Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 42 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; Rom 5:12- 6:13.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 42 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; ROM 5:12- 6:13.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

ROM 6:1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?

 

ROM 6:2 May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?

 

ROM 6:3 Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?

 

ROM 6:4 Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

 

ROM 6:5 For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,

 

ROM 6:6 knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin;

 

ROM 6:7 for he who has died is freed from sin.

 

ROM 6:8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,

 

ROM 6:9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.

 

Christ kept His promise:

 

JOH 8:51

"Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps My word he shall never see death."

 

ROM 6:10 For the death that He died, He died to sin, once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

 

It is not mentioned here that Christ died for our sins. Paul dealt with that in chapters 3-5. What is here is that Christ died to or unto the nature of sin in every man.

 

God didn't improve your old nature. He sent it to the cross and crucified it. Christ did not become a sinner, guilty of sin, but He did judicially die unto sin, once and for all.

 

Our Lord's death not only paid the penalty of human sin, but it was used of God to break the power of indwelling sin in the believer's life.

 

 

This now becomes a matter of the will whereas reckoning was a matter of faith. So then, what faith believes the will acts upon.

 

ROM 6:11 Even so [now that all has been settled] consider [count or reckon] yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 

This reckoning does not make the fact of death. It has been already related several times that our old selves are dead. The reckoning is commanded in view of the fact.

 

Although there are times that the old man seems anything but crucified, God still commands you to consider it crucified and to consider yourself alive to God in Christ Jesus. Faith is the path of obedience and this is one of the many commands.

 

We are not to reckon the sinful nature dead, but ourselves dead to it.

 

Doubting souls fall back on their feelings and form opinions from them. They evaluate themselves and others based on how they feel at the time. But faith supersedes the dictate of feelings. Faith agrees or reckons with God as to the reality of the truth, despite what feelings attempt to impose.

 

GAL 5:24-25

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

 

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

 

A deep seated conviction in the reality of our position now leads to verse 13.

 

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

 

"present" - pari,sthmi [paristemi] = to present, to put at one's disposal. The first use is present tense = stop putting your members at the disposal of your sin nature (quenching the HS).

 

If a commander of a regiment gives orders for all his regiment to present themselves at a certain hour for review, only those in his regiment will do so. They are all qualified to do so. By the grace of God we have been made alive and through faith in that gift we present ourselves to God as those qualified to do so. This verse doesn't have the orders connected to it. It focuses on our attitude of considering ourselves dead and alive to God. We no longer present ourselves to the sinful nature since we're no longer in his regiment. We have a whole new nature, new uniforms, if you will, and so we report before our Father, the Son of God, and God the Holy Spirit as those who are qualified royal kings, priests, ambassadors, and saints. Grace means blessing first. The gift was given before any duty was performed. The grace principle is that God confers blessing first and then fruit follows. We are not under legal obligation but under grace. A legal obligation is like the Law, but we are no longer under it or any such law. We are under the principle of grace.

 

1PE 2:9-10

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

 

Quenching the Spirit may be simply defined as being unyielded to Him, or saying, "No." The issue is, therefore, the question of willingness to do His will.

 

The unyieldedness could range from outright antagonism to God's plan to apathy. Every person has an intellect, a sensibility, and a will. These make up his personality. The will in everyone decides based on the intellect and sensibility or conscience. After salvation God the Holy Spirit sets the course of transforming the believer into the image of Christ.

 

As for the believer, just as his faith made Christ Lord of his life, so faith will submit to the ministry of God the Holy Spirit in his life.

 

The question for him is if he will allow the Holy Spirit to transform his intellect through consistent Bible study, and to transform his conscience through understanding, and so to point his will on the course set by the Holy Spirit in walking with Him.

 

The second instance of paristemi is aorist tense = make a decision to put your members at the disposal of God (a definite act of yielding to God).

 

This decision comes only from understanding and conviction concerning this who passage.

 

A Christian is called upon to make a definite yielding of his life to God to make possible its full blessing and usefulness just as he was called upon to believe in order to be saved.

 

The grace principle is that God confers blessing first and then fruit follows.

 

There is no room for the believer to state that he will do the will of God after he has seen specifically what it is in his particular life. We do not have the luxury of approving of some of the works of God and rejecting others.

 

Passages concerning the yielding of the will and life to God:

 

ROM 8:12 … 13

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh … but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.