Be Filled with the Spirit, Part 4

Ephesians 5:20

Let's look again at Ephesians chapter 5 and verses 18 to 21. This is our seventh lesson in this tremendous text as we slowly move --through the Book of Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 5 verses 18 through 21. And time is a little shorter this morning so we want to get right at it and see what the Lord has for us. Let me read this text to you again, beginning in verse 18 of Ephesians 5, "And be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God."

Now as I say we have spent seven lessons or this is our seventh lesson on this tremendous text. You might think that such a brief text could be covered in less time than say five or six hours or whatever that total time would be. But the fact is that we haven't even come close to exhausting the rich content that's here. I find, and I'm sure you do too that the Word of God is kind of like a limitless well, the harder you pump the richer and clearer and fuller the flow becomes. The more I study the Bible the more inexhaustible it becomes, the deeper I dig the wider the expanse of treasure that appears before my eyes, it's inexhaustible. It's one of the incredible experiences of the ministry to dig deeper and deeper and to find that the deeper you go the bigger the subject becomes. And you know ignorance is bliss in a sense, you think you've got it at first and then you more ... the more you study it the wider and wider it becomes and, and so we haven't even begun to exhaust the tremendous depth of meaning that is here, even though we've spent six and now a seventh lesson looking at it. But the major truth of the passage is easy to identify, the major truth of this brief passage is that all our Christian living, all this issue of living the Christian life, walking the worthy walk, the whole idea of the Christian's experience is based upon the concept of being filled with the Spirit.

At the end of verse 18 you have the statement, "but be filled with the Spirit." Or be being continuously kept filled with the Spirit, and that becomes the heart of the issue in the Christian life. Only as we are filled with the Spirit of God, that is as we are controlled by the Spirit, moved along by the Spirit, yielded to the Spirit, directed by the Holy Spirit, only as our lives are functioning in response to the Spirit of God do we really know the power of God in our lives. You cannot experience the power of God or move in the will of God or know the fulfillment and the blessing of God unless you are filled with His Spirit. In Galatians chapter 3 the Apostle Paul said to the Galatians in verse 3, "Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh?" In other words you know you were born again of the Spirit, you know you were saved by the Spirit, you know you were entered into the body by the Spirit, do you think that having begun in the Spirit you could be perfected in your flesh? And the answer obviously is of course not. We were redeemed by the Spirit of God, we were born again by the Spirit of God, we were implanted with an eternal incorruptible seed by the Spirit of God, Peter says. And having begun in the Spirit we will be made perfect only in the Spirit.

In other words as we ascend the scale of maturity we grow only insofar as we're filled with the Spirit, when we are not filled or controlled by the Spirit we flatten out and there's no progress at all. The growing times of our life are the times when we are controlled by the Holy Spirit, then and only then does the flow of the power of God function within us. Now every believer possesses the Spirit and needs at each moment in life to be yielded to the Spirit of God. That's the key to this passage, and we've been looking at that. I might just expand your understanding of that by pointing this out to you, that all of the key leaders in the New Testament are characterized specifically as people filled with the Spirit.

For example it says of Jesus Christ Himself in Luke chapter 4 verse 1, "And Jesus being full of the Spirit." And in John 3:34 it says that "God gave not the Spirit by measure unto him." In other words He didn't measure out some dose of the Spirit but rather gave unto Him the fullness of the Spirit. Jesus even said, "The things I do, I do by the power of the Spirit of God." He was full of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord Jesus Christ, the greatest man who would ever live up until his time of him it is said in Luke 1, "And he shall be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb." And his mother, Elisabeth and his father, Zacharias both of them were also filled with the Holy Spirit.

