Over the last few weeks we’ve been thinking in our sermons and in our Home Groups about the person and work of God the Holy Spirit. We’ve learned about the Holy Spirit the Giver of life, who gave life to Creation and who brings new birth and new life to everyone who puts their trust in Jesus Christ. We’ve learned about the Holy Spirit the Helper, who helps us to know Jesus better and serve Jesus and to tell others about Jesus. In the evenings we have been learning about listening to God and about the gift of prophecy and this evening we will think about the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. This morning we will answer one simple question. How can we experience more of the love and power of the Holy Spirit? How can we move on in spiritual gifts? If we want to move on with God, what must we do next?

Reading 1 Cor 12:1-13

In 1 Corinthians 12 Paul talks about spiritual things (v. 1) operations of the Spirit (v. 6) and manifestations of the Spirit (v. 7). But the most common word used for the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Cor 12:4,9; Rom 12:6-8; 1 Pet 4:10-11 is CHARISMATA, which means “grace gifts”.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are expressions of the grace of God – undeserved gifts of His love. Some translate this word as “grace-gifts”, little bundles of grace given to the church through the lives of individuals. We could compare the grace of God to sunlight pouring into the church which acts like a prism. The “grace gifts” are like the different colours of the spectrum which the sunlight splits into, different ways in which God’s grace operates in the church.

All “ spiritual gifts” are the work of the Holy Spirit in the church and in the individual at a particular time. So a particular word of prophecy is God’s spiritual gift to build up the church. A Christian should never say “I have the gift of prophecy”, only that “God gave me a gift of a prophetic message on a particular occasion. Similarly, a healing miracle is God’s gift to the individual who is healed (and NOT to the Christian who might have been praying when the God gave the healing). So a Christian can never say “I have the gift of ministering healing”, only that “God gave a gift of healing to a certain sick person on a particular occasion”, and I was blessed to be present at the time.

Just because the Holy Spirit has worked in your life in a particular way in the past, say in giving words of knowledge or words of wisdom, does not mean that God will always work in that way in your life and in no other way. That is not “your” gift for all time. A spiritual gift
is an expression of God’s grace at work in your life at that particular time. Such gifts never become the “property” of the individual Christian. If Christians think they have such and such a spiritual gift, and try to exercise that spiritual gift without depending on God, or try to keep the glory for themselves instead of giving all the glory to God, then they soon discover that it is not “their gift”, but always God’s gift to the church through them.

The Bible does not teach that a Christian will always exercise the same one spiritual gift and never any other. Although the Holy Spirit may frequently work in the same way(s) in a particular Christian’s life, so a person may develop a ministry of prophecy or teaching for example, the Spirit is free to work through ANY Christian in ANY way He chooses at ANY time. Even if you have NEVER exercised a particular spiritual gift in your life before, there is NOTHING to stop the Holy Spirit working in that way in your life right now, even this morning – if God so chooses!

Any activity of the Holy Spirit in the Church requires CO-OPERATION between God and man. We must USE the gifts God gives. We must work alongside the Spirit. Sometimes the Spirit will seem almost to take over and manifest God’s power in supernatural ways such as in healings and miracles. At other times it will seem as if we are simply using our natural abilities by ourselves (for example in the spiritual gifts of giving, or of hospitality). BOTH forms of service are equally spiritual – both are operations of the Holy Spirit – and both involve us as co-workers with God. This is the New Testament pattern.
‘‘Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.’’ (Phil 2:12-13
The Bible tells us that we can and should co-operate with God in exercising spiritual gifts in at least three particular ways.
We need FAITH – Romans 12:3-8
We need LOVE – 1 Corinthians 13
We need PRAYER – as the essential link with Christ, the Giver of the Spirit.

