Key Scripture: Luke 3:16

Introduction: All four gospels and Acts introduce and make reference to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Mat.3:11- “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Mk. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”
John. 1:33 “This is He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.”
Luke 3:16 “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”
Acts 1:5 “ But you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
John 3:34 “For He whom God has sent utters the words of God, for He gives the Spirit without measure.”
John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all.”
John 14:17 “…and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another helper, to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth.”
John 14:26 “…but the helper (counselor), the Holy Spirit…He will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”
John 15:26 “…but when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me.

Understanding the work of the Holy Spirit is huge to us in living life in the Spirit.

I. The Spirit-filled life

I’m not discussing the controversy of a second experience; or the Baptism vs, the filling of the Holy Spirit.

I appreciate Wayne Grudem’s wrestling with this for the sake of evangelicals and trying to come up with acceptable language.
I’m not arguing for the 1st wave. (Pentecostal)

Or 2nd wave (charismatic)
Or 3rd wave (Vineyard and others)

What I am going to argue for are the possibilities, the benefits, the dynamics of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit; of what life in the Spirit can look like.
What I am going to say is, “Don’t settle for less. Keep asking for more.”

Wife of Jonathan Edwards, America’s greatest theologian and a man used in the 1st Great Awakening in America.
In 1742 Sarah Edwards recounted in her diary how the Holy Spirit overwhelmed her for a period of some 17 days.
“Let us go thither”

She spoke of a wrestling, resting, and waiting. She spoke of how prior to that she had found herself “low in grace”, “uneasy and unhappy”. “I knew I needed help from God. I found a spirit of earnestness to seek help from Him, and for a time earnestly wrestled with God.”
In time, she came to a place within herself of a great quietness of spirit, an unusual submission to God, and a willingness to wait upon Him, as to the manner in which He should help me, and even wished that He should take His own time and His own way to do it.”
There was an active resignation, and a confidence in God’s sovereignty as to the ‘when’ and ‘how’, but also that He would come to her in a greater measure.

She had a “real and certain sense, without the least doubt, that God sweetly smiled upon me” with a look of forgiveness and love.’
She had this sense that nothing could ever separate her from the love of God. She could not come up with language to express this adequately, but she felt it keenly.
It gave her happiness and safety, a sense of the eternal enjoyment of God’s unchangeable love to her.

Great tears flowed and weeping at times because of His love.
She wrote, “I was so aware that ‘He is mine and I am His.”
She kept repeating over and over in her mind, ‘My God, my all, my God, my everything.’

d. The Holy Spirit transformed and re-arranged her life.

“I seemed to be lifted above earth and hell, out of reach of everything below, so that I could look on all the rage and enmity of men and devils with a kind of holy indifference and tranquility.
Acts 7:55 “…but Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I see heaven open and the son of Man standing at the right hand of God.’
“ I seemed to be drawn upwards, soul and body, from the earth towards the heaven; and it appeared to me that I must naturally and necessarily ascend thither.” (Thither= toward that place)
“At the same time, I felt a compassion and love for all mankind, and a deep abasement of soul, under a sense of my own unworthiness.