As you move further along in the New Testament you find for example, in Acts chapter 4 that Peter, the great apostle is filled with the Spirit of God. We know he was filled with the Spirit along with everybody else on the day of Pentecost but in chapter 4 and verse 8 it specifically says, "Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them." Peter, filled with the Spirit. Further we move into chapter 6 of the Book of Acts and we find he first officials selected for the early church and it says of these individuals that, "They should be men full of the Holy Spirit." And verse 5 says, "They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch." In other words those who were given to the leadership of the early church apart from the apostles, those who were to serve the people were those who were filled with the Spirit.

Stephen of course is one of them filled with the Spirit. Later on in chapter 7 verse 55 when Stephen was being stoned, "But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked up steadfastly to heaven."

Later on we meet another wonderful individual who takes up practically all the rest of the New Testament, a man by the name of Saul who becomes Paul, and to him Ananias says that he would receive his sight and in Acts 9:17, "Be filled with the Holy Spirit." So the Apostle Paul knew what it was to be filled with the Spirit. In Acts 13:9 it says, "Then Saul (who is called Paul), filled with the Holy Spirit, set his eyes on him, And said."

There was a wonderful man who was in the company of the Apostle Paul, a man that we know as the one who was a comforter, his name is Barnabas and it is said of Barnabas in verse 24 of Acts 11, "He was a righteous man, and full of the Holy Spirit."

You see all the way from John the Baptist and Jesus and the Gospels to the key people in the Book of Acts to those who become really the writers of the New Testament in, in part the, the concept of the filling of the Spirit of God is central. There's no way that an individual believer can function in the power of God apart from the control of the Spirit of God. And so this becomes the bottom line, people, this becomes standard number one. We go back to the place where we yield the control of our lives to the Spirit of God. And of course what happened was people who were filled with the Spirit of God were able to function with such power that it was said of them, "They have turned the world upside down." The reality of yielding to the Holy Spirit releases the divine power to enable us to do the things that only God can do. If you're ever going to do greater things than these, as Jesus said, if you're ever going to know what it is, "to do exceedingly abundantly above all you can ask or think, according to the power that works in you." You'll only know it as you're filled with the Spirit, and we saw that that means to be controlled by the Spirit or yielded to His power. That is self has died, self-will has died, sin is confessed and removed from your life and you're obedient to the Spirit of God.

You know it always amazes me that, that people are on a sort of a search to try to, to try to reproduce today the early church. I guess this is part of what's going on in my lifetime, I can't speak for the generations before but immediately in the generation before I'm not sure that it was intense as it is today, but there, there has been since I was a seminary student, a few years back, a tremendous effort to recapture the meaning of the early church, and I guess I've been apart of that effort myself to redefine how did the early church do it? How did they do it in the Book of Acts? How did they structure themselves? What was the r M.O., you know, modus operandi? What were their methods? What were their functionings? How were the structured leadership wise? How did the laity respond? How did they work with people they sent out to mission fields? How did they commission and ordain and how did they work with discipline in the church, and how did they reach their world, and how did they evangelize and how did they edify?

We always are after recapturing the early church. And we hear a lot about renewal of the church, and the regeneration of the first century church. And you know I think in, in many ways we've made it much more complicated that it is. You see the key to reproducing the power of the early church is not the modus operandi of the early church; it's the same Holy Spirit who was in the early church, that's all. And when the church in the 20th century is indwelt by the Spirit of God as it is and when it becomes filled with the Spirit of God as God wants it to be then it will be the 20th century church under the divine definition. It is not a matter of recapturing methodology it is a matter of being filled with the Spirit of God, then we'll turn the 20th century world upside down. Perhaps we should be less concerned with the academics of a restructured church and more concerned with the inspiration of a Spirit filled life, because that's bottom line.

So Paul says here in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18 be being kept filled with the Spirit. In other words everything I've said in the Book of Ephesians, all your position in Christ in chapters 1 to 3, all your practice in chapters 4 to 6, all of it involves being filled with the Spirit of God or it ... it can't come to pass, it can't really work out.

