Here are the Chuck Smith notes which, I'm sure, you'll disagree with. But here they are nonetheless.
WHY WOULD PAUL ASK THIS QUESTION?
A. He no doubt saw that their experience in Christ was lacking something.
1. Maybe there was an absence of love.
a. One of the real marks of the truly Spirit filled life is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love.
b. This love is described as bringing joy and peace, and causing us to be longsuffering. It manifests itself in gentleness, goodness, meekness faithfulness and self control.
2. Maybe they lacked real zeal and enthusiasm for the things of the Spirit.
3. It could be that they lacked a real dynamic in their walk with Jesus, and their witness for Him.
4. Whatever it was that Paul noticed, he suspicioned their deficiency was due to the absence of the Holy Spirit.
B. It is one thing to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and quite another to be overflowing with the Spirit.
1. When on the feast day, recorded by John in chapter 7, Jesus stood and cried to the assembled multitude, "If any man thirst let him come unto Me and drink, and he that drinks of the water that I give, as the scripture says, out of his innermost being there will flow rivers of living water." John tells us that Jesus was speaking of the Spirit which was not yet given.
a. What did He say of the Spirit? He would be like a torrent of living water flowing out from your life.
b. The question really is not do you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, but do you have the Holy Spirit flowing out from your life like a torrent of living water?
2. You can pour water in a glass until the glass is full, but if you keep pouring, the glass will begin to overflow. There is a difference between full and overflowing.
C. Many have complained of the difficulty of living the Christian life, and have given up because they found that it was too difficult. It is not only difficult, it is impossible.
1. It is very frustrating to see the ideal and to admire the ideal, to admit to the ideal, and then be unable to live up to the standards of the ideal.
2. Paul spoke of that frustration in his own life in
Romans 7. "I do the things I don't want to do, and I don't do the things I desire to do. I hate the things I do. I consent to the law that it is good, but I cannot perform that which is good. When I would do good, evil is present with me. My inward man delights in the law of God, but their is another law in my flesh that wars against my mind, and brings me into bondage to my flesh. Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of death?"
3. Paul then found his answer in chapter 8 as he speaks of the life in the Spirit. "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death, for what the law could not do because of the weakness of my flesh, God has done for me by sending His Son in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in me as I walk after the Spirit. So then they who are in the flesh cannot please God, but we are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit if the Spirit of God is dwelling in us."
4. He shows me the ideal, and then gives me the power to live the ideal.
III. HAVE YOU RECEIVED THE HOLY SPIRIT? IS THERE SOMETHING MISSING IN YOUR WALK WITH THE LORD? ARE YOU LIVING A DYNAMIC CHRISTIAN LIFE?
A. On a scale of one to ten, where would you rate your fervency for Christ?
B. If Paul would meet you and visit for a while, would he be apt to ask you if you received the Holy Spirit when you believed?
C. Is the Spirit flowing forth from your life like a torrent of living water?
D. Would you like a new dynamic to live the Christian life?
E. Ask the Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit, that your life might overflow with His love and power. Jesus said that if you earthly fathers know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those that ask Him.
same out of context use as usual... Congrats. nah I would rather write to even worse people like Dillow, Stanley, and host of others...
Hybrid Mode