But what about moving on with God, you are asking? How can we BEGIN to exercise spiritual gifts? If we are serious about opening our lives to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and about wanting to hear God speaking to us we need three more things:

A pure heart – we can’t expect God the Holy Spirit to speak to us if we are not living holy lives
a hearing ear – we need to be serious about making plenty of time to pray, to meditate, to listen to God
a responsive life – God isn’t going to bothered to speak to us if He knows we aren’t going to be bothered to obey what he tells us

But more than a pure heart, a hearing ear and a responsive life, do we need some other special spiritual experience if we are going to move on with God, if we are going to start prophesying and speaking in tongues, for example?

Pentecostal churches would say yes you do! Early in 20th century God started moving in powerful ways in the lives of otherwise perfectly ordinary sound Bible believing Christians. They started speaking in tongues and experiencing miracles and healings. These were the first Pentecostals. They looked in the Bible and found the promise concerning Jesus, “He will baptise you with Holy Spirit and with fire.” And the Pentecostals said, we must have been “baptised with the Spirit”, or “baptised in the Spirit”, overwhelmed by the Spirit. And if anybody else wants the kind of experiences we are receiving from God, they need to be “baptised in the Spirit” as well. They need this wonderful “Second Blessing” too! Then they will start speaking in tongues too!

When they hear this, other good sound evangelical Bible believing Christians looked at their Bibles and said NO! Baptism in the New Testament always refers to Christian initiation!
1 Corinthians 12:13 For we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
In the New Testament the phrase “Baptism in the Spirit” refers to the initiating reception of the Spirit at conversion which brings new life in Christ to the believer. In that experience (which is often unspectacular and unseen) each Christian becomes united with Christ and receives all the spiritual resources he or she will ever need, in the Spirit who brings new birth, life, sonship and all the blessings of Christ.

So, said these good evangelical Christians, it is mistaken to separate this work of the Spirit giving new life at conversion from any subsequent work of the Spirit, empowering for Christian service or giving gifts. There is no “second blessing” or “second installment” which Christians must seek in some special way later.

So for sixty years the Evangelicals rejected the Pentecostal’s experience of God because they disagreed with the words the Pentecostals used to describe it. And the same thing happened again in 1960s and 1970s when again God moved in power amongst the new Pentecostals, the Charismatic Movement. Then, again, ordinary Christians were blessed by God by experiences which transformed their lives in ways that their initial conversion did not. They found a new joy, a new victory over sin, a new reality in prayer and a new freedom in witnessing. Many also began to exercise spiritual gifts like tongues and prophecy, with miracles and healing happening too. And again some began to talk of baptism in the spirit, or a second blessing.

But this time, other writers like Michael Green and David Watson were more careful about the words they used to describe their experience of the Holy Spirit. They realized that the concept in the New Testament which best helps us to understand what both Pentecostals and the Charismatics experienced and still experience today is NOT “baptism in the spirit” or any once and for all “second blessing”. There is NOT one special experience secondary and subsequent to conversion which Christians have to have, to lift them on to a higher spiritual level so that they can begin to exercise spiritual gifts. Even if there was such and experience, the phrase “baptism in the spirit” would not the right label for it. “Baptism in the spirit” definitely refers to the beginning of the Christian life, the gift of the Spirit by which we are born again.

But there are at least two other phrases in the New Testament which DO refer to works of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer happening AFTER conversion as well as AT conversion. One phrase is “receiving the Holy Spirit” which is something that can happen not just once but many times to a believer. “Receiving the Holy Spirit” can refer to the beginning of a new work of the Holy Spirit at any stage of a believer’s life EVEN IF that person has “received the Holy Spirit” in some senses previously.

The other and most helpful phrase is “being filled with the Spirit”. “Being filled with the Spirit” carries two meanings.

1. It can refer to the general characteristics of a Christ-like life (Jesus Himself, Luke 4:1; Stephen and the Seven, Acts 6 and 7:55; Barnabas, Acts 11:24).
2. The words “filled with the Spirit” are also used to describe a sudden inspiring experience of the Holy Spirit (Acts 4:8,31; 9:17; 13:9).

Michael Green explains it this way.
Being filled with the Spirit “should be the continual state of the Christian, but he can also look for special fillings of the Spirit in special circumstances”.