Now if you'll remember we talked about three points in this text, the contrast, the command and the consequences. The contrast in verse 18, don't be drunk with wine, in which is excess, or asotia, dissipation, disease leading to death but be filled with the Spirit. In other words don't do it like the pagans do it, don't try to induce some kind of communion with pagan gods by drunkenness, we commune with our God, we experience His power through the filling of the Spirit, that's the contrast. The command, be being kept continuously filled with the Spirit, it's a continual thing people.

You know this may shock you a little bit but God is not interested in your future, did you know that? In one cent. You say, wait a minute, I'm big on the future, I, I, I'm big on prophecy and all that. Well that's fine. But God is not specifically concerned about your future for this reason; you'll never live in it. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that you've never gotten to the future? Every time you talk you're around to hear yourself. It's true. We like to think about the past, nostalgia, old furniture and stuff, we like to go backwards, dressing like the '20's again and all, we love the past and then on the other hand we love the future you know, space ships and Star Wars and, and all that kind of stuff and weird creatures and Ray Bradberry and Science Fiction, we love the future because the future we haven't blown yet. And we love the past because we can only remember the good, it's the present we're trying to get out of, but we never succeed, you've got to make it right here. And I guess that's the way it is in life, if you're going to be filled with the Spirit it isn't something you promise God you're going to do it's something you are or you aren't.

I always kind of relate it to my marriage, when ah, Patricia decided to say yes to me after I chased her around and kind of forced the issue, and she said all right, I don't know any other option so I'll marry you. Uhm, we decided to get married, I knew what my father would say to me, held say to me uhm, do you promise to love this woman till death do you part? Because he always says that. Do you promise to love this woman till death do you part? Well I mean you know that's a tough question to answer, right? I mean I really love her now, but I'm not sure what the future's going to hold, depends on how she handles herself, ha, ha. You know? I mean, I'm young, I don't know what to expect, but I'll love her now. So I remember I was just kind of anticipating this and at the wedding I was ... I want to be honest about this deal, I promise to love you till death do us part, you know that's hard to say because you don't know what the future may bring, so I covenant right in my heart that I just love her now, and I wouldn't worry about the future. And you know what? I'm still in that same now and I still love her. And you know she doesn't care about the future at all. I mean if she, if she comes to me and says, honey do you love me? She doesn't want to hear, check back in a couple of months and I'll let you know how I feel. Well ... or ah, or she doesn't want to hear, you know I'm planning on that, that's definitely in the plan, I, I am going to love you, it's, it's down there I can see it's coming. And God doesn't want to be treated the same way either.

God is not interested in your future commitments and God is not interested in your future love, God is only interested in your yieldedness to the Spirit of God now because this is the only time you'll ever live. Be being kept continually filled, that's the command. Then the consequences were third, remember? And we said there were three categories of consequence, first to ourselves, second toward God, and third toward others. Toward ourselves, singing, toward God, saying thanks, and toward others, what? Submitting.

And there was even a fourth, serving. We can talk about that if we have time this morning. But the point is this, when you live a Spirit filled life the over all consequence is blessing, compartmentalize first there's a personal consequence, singing. And what is this saying? A Spirit filled person has a heart filled with joy, right? And we've talked about that now for a couple of weeks. A Spirit filled person's heart literally overflows with a song. That's what happens inside of us, and he gets into all the details of that wonderful reality.

But let's go to the second category of consequence, toward God. A Spirit filled person is rightly related to himself, boy he's a whole, healthy, together person. I mean he can sing and rejoice and his heart is filled with song and it bursts out of him, why? Because he's controlled by the Spirit of God and he loses all of those things that tear up human personality, he's okay, he's together, he's got it made, he's right with God and, and that means he's right inside. But there's a second element and that's toward God, there's not only this tremendous sense of joy and rightness with self but a Spirit filled person turns toward God and inevitably the thing that happens is he says thanks, verse 20, this is the second consequence, "Giving thanks always for all things, unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Listen beloved, a Spirit filled, Christ conscious, Word filled, obedient faithful Christian gives thanks to God for everything. We started our service this morning, I read for you Psalm 100, "Enter into his gates with (what?) thanksgiving," why? Because that's the way you always enter God's presence. That's the way you always enter God's presence with thanksgiving. William Hendriksen says, "When a person prays without thanksgiving he has clipped the wings of prayer so that it cannot rise." We enter His gates with thanksgiving, "we enter his courts with praise. 0 be thankful unto him and bless his name."

