FOR THESE THINGS I LIVE - CV-02
Our Principle of ‘Power’
Ephesians 5:15-21
We are busy studying our way through a series in the Word of God that I have entitled "For These Things I Live". It is a study through the Core Values of His People Community Church.
So far we have looked at the first Core Values of His People Community Church - We are Christ Centered - Our Principle of Life.
This morning I want us to look at our second Core Value - not only are we Christ centered, but we are also SPIRIT FILLED - OUR PRINCIPLE OF POWER.
Please open your Bibles with me if you will to the book of Ephesians, chapter 5, and we will read together from verse 15-21.
PRAY - READ
Right up front I want to give you a few common errors that people often make when it comes to being filled with the Holy Spirit.
It is an emotional reality
This is probably the first thing that comes to mind for many of us. Around us all sorts of things happen in congregations that are moving in the things of the Holy Spirit and people laugh, cry, faint, wiggle, warble and whistle - and so we sometimes think that the filling of the Spirit is an emotional reality. Without stopping to pass judgment, allow me to say clearly that the filling of the Spirit is not primarily an emotional experience. There may be emotional consequences, but what I am talking about is not primarily an emotional experience.
It is for a certain group of people
The second misconception flows from the first. Because we hear of these unusual things happening, and because they don’t happen to every Christian, it’s easy to think that the filling of the Holy Spirit is reserved for some special class of super-Christians. It’s not true. The Bible clearly commands every Christian to "be filled with the Spirit."
It is controversial and therefore better off ignored
I would like to suggest that the filling of the Spirit is not controversial - it is simply a matter of obedience. In our passage the filling of the Spirit is in the imperative tense - that means that the filling of the Spirit is not an option, but an obligation! It is not something we can take or leave, it is not an experience for a certain group, it’s essential for all to be filled - it is our birth right, it is an act of obedience.
AN ILLUSTRATION
Let me paint a picture on the walls of your mind that might help your understanding, and the college students with us will be able to relate to this immediately.
It’s a Friday night. You’ve got just $35 to last you till next payday. You have a fairly hectic social calendar with a really nice party lined up but you need to put some gas in the car because your needle is just out of reserve, on the wrong side.
So here’s your dilemma . . . putting in as little gas as possible (but enough to get you around) and at the same time making sure you have enough money to spend when you are out. The trouble is, so often you end up running on empty.
Many people, yes even Christian people, I would suggest to you, life their lives that way. They will do enough to just keep going but they don’t want to spend to much time and money on Christian things when there are so many other exciting things to do. The trouble is, just like the student, they often end up pushing their cars because they are running on empty.
This morning I want to teach you how to ‘drive under the influence’.
The greatest untapped energy in our world does not lie in the oil fields of Kuwait, or the offshore deep sea wells in the Pacific, but in the untapped power and gifts God