Ephesians 1:13
Broadlands Bible Church
April 12, 2023
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Thesis: The Spirit was given to close the "distance gap".
Introduction:
If the words of God and the spirit of man were sufficient to the experience of the Promise, another Spirit would never have been given. In our last two studies, we raised the question of
why the Spirit of God was given to indwell man. We focused our attention upon the issue of
adequacy. As we looked into the Scriptures, we saw that the
essential link that exists in the provision of the Holy Spirit is that between the Holy Spirit and the issue of
power. Luke wrote that Jesus said that we would receive
power when the Holy Spirit came ["
And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power. But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (
Acts 1:7-8 Authorized Version)
Then, the apostle Paul told Timothy in respect to his exercise of his spiritual gift(s) that "...God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." (2 Timothy 1:7 Authorized Version). Thus, both the larger umbrella concept of being witnesses unto Jesus and the smaller, but crucial, concept of faithful stewardship, are tied to the power of the Holy Spirit. However, we saw that both the apostle Paul and Luke claimed that non-Spirit-indwelt people were able to live up to the external standards of the precepts and principles of God's Law. This means that man, unaided by the indwelling ministry of the Spirit of God, is capable of living a life in conformity with the regulations and rules of religion. So, we asked this question: just what is the inadequacy gap? We found the answer in the New Testament teaching that God is not satisfied with performance of the letter of the Law. God also requires an internal conformity to the motivations of true righteousness. In other words, God does not seek a performance that is rooted in a pursuit of anything less than the expression of the true love of God. This is the heart of the inadequacy of man. His spirit is incapable of expressing the true love of God. The human spirit, since the fall, is invariably committed to self-seeking without exception. Thus, if God would have a man to express the life of Jesus ("be a witness unto Jesus") and to exercise a faithful stewardship of the gift(s) of the Spirit, He must impart to that man the Spirit of Jesus with a special focus upon the particular gift(s) that He would have that man to faithfully exercise. Thus, the Spirit of God was given to close the inadequacy gap.
That brings us to the study for this evening. Since all believers are given the Spirit of God to express the life of Jesus and to execute their particular tasks for the Body, and the picture we get on a regular basis is not that of the life of Jesus, nor of faithfulness to the stewardship of the gift(s), what is missing? On the face of it, apparently neither the internal presence of the Spirit, nor the possessional presence of the Promises are, of themselves -- either individually, or in concert -- sufficient to produce an expression of the life of Jesus or a faithfulness in stewardship to the Body of Jesus. So, what is missing? Part of the answer is: clarity of focus. Both the Covenants of the Promise and the Spirit of the Promise have been given. But what is not a given is a constant clarity of focus so that the believer is able to release the members of his body to the Spirit of God for the manifestation of the life of Jesus through him. It should go without saying that if a person possesses a clear understanding of the Covenants of the Promise and an unimpeded relationship with the Spirit of the Promise, the specific manifestation of the life of Jesus (as defined by the gift(s) given) will be accomplished. That means that the point of difficulty is either the clear understanding, or the unimpeded relationship. Both of these find a major aspect of resolution in clarity of focus. That brings us to the specific issue of our study this evening: the Spirit as the foundation of clarity of focus. Our larger question is: Why was the Spirit given? The answer we gave in our last couple of studies was: to close the inadequacy gap. The answer we are considering this week is: to close the fuzzy focus gap...or, to put it another way, to close the distance gap.
- I. Why Was the Spirit of God Given?
- B. To close the distance gap.
- 1. The real issue here is focus.
- a. The Scriptures are relatively clear that mental focus is at the heart of the expression of the life of Jesus.
- 1) Romans 12:2 pointedly says that transformation occurs along a continuum of renewal of the mind.
- 2) Hebrews 12:2 exhorts a pursuit of the race with a "looking unto Jesus".
- 3) 2 Peter 1:9 says that lack of progress is rooted in forgetfulness.
- 4) Matthew 14:30, in context, illustrates the necessity of an undistracted focus.
- b. The reality of focus is undistracted concentration: Mark 8:22-25.
- 2. The mechanistic issue here is how focus is obtained.
- a. It is the contention of this study that focus is obtained by the Spirit as He closes the distance gap.
- 1) What is the distance gap?
- a) The distance gap, physically, is the space between a person's eyes and the required object of attention [as illustrated by Matthew 14:23-33].
- b) The distance gap, mentally, is the absence of specific concentration upon the Spirit and the Word.
- 2) What causes the distance gap?
- a) A primary cause is the insertion of too many distractions [as illustrated by the walk on water in Matthew 14, and the parable of the soils in Luke 8:15].
- b) Historically, it was caused by the difference between God and man as Spirit and Flesh [God required faith in spite of invisibility and man demands sight to believe].
- 3) How does the Spirit of the Promise close the distance gap?
- a) An historical review...
- i. In the Garden at the point of temptation, God was nowhere to be seen or heard.
- ii. After the fall, God was characteristically in Heaven and man was on the earth.
- iii. After the Exodus, God came down into the midst of Israel as an unseen Presence.
- iv. After the departure of the Glory, God came into the midst of Israel as a clearly visible embodied Presence.
- v. After the Ascension, God came into the very bodies of those who believed His Promise.
- b) The theological realities...
- i. As an indwelling presence, the Spirit has direct access to both heart and mind. The Scriptures everywhere reveal that there are "issues" between "spirit" and "matter" and "spirits" cannot have their greatest impact "outside" of the "matter" consisting of a "body".
- ii. As an indwelling presence, the Spirit exercises internal ministries... ...He actively illuminates Truth... ...He actively convicts of Lies, both conceptual and active (what we think and what we do)...
- b. There are some problems:
- He does not illumine Truth apart from content in the brain.
- He does not establish Truth apart from faith (i.e., He does not jump ahead, but develops truth in a consecutive order and along a continuum that builds on itself).