Listen, I believe that a Spirit filled person is going to be one who says thanks to God. Now let me say something you maybe never thought of in this way, I'm convinced that the single greatest act of personal worship than you can render to God is to be thankful. That's right. That to me is the epitome of worship, not stained glass windows and organ music as nice as that is. Not sitting in church and singing great hymns. But the single most magnanimous, the highest and the best and the ultimate in worship is to have a thankful heart. That's the key. Because thanks ultimately crucifies self, thanks ultimately recognizes God as the source of everything, thanks always is able to say in the midst of anything, good or, or even difficult, God be praised, God be praised. Thanks sees beyond the circumstance to the plan of God, it sees beyond the pain to the sovereignty of God, it sees Romans 8:28, it sees "that all things work together for good to them that love God, and are called according to his purposes." It sees the hand of God in everything, the good and the difficult. And thanks is the ultimate act of praise because it says, God I thank You even for the hard times, I thank You even for those that die, I thank You even for a difficult marriage, I thank You even for a job that's unfulfilling, I, I thank You for everything because I know that it can be used for my good and its intention can be to conform me to Jesus Christ. Job said, "Naked came I into the world, and naked shall I leave." And that's okay, because "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away;" then what did he say? "Blessed be the name of the Lord." I thank You God when You give and I thank You God when you take, see?

Now that's maturity, that's a Spirit filled person. In Second Corinthians chapter 4 in verse 15 Paul says this, "For all things are for your sakes," in other words everything that God does is for you, sometimes it's a blessing and sometimes it's a trial blessing. But everything is for you, why? "That the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God."

In other words, now watch this, the ultimate goal is the glory of God, the means to the glory of God is thanksgiving, the means to thanksgiving are all things that God does in your life. For all things are for your sakes that you might be thankful to God so that He might be glorified. You glorify God by being thankful. You say, God this is to Your glory no matter how much it hurts, no matter what the pain or what the problem. And later on in Second Corinthians chapter 9 and verse 11, "Being enriched in everything to all bountifulness," why? Why does God enrich us, why is God bountiful to us, why? "Which causes through us thanksgiving to God." That's why. You see the ultimate expression of response to what God has done is thanksgiving. If you're a thankless person you've missed the point. The whole of our Christian life is to finally come to the place of thanksgiving. In verse 12 he even calls it, "abundant by many thanksgivings unto God." And then he closes the chapter by saying, "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift."

Listen, God has done all that God has done that we might be thankful to Him because when we thank God that gives Him glory because it recognizes Him as the source and sovereign of everything. And when you do that you're really giving Him glory, because He is.

Now, let's look at the text and see some questions that we can answer from this verse. What kind of thanksgiving is Paul after? First of all when are we to be thankful? Verse 20, "Giving thanks," what's the next word? "Always." When are we to be thankful then? Always. You say, you don't know my problem, it still says always. You don't know my wife, it still says always. You don't know my teenagers, it still says always. You don't know the lousy job I have, you don't know the dirty deal I get, you don't know what they did to me at that place, always, always, always, always. Why? Because this recognizes that God is in control of your life and that God is trying to conform you to the image of Christ with all the things that occur, and in all of those things you redound to God's glory in thanksgiving. And so it says, watch in First Thessalonians 5:18, a great statement, "In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." If you don't know what God's will is try that for a starter. Give thanks, give thanks, give thanks. This is the will of God.

