Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 62 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; diligence

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 62 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; diligence

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

The Christian is faced with the very real, sobering problem of showing forth the praises or virtues of Him - of God; 1PE 2:9-12.

 

Human nature is not favorable to this and is incapable to produce anything other than feeble human copies of God's perfect and infinite virtues. The aims of the Christian are not even to just be higher than the world, but infinitely higher, into the realm of the heavenly.

 

COL 3:1 If then you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

 

COL 3:2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.

 

COL 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

 

We so often think of material things when we look at the command to not set our minds on the things of the world, and that is true, but it also includes the immaterial things of the world, like counterfeit virtues, smokescreen goodness that veils evil intensions, hypocrisy. The scripture never asks us to improve on our humanity. God nailed the old creature to the cross. It demands that we be spiritual. True Christian character is the fruit of the Spirit.

 

What can God fellowship with other than character that is in agreement with His? Can God fellowship with any aspect of the fallen human life? Yet God will fellowship with the child of light who walks in the light.

 

1JO 1:5 And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

 

1JO 1:6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

 

1JO 1:7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

 

It is no use asking whether fellowship comes first and then virtue or that virtue comes first and then fellowship. It's simpler and more real than making procedures to follow. If a believer has dealt with any sin by the grace of God and he has quit on walking in darkness, he is now diligent to pursue righteousness and virtue, or to walk in the light. As we have seen that diligence is the will of God and so God fellowships with such an attitude. If he doesn't have that attitude, but rather has one of apathy, God does not fellowship with apathy. Yet we could not say that the believer is diligent for the spiritual life from the source of his flesh, but only from the Spirit and the word. Therefore it is not a matter of step like procedures but of the believer's desire, his love, his purpose, his sowing.

 

GAL 6:7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

 

GAL 6:8 For the one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life.

 

Sowing is planting seed and so it can be looked upon as investing time and thought. The believer can invest his time and thought in the ways of the flesh or the ways of the Spirit.

 

GAL 6:9 And let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we shall reap if we do not grow weary.

 

GAL 6:10 So then, while we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.

 

Sowing to the flesh is first an attitude or motivation and then it is an action. So then, what is the believer's attitude? This will determine whether the Spirit fully influences him or not. If his attitude is towards the flesh, the Spirit will not influence that course. The Spirit reveals to the believer the things of Christ, and it is the believer's decision to pursue them or the flesh.

 

The believer has decisions to make like any other person, but unlike the unbeliever, he has the decision to walk by means of the Spirit. When he learns scripture he learns by means of the Spirit. Learning truth is in agreement with the character of God and is done in fellowship with God. When he applies his learning by means of the Spirit he is in agreement with God, as when he works the works of God. He does so by means of the Spirit of God, making the choices not to quench or grieve the Holy Spirit. It is the divine life that God fellowships with. He cannot fellowship with a life ruled by the sin nature and the world system.

 

Man cannot produce a divine life. If God is going to fellowship with a divine life that flows through a man, He must place it there.

 

2PE 1:4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.

 

God is not unreasonable in demanding heavenly graces since He has made full provision for them in every believer.

 

Thus if He, by His very nature, demands the heavenly graces as the only possible basis for communion with His Sprit-born child, He is not unreasonable in such a demand, for He does not expect these graces from the flesh, but has made full provision that they may be produced by the Spirit. It is not for the human strength to attempt.

 

True Christian character is produced in the believer by the Spirit, yet in the believer who has chosen to yield his life to the Spirit and the Word; not by the believer alone.

 

Every historic instance of the filling of the Spirit illustrates the principle that only Christians yielded to God are filled.

 

The problem facing the believer is not human improvements, which amounts to improvement to his old nature, but in making choices to maintain a relationship with the Spirit through dependence upon Him. These are choices to learn, choices to apply truth, choices to discern good and bad, choices to serve others, choices to pray, choices to produce fruit, etc., for all of these and more are in agreement with the desires of the Spirit. Yet, as the believer chooses, he allows the Spirit to manifest them in reliance upon the Spirit through faith, dependence upon the Spirit in humility, and yielding to the Spirit in will.

 

When he does so, the Spirit will work to improve his life through the outworking of the new nature. He will never improve the old nature, for it has been crucified with Christ.

 

GAL 5:16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

 

The words "But I say," throw emphasis upon the statement which they introduce. Paul now introduces a statement intended to counteract the erroneous impression held by the Galatians, likely at the suggestion of the Judaizers, that without the restraining influence of the law, they would fall into sin. Instead of an attempted law obedience in their own strength motivated by the terrors of the law, Paul admonishes them to continue to govern their lives by the inward impulses of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of NT virtue and ethics.

 

The type of life and the method of living that life which he here speaks of, Paul had already commended to them in 5:5, in the words:

 

GAL 5:5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness.

 

GAL 5:6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

 

The context of chapter 5 is dealing with living the Christian life by means of the power of the Spirit, so "righteousness" in verse 5 is not positional righteousness but the experience of righteousness. So then, the verse speaks of experiential sanctification and not justification at salvation.

 

Paul says that it is through the agency of the Spirit that we can hope for the presence of an experiential righteousness in the life, not by self effort.

 

The word we is emphatic. It is, "as for us, we (Christians) through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith," not as the Judaizers who attempted to live a righteous life by self effort rather than by dependence upon the Holy Spirit. The phrase "the hope of righteousness," is a construction of the Greek text called an objective genitive. It can be translated "the hoped-for righteousness." It is that righteousness which is the object of hope. The words "by faith," are to be construed with "wait." We wait for this hoped-for righteousness by faith.

 

The word "wait" is the same one used in Php 3:20 where it says that:

 

Php 3:20

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