Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 47 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Rom 5:12- 6:13.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 47 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; ROM 5:12- 6:13.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

[Newell asks] "If you had been in heaven fifty years, and were then sent down by God to earth to live and witness for fifty years, then to be taken back to Heaven: - how would you live? Would you fall under daily doubt as to whether you should count yourself as belonging to Heaven? Would you not, rather, be a constant witness, both in walk and word, that you really belonged to Heaven?" [William Newell, Romans Verse by Verse]

 

ROM 6:11 Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 

ROM 6:12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts,

 

ROM 6:13 and do not go on presenting [present tense: stop presenting] the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present [aorist tense: make the decision now] yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

ROM 6:14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

 

How do we apply to life the principle, "under grace and not under law [legal principle]?

 

Church age believers are under the law of Christ. The grace gifts that came with Christ to every believer is what moves, constrains, propels, motivates, and guides him in the life that is Christ. In Christ he has freedom to determine God's will for his particular life, and not from his own opinion, but from the Spirit, the word, and the grace gifts that are his forever.

 

GAL 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

 

Serving one another in love would certainly result from the believer counting himself dead to the sin nature and alive to God in Christ Jesus and so is presenting himself to God as one alive from the dead and his members as instruments of righteousness to God.

 

A law is a legal system based on rules, procedures, regulations, rituals, restrictions, for which conformity brings blessing and violation brings curse. In the church age we are under grace.

 

Walking by means of the Spirit takes the place of observing things written in the law.

 

ROM 7:6 But now we have been released from the Law, having died to that by which we were bound, so that we serve in newness of the Spirit and not in oldness of the letter.

 

The Law was external to Israel but now Christ is in us and we in Him. He is the Head and we are the body. Our relationship to the Head is not an external one. For the Christian to put himself under the Law would be like you hand having an external set of rules by which to function which didn't come from your head. Imagine your hand trying to follow rules that didn't come from your head in an effort to please you. That is the Christian under the Law. We are en-lawed to Christ. Your hand is one with your head and it heeds to the intelligent direction of your head.

 

[William Newell] "I know that faith is a living thing … Walking by faith in "prepared" works; discovering in this walk of faith, the beautiful will of God day by day; treading this fresh and living path, is the believer's great secret! The children of Abraham all follow their father in walking by faith."

 

The believer lives at the cross and the empty tomb, and in the power and full right of everything Christ did there. What Christ did has now happened to the believer. We find our history with Adam to be over. Our sins are forever put away by His blood that we may walk in newness of life.

 

GAL 2:19-20

"For through the Law I died to the Law, that I might live to God. "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God

 

Think of that phrase, "the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God." This a walk of faith since it is the life that he lived. And think of the life that Paul lived.

 

First we'll start with the very early church and Barnabas.

 

ACT 11:19 So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that arose in connection with Stephen [with Saul of Tarsus at the helm] made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone.

 

ACT 11:20 But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus.

 

Why would we think that some of them were "led" to speak the gospel to the Gentile Greeks?

 

ROM 8:14

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

 

ACT 11:21 And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.

 

The hand of the Lord was with them because they were following His leading and His will. If a believer sets upon the walk with the Spirit, on the path that the Spirit has led him on, then the Spirit will lead, teach, and empower him to accomplish that will. What has the believer added to any of this? Faith!

 

Antioch becomes the home base church for the Gentile believers, as well as the Jewish believers in the area, it is the first place that they are called Christians, and it became the staging point for the evangelization of the western Roman Empire; through Europe to  Spain, and Britain, and Ireland.

 

ACT 11:22 And the news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch.

 

ACT 11:23 Then when he had come and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord;

 

Most scholars translate the sentence as Barnabas encouraging them to have a purpose of heart of a resolute heart.

 

"with resolute heart to remain true [prosmeno = cleave to; live in close fellowship] to the Lord" - have a purpose of heart to abide under the umbrella of the law of Christ and grace.

 

Please notice that when a church leader from Jerusalem came to the church at Antioch that the people and the leaders did not accept him with suspicion or with malice or as some kind of spy, but with love and without competition.

 

He encouraged them to have a purpose of heart that was set upon abiding [meno] face to face [pros] to the Lord. Notice that they are to set their heart upon this. This is their choice [present active infinitive], and from what we know of the Antioch church, they chose to do so.

 

ACT 11:24 for he was a good man, and full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord.

 

ACT 13:2 And while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them."

 

ACT 13:3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

 

ACT 13:4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

 

ACT 13:9 But Saul, who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon him [Elymus the magician],

 

Acts 13:10 and said, "You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked the straight ways of the Lord?

 

ACT 13:52 And the disciples were continually filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.

 

ACT 16:6 And they passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia;

 

ACT 16:7 and when they had come to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them

 

Thankfully, we are not given the details of how it was that the Spirit stopped them. If we knew this then believers would be looking for the same experience. But the filling of the Spirit is not based on experience. We will all experience the results of what the Spirit does. We'd have to be asleep not to. But how the Spirit might stop or lead one believer and another will likely be quite different. No experience is given in the word of God as an authoritative command for every believer to experience. Much damage to sound doctrine has been done by believers trying to formulate truth according to their experience. Truth is in the word alone. I know that I have been restricted by the Holy Spirit, but I'm sure it was not the same as happened with Paul.

 

ACT 20:23 the Holy Spirit solemnly testifies to me in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions await me.

 

ACT 20:28 "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.

 

 

That is a great difference from Sinai. At Sinai, they were afraid of His voice. In the New Jerusalem, we are justified by the cross of Christ.