Now go back to Ephesians 5:17, "Be not unwise but understanding what the will of the Lord is." Verse 20, "Giving thanks always." It's the same idea; God's will is that we be thankful. Shakespeare said, "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child. Ingratitude thou marble hearted fiend." Even Shakespeare recognized what it is to have ingratitude, think how God must feel. When God brings difficulties into our lives, when God brings trials into our lives and we gripe and complain and we don't understand the meaning of James 1 which says, when trials come into your life count it all joy because out of that trial God is going to bring a perfection and a maturing, see? You see we want to second guess God and we want to complain and we want to, we want to sort of grumble, and all the Bible asks of us is to be thankful so that God can do His perfect work. This is the will of God.

Now there are three categories of thankful people, and I'm going to see which one you fit in, okay? You give yourself this test. Number one, this is the easy part; there are those who are thankful after the blessing, right? You say, I'm one of those. That's the easy part, right? Sure. After God has just blessed you you're thankful. Oh, you know I was ill and the Lord touched my body now I'm well, I'm so thankful. Or you know we didn't know what we were going to do and then the Lord gave us a new home. Or well we lost a job and the Lord gave us ... After the blessing, there's always the people thankful after the blessing, that's the easy part, right? God has just unloaded on you and you say, oh thank You Lord. Easy part.

It's Biblical though, look at Exodus chapter 14, it's all right, God expects you to be thankful after the blessing, it would be terrible if you weren't. Do you remember that here are the children of Israel and they come to the Red Sea and Moses lifts up his staff and he goes like this over the Red Sea and the waters part and they walk across. Pharaoh says, well if they can do it we can do it, only they couldn't do it. Pharaoh marched the entire Egyptian Army into that thing and the walls closed down and drowned them all. Verse 28 of Exodus 14, "The waters returned, covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked on dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right side, and on their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore." The bodies all washed up. "Israel saw that great work which the Lord God did on the Egyptians: and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord and his servant Moses." And do you know what they did?

First of all they had a tremendous eternal joy and so it says in verse 1 of chapter 15, "Then sang." Right? They sang, "Moses and the children of Israel," and this was the song, "I will sing unto the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously: the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and song, and he is become my salvation; he is my God, and I wil1 prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a man of war; the Lord is his name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host has he cast into the sea;" and the song goes on and on and on all the way down to verse 19. This is singing after the blessing, oh thank You Lord, thank You for what You've done. Verse 11, "Who is like unto thee, 0 Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" Verse 18, "The Lord shall reign forever and ever."

You see this is this is thanks after the blessing. You find it in Revelation chapter 15 and it's a; wonderful picture, how the Lord comes in mighty judgment upon the earth that has been bathed in the blood bath known as the tribulation and the seven plagues are spewed out on the earth and there are some people in verse 2 who get the victory over the beast. There will be some people that the Antichrist will not destroy, "And they sing the song of Moses, the song of the Lamb, Great and marvelous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints." See? They sing after the victory is over, after the battle is won, after the conquering has been done.

Now listen people, this is a time for giving thanks, there are always some victories won, there are always some wars that have already been past, there are always some conquerings that have already been accomplished, there is always something which God has done, and we ought to say thanks after the blessing, but it's easy then, isn't it?

Let's go to - step two. This is the ability to give thanks before the battle begins, for the victory that you know is going to come, all right? First is after the fact, second is in anticipation of the fact.

Now this is where the people of faith come in. These are the people who believe God before anything happens; these are the people who are celebrating before the war. These are the people saying, Lord I see a problem coming, how wonderful. I'm going to believe You for victory in the midst of this, before it even gets there. This is Jesus, this is Jesus in John chapter 11 as He stands by the tomb of Lazarus, everybody around Him is crying, they're all weeping, He says, remove that stone, and Martha gets all upset about doing that. Verse 41, "Then they took the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me." Thank You Lord for what You are going to do.

