.  You’ve heard this from me more than once already, and you’re going to hear it again.  This is the “Read Your Bible” sermon.  This is the “If You Don’t Read Your Bible You’re Going to Starve Your Spiritual Life” sermon.  If we want to grow, if we want to become more like Christ, to be established in the faith, there is no way around it.  It will never happen apart from the Word of God.  If you are not logging time in this Book, you are not feeding your soul with the food it needs to grow. 

Look at 1 Peter 2.1-2: “Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”  It can’t get any clearer than that.  It is by the word of God that we are to grow.  In 2 Corinthians 3.18 Paul says, “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.”  This is describing the process of sanctification.  We are being transformed into the image of our Lord.  From one level of glory to the next we are progressing toward Christ-likeness.  But how is that happening here?  Well, the grammar is very important.  Because of the relationship between the main verb (“being transformed”) and the participle (“beholding”) the idea being conveyed is that it is by beholding the glory of the Lord that we are being transformed.  It is when we come to see and so perceive and understand the glory of the Lord that we are made more like Him.  And where do we behold His glory more than in His word?

In Romans 12.2 Paul says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed.”  That sounds a lot like a command to be sanctified, right?  “Don’t be like this world, but be transformed.”  “Be totally changed from the inside out,” is the idea.  And how is that going to happen?  “By the renewing of your mind,” Paul says.  And if you want to renew your mind, where do you need to go?  You’ve got to go to Scripture; you’ve got to go to the word of God; you’ve got to saturate your mind with the truth that will renew it and so transform your life. 

This is such an important concept in Scripture.  In Ephesians 4.22 it says, “In reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit.”  Now that’s a call to kill sin in your life, right?  Look at verse 24: “and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.”  That’s sanctification, becoming more like God, putting off the old and putting on the new; it’s transformation.  But look at the verse sandwiched between these two: “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind” (v. 23).  That’s the key!  If you want to be changed, if you want to put off the old and put on the new, then you’ve got to be renewed in the spirit of your mind.  And how is that going to happen; how do you renew your mind?  Again, you renew your mind by filling it with the truth of God’s word.  That is what will truly strengthen us in the faith. 

Now let me get real practical for a minute.  Let me “get in your kitchen.”  What are you filling your mind with?  What are you reading?  What are you watching?  What are you listening to?  Whatever it is, let me tell you, it will have an affect on your life!  How much time do you spend watching TV?  An hour a day…two…three?  The average American spends 30 hours per week watching it.  How about you?  And what are you watching?  Violence, crass and perverted humor, profanity, slander, envy, strife, vengeance, seduction, jealousy, gossip, etc.—there’s a lot more of that than anything else.  And what are you reading?  Ladies?  Romance novels that simply fuel the passions of inordinate lusts and undermine your relationship with your husband? 

One of the things that grieves me about the Christian publishing world is that we’ve got every genre the world has.  They’ve got romance novels and so do we—Christian romance novels.  They’ve got Sci Fi thrillers and so do we!  They’ve got fiction books full of fantasizing about the future and we have the same.  And for some Christians, their doctrine of the future is based more on the wildly popular Left Behind series than it is on the Bible.  We spend all kinds of time watching television and going to the movies and reading Christian fiction.  Meanwhile our Bibles are on the shelf collecting dust.  We say we believe the Bible, but we don’t read it.  We say it’s the Word of God, it’s the bread of life, but we fill ourselves with junk.  And we wonder why the church is wallowing in the mire of spiritual infancy.  And churches in our country are trading the unadulterated word of God for gimmicks and mass-marketing techniques and drama productions and experience driven programs that attract crowds but do little to establish people in the faith.                           

            But it really is quite simple.  If we want to experience true growth it will only come when the Spirit of God is doing a real and vibrant work in our lives through the Word of God.  We have a wonderful picture of this reality in the First Psalm: “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers” (Psa 1.1).  That’s the first part of sanctification, right?  That’s putting off the old; it’s putting to death the deeds of the body; it’s turning away from sin.  The one who does that, the Psalm says, is blessed.  “His delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law he meditates day and night” (v. 2).  That’s the other half of sanctification.  That’s putting on the new; that’s saturating yourself with the Word of God so that you are thoroughly controlled by the Spirit of God.  And what is the result going to be?  What will this kind of delight and meditation in the Word of God do in your life?  That Psalm says that the one who so saturates himself with Scripture “will be like a tree firmly planted” (v. 3).  Now there’s a picture of spiritual maturity!  There’s a person who is strengthened and established in the faith.  He’s like a firmly planted tree, and not out in the desert, but “by streams of water,” because he’s constantly taking in the nourishing truth of the Word of God.  The Psalm goes on, “Which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither; and in whatever he does, he prospers” (v. 3b).  When you are reading, studying, memorizing, and meditating upon Scripture, your life will produce the good fruit of the Spirit of God who is controlling you because your mind is so united with His by virtue of it’s saturation with the Word of God. 

            This is how we are strengthened in the faith.  It’s by the Spirit of God, it’s by the Word of God, and you need to come next week and see that it is also by the prayer of God and by the people of God.