This is picture language, of course. The Spirit is not a liquid and we are not containers which can hold different amounts of Spirit. In “being filled with the Spirit”, we don’t receive more of the Spirit. It might be better to say that He receives more of us. As we open our lives to God in obedience and faith, so He chooses to transform us and use us the more.

Each of us would admit that there are times in our Christian lives when we are more obedient and more trusting, when we are walking more closely with our Lord. At those times we reflect better the glory of Christ and we are more open to God’s Holy Spirit working in our lives. Many Christians would also say that they have experienced all kinds of experiences from the Holy Spirit (not just once but many times) and these have deepened their relationship with God or empowered them for witness and service, or marked the beginning of them experiencing a particular spiritual gift, often praying in tongues. “Being filled with the Holy Spirit” describes both this state of close fellowship and these uplifting occasions.

In Epohesians 5:18 Paul commands all Christians “Keep on being filled with the Spirit”. Many of us are far from being “filled with the Spirit” for most of the time. As D.L.Moody said, “I am filled, but I leak!” We drift from God and we need to repent and be lifted back to Him. There is no one experience following conversion which will lift us up on to a higher plateau of Christian living from which we can never fall. Time and time again we need to return to God in repentance, to draw closer and closer to Him.

In addition, there are times when we need special grace and power from God to meet specific situations. For some people sometimes (especially the first time) such experiences of “refilling” or “filling for specific situations” or “filling as the beginning of a new work of the Spirit” “or filling as the first experience of a new spiritual gift” can be very spectacular or emotional. But the Biblical command is to “keep on being filled with the Spirit”. It implies a continuous appropriation of the Spirit’s power to become more like Christ, not one “second blessing” but many further blessings, some of which may be spectacular and some may not.

Bob Gordon compares our Christian life to a canal boat journey up a mountainside, through a series of locks. “Many of us know God to one degree or another but we are not unlike a canal boat sitting in an empty lock. It is not that there is no water there but we are just not full. We have enough experience to keep us afloat in the Christian life, but not enough to take us ahead.” We need, he says, “a conscious awareness that we have come as far as we can as we are. There needs to be a closing of the doors behind us …… and an opening up to a fresh infilling of the water of the Holy Spirit.” Such infillings, not once but many times, should lead to more Christ-like living, greater love in relationships, bolder witnessing, greater praise and worship and thanksgiving, and more effective service. These are blessings which God surely wants all Christians to enjoy to the full.
So – How can I be filled with the Spirit?

Any experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit is a gift of God’s grace, neither deserved nor earned. Sometimes people are filled with the Spirit suddenly and unexpectedly. But more often the Holy Spirit comes upon Christians while they are actively seeking God and desiring His moving.

1. Eagerly desire spiritual gifts – we need to desire God the Giver and not just His gifts.

2. Through prayer – Acts 4:31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

3. Through the Laying on of Hands

The first Christians in Samaria
Acts 8:17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.Acts 8:18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

PAUL and ANANIAS
Acts 9:17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord – Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here – has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 Immediately something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes and he could see again. he got up and was baptised.

Disciples of John the Baptist in Ephesus
Acts 19:6 When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied.

Paul to Timothy 1 Timothy 4:14 Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

2 Tim 1:6 For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands

Blessing does not HAVE to come thro laying on of hands – God can bless as He chooses.
But laying on of hands does at least 2 things
– encourages the faith and expectancy of the person seeking the blessing
– reminds us of our dependence on EACH OTHER, we all need each other, we are all
part of church, Christs’s BODY

So the Laying on of Hands can be the channel of God’s blessing to move us on in exercising Spiritual gifts – it certainly was for me, and it has been for dozens of people that I have been privileged to pray with over the years. But we also need to WANT to be filled with the Spirit – God does not force His way into our lives. Eagerly desire spiritual gifts.

And then we need to ASK – through prayer. Jesus Himself encourages us to ask God to give us the Holy Spirit. And we can expect to receive, not just once and for all, but time after time!

Luke 11: 9 “So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened. 11 “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your F ather in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”