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I. JESUS LIVED AN EXEMPLARY LIFE.
A.
JOH 13:15-For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you.
B.
JOH 15:12-This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
C.
1PE 2:21-For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:
D.
1JO 2:6-He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
1. How did He walk?
2. He walked after the Spirit.
3. The Spirit was certainly uppermost in His life.
E. He lived as God intended man to live, His life was dominated and controlled by the Spirit.
F. He taught the superiority of the life of the Spirit over the life of the flesh. He said, "It is the Spirit that makes alive, the flesh profits nothing."
1. He then lived the life of the Spirit to demonstrate that it was possible.
2. In
Luke 3 when He was baptized we read how the Holy Spirit descended upon Him.
II. AND JESUS BEING FULL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.
A. That is normal life as God intended it to be.
1. That is not how you observe life today.
2. You do not see man as God intended man to be.
3. You see man in his fallen nature.
4. God intended man to live in the fullness of the Spirit, that the Spirit be uppermost and ruling.
5. We see man for the most part being ruled by the flesh.
B. When a man is full of the Spirit, he is living in fellowship with the Father, thus Jesus lived in full fellowship with the Father.
1. God meets man in the realm of the Spirit.
2. God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth, and He seeks such to worship Him.
3. His Spirit bears witness with our spirits.
C. This is the way Adam lived before the fall.
1. God communed with Adam in the garden because his spirit was alive and uppermost.
2. It was when Adam sinned by eating of the forbidden fruit that his spirit died and his fellowship with God was broken.
3. Man then began to live as an animal.
4. He became a two dimensional being, body and soul, his spirit dead because of trespasses and sins.
5. Jesus said to Nicodemus, that if he wanted to enter the Kingdom of heaven he had to be born again. He had to have a spiritual birth, for that which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.
a. Nicodemus had no idea of what Jesus was talking about.
b. He tried to understand it in a natural way, wondering how he could return to his mother's womb to be born a second time.
6. The natural man understands not the things of the Spirit, neither can he know them for they are spiritually discerned.
a. Being full of the Holy Spirit may sound rather strange to some of you.
b. Living in fellowship with and communing with God may sound rather far out.
III. LUKE THEN TELLS US THAT JESUS WAS LED OF THE SPIRIT.
A. Paul tells us that as many as are led of the Spirit, they are the sons of God.
B. What does it mean to be led of the Spirit?
1. It means that you are sensitive to the leading of the Spirit.
a.
Acts 16 Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach in Asia.
b. They then went to Mysia, and were going to Bithynia but were again were stopped by the Spirit.
c. They then went on to Troas where by a vision they were directed to go to Macedonia.
2. If your plans are suddenly disrupted, look for the hand of God. Maybe you were going in the wrong direction, pursuing after something that He did not desire, and He is seeking to redirect your life.
C. To be led by the Spirit, you must first be filled with the Spirit.
1. You must then desire to be led by the Spirit.
2. You must become sensitive to the Spirit.
D. It is interesting that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
1. This means that being led by the Spirit does not mean that you will avoid spiritual conflicts.
2. You declare that you love God, that love may be tested.
a. Jesus said to Peter, "Lovest thou Me more than these?"
b. Do you love Him more than your chosen career?
3. You say that you trust God, that trust may be tested, how much do you trust Him?
a. Do you only trust when you can see and understand His purpose?
4. How glorious it is when you pass a test.
IV. VERSE 14 WE READ, "AND JESUS RETURNED IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT INTO GALILEE."
A. Filled with the Spirit, led by the Spirit, now empowered by the the Spirit Jesus is ready to commence His ministry.
1. It seems rather strange to me that there are those who think that they can have a successful ministry apart from the anointing and empowering of the Spirit.
2. Perhaps even more strange are those whose ministry was begun in the Spirit and they are now endeavoring to be perfected in the flesh.
a. As Paul wrote to the Galatians, "Oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you, are you so foolish as having begun in the Spirit are you now going to be perfected in the flesh?"
b. This is the tragic story of the history of the church. Those fresh moves of the Spirit usually develop into a new denomination which then seeks to define, refine, and confine the move of the Spirit as we attempt to perfect the work of God by our fleshly wisdom.
c. Somehow we seek to gain the respect of the godless world who wants to know which seminary we graduated from, and what training we had to qualify us for the ministry God has given us.
B. Jesus commanded His disciples to remain in Jerusalem until they had received the promised baptism of the Holy Spirit. For with the baptism of the Spirit would come the power of the Holy Spirit to enable them to be witnesses.
1. That same Spirit that filled Jesus can fill you.
2. That same Spirit that led Jesus will lead you.
3. That same Spirit that empowered Jesus can empower you.
4. He said to His disciples that the works that He did they will do and even greater works would they do, for He was going to the Father and He would pray to give them another Comforter, even the Spirit of truth whom the world could not receive because it neither saw Him or knew Him.
5. They were not to seek to commence their ministry until they had received this power of the Holy Spirit.
6. Dare we to endeavor any work or service for God without being filled, led, and empowered by the Holy Spirit?
Verse-Reference
Square — [Jhn 1:1 KJV]
Abbreviate Books
Use SBL Abbrev.
