Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 77 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; He fills those who are rightly adjusted to God.

Title: Joshua and Judges: The doctrine of leadership part 77 - Essential qualities of leadership: The filling of the Spirit; He fills those who are rightly adjusted to God.

 

Announcements / opening prayer:  

 

 

Psa 32 shows how a believer who is walking in the darkness can see his sinful lifestyle, which is almost always by means of the pain in his life, and then recover and walk again in the blessedness of God's forgiveness and grace.  

 

PSA 32:1 How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven [lifted and carried away], Whose sin is covered [expiated]!

 

PSA 32:2 How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no deceit!

 

PSA 32:3 When I kept silent about my sin [choosing the carnal way of self-justification, ignoring it], my body wasted away Through my groaning all day long.

 

PSA 32:4 For day and night Thy hand was heavy upon me; My vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of summer. Selah.

 

PSA 32:5 I acknowledged my sin to Thee, And my iniquity I did not hide; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the Lord";And Thou didst forgive the guilt [iniquity] of my sin. Selah.

 

Forgiveness is the result of the work of Christ. Confession or acknowledgment brings the believer back into the blessedness of forgiveness. For the church age believer it would be the joy that comes from knowing that he is identified with Christ in His death and crucifixion. When a believer is justifying or attempting to hide his sin from God he is not engaged in that identification and in reality is occupied with the sin rather than the Savior.

 

Notice the change in David's focus.

 

PSA 32:6 Therefore, let everyone who is godly [he who abides in God] pray to Thee in a time when Thou may be found; Surely in a flood of great waters they shall not reach him.

 

It is obvious that God does not hide Himself at some times. God is surely found by any repentant heart. While David was trying to hide his sin, God was nowhere to be found, meaning in the way that David fellowshipped with God before this evil plan was hatched in his mind. Rather, David languished in pain and misery, but then, in turning to God and opening up his sin, iniquity, and transgression to God, he found forgiveness in the Lord and also found that no flood of great waters (adversity or judgment) could reach the godly. The blessedness of God's forgiveness through the One to come, revealed to David, likely more than ever, that God is not someone to hide from, but is the very hiding place for protection from all adversaries, even when he had fallen into great sin. The music here would have again reached a forte, or loud point.

 

PSA 32:7 Thou art my hiding place; Thou dost preserve me from trouble; Thou dost surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah.

 

PSA 32:8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you [gentle leading].

 

David could be referring to God teaching or himself as the teacher;

 

PSA 51:13

Then I will teach transgressors Thy ways,

And sinners will be converted to Thee.

 

It shows that the believer who has been delivered and comforted by God and has received and experienced the fruit of salvation will gladly reveal this to others.

 

2CO 1:3-4

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort; who comforts us in all our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

 

"I will counsel you with my eye upon you," refers to willing obedience of the hearer who only needs gentle guidance.

 

PSA 32:9 Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, Whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, Otherwise they will not come near to you.

 

The arrogant who will not believe and the believer who will not give up carnal living, but who rather, though convicted by the Spirit within and the new creature that he is, attempts to hide, ignore, bury, justify, or blame for his sins, has no understanding and is like the mule. Without the bit in its mouth and the bridle connected to the bit and its head, he will not come near to the teacher. Since it is God who is using the teacher, he refuses to come near to God, since if he does, his darkness will be exposed by the light.

 

Again:

JOH 3:20-21

"For everyone who does evil hates the light, and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. "But he who practices the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God."

 

Since God truly is a hiding place, those who refuse to come near Him are without any understanding. Whatever obstacle exists that blocks or limits that understanding, must be removed.

 

PSA 32:10 Many are the sorrows of the wicked; But he who trusts in the Lord, loving kindness shall surround him.

 

loving kindness - steadfast love and grace.

 

PSA 32:11 Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, you righteous ones [the blessed to whom sin is not imputed], And shout for joy, all you who are upright in heart [those who abide in Him].

 

Principle:

It is the normal work of the Spirit to fill the one who is rightly adjusted to God. The Christian will continue to be filled while he is yielding to the ministry of the Spirit in his life.

 

A believer can confess or acknowledge a sin and still have an evil heart just as an Israelite could give an animal to sacrifice for his sin and maintain an evil heart. We agree with God as to our sinfulness because we agree with Him that the sins that we see oppose Him and we enjoy recovery because of the blessedness of being forgiven and cleansed in Christ. Our hearts must rightly adjust in this manner as well as be transformed so that we choose to walk in a manner worthy of our calling.

 

It is godly to rejoice in our forgiveness, for by His stripes we are healed. He has come to bandage up and heal the brokenhearted and to set the captives free. We should find pleasure in pleasing God by walking in the manner of our calling because we were created new in order to do just that. God delights in His work and the believer is a part of that work.

 

Godliness is the true manifestation of the Spirit in the life of the believer. Sin is the very opposite of that manifestation, therefore, when we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit.

 

EPH 4:30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

 

The context of this section of Ephesians is walking in a manner in which you have been called (v. 1), being built up and equipped for the working of service to the maturity that is Christ (vv. 12-13), no longer being children but growing spiritually through what God supplies (v. 14). We are to walk no longer as the heathen also walk (vv. 17-19) since we have laid aside the old man at salvation and have put on the new (vv. 22-24), laying aside falsehood (v. 25), letting no unwholesome word depart from our mouths (v. 29), letting all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and slander to be put away from us, being kind to one another and forgiving one another (vv. 31-32). In the midst of this is the command not to grieve the Holy Spirit.

 

It is obvious that we live this way by means of His manifestation in our lives, being filled with Him, walking by means of Him.

 

Godliness is the true manifestation of the Spirit in the life of the believer. Sin is the very opposite of that manifestation, therefore, when we sin we grieve the Holy Spirit.

 

None of us are sinless or ever will be, but a believer can tolerate sin in his life and so walk in a lifestyle of it. This would be grieving the Holy Spirit. If this is true, the Holy Spirit cannot work His filling ministry in that believers life to the fullest, and for that reason many believers are spiritually weak and sick and some have died.

 

The believer's choices either grieve or do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Sin must not be tolerated. It is best to recover from it as soon as it occurs.

 

Sin tolerated in the life of a believer is simply self-justification. We will never be sinless. The question is, do we agree with God as to the sinfulness of sin, as to the darkness of it, and that it has no place in God's plan or in the new creature?

 

Sin must be dealt with and only dealt with as the scripture says and not as man says.