Now that's faith, isn't it? And then He said, "Lazarus, come out." And he came out. Thanks in advance. Now people that's another level of spiritual maturity, that's the ability to say thanks before the thing really even unfolds. Are you one of those people who says thanks in advance? You see something coming and you can believe God for the victory before it even arrives? Can you say thanks like Jesus did in anticipation of death? Can you say I, I see a death in my family, I see a death of someone I love, thank You Lord, thank You that I know what's going to happen, he's going to come through in resurrection life. Can you be thankful in the face of death? I'll give you another one, look at this this is fabulous, Second Chronicles chapter 20, that's the Old Testament.

Second Chronicles chapter 20, this is really great. Now, God's people, Judah are about to have a war with a couple of real strong enemies, Ammon and Moab, the Ammonites and the Moabites. And they're getting ready for a wholesale war here, but Jehoshaphat is a pretty, pretty faithful man of prayer so he goes to the Lord and he just tells the Lord all about it. He says, Lord this is going to be Your battle, I mean I just can't handle this thing, we can't do it on our own, he bowed before God and he pours out his heart, and he says, Lord, You're going to have to do with these people, just what You did-when You drown the Egyptians, You're going to have to do some wondrous miracle, You're going to have to take care of this deal Lord, I can't handle this problem, I can see it coming, I can't handle it. And he got all done with his prayer and then he decided it's time to thank the Lord, and somebody might have said, well you're pretty ah, presumptuous there Jehoshaphat because we haven't had the battle yet. You're going to praise the Lord first? Yes, we're going to praise the Lord first in fact the first thing we're going to do is in verse 20, "And they rose early in the morning, and went forth to the wilderness of Tekoa; and as they went forth, Jehoshaphat stood and said, Hear me, 0 Judah, and ye inhabitants of Jerusalem. Believe in the Lord your God." All right, let's trust God from the very start. "So shall you be established; believe his prophets, so shall you prosper." All right? We're going to believe God for a victory we haven't even seen.

Now here's the first thing, "And when he had consulted with the people, he appointed singers to the Lord, who should praise the beauty of holiness, as they went out in front of the army, to say, Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth forever."

Listen, in Israel the Marines didn't land first the choir did. They came first because praise preceded the army, do you see? Lord how marvelous You are, we're going to win. I mean can you imagine those guys who spent all their life learning music and when it gets ready for the big war the first thing they hear is choir fall out, you're in front. Incredible, but that's exactly what happened. "And they began to sing, "maybe a little wobbly at first but they got it going, "They began to sing and praise, the Lord set an ambush against the children of Ammon, (Ammon and) Moab, and Mount Seir, who were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of Mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them; and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, everyone helped to destroy another."

Do you want to know something? This is, this is Jonestown they all killed each other, amazing. "And when Judah came toward the watchtower in the wilderness," that's ... that would be their camp, "they looked into the multitude, and, behold, there were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped." They came upon a whole pile of dead bodies. "And when Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away the spoil from them, they found among them in abundance both riches with the dead bodies, and precious jewels, which they stripped off for themselves, more than they could carry away; and they were three days in gathering the spoil, it was so much. And God had promised them the spoil of the land, so it was theirs by right. But don't you see what happened? They didn't even have to fight the war, they believed God and they gave God thanks and before the battle even started and the battle was theirs, do you see?

Now this is harder than after the fact, but God wants this too. God wants your thanksgiving before the battle even begins, and this is tough, this is the test of your spiritual maturity. When you crack up and fall apart in anticipation of the problem then you haven't reached this level yet. Thank God after the blessing, that's easy, thank God before the battle begins, that's harder, but the hardest of all, are you ready for the third one?

The hardest of all is to thank God in the midst of the battle, when it look like you're losing. That's tough. You can do it after the fact and you can do it in anticipation of, but can you do it right in the middle of it? Well, God's choice people have. The king set out a decree in the day of Daniel that nobody else should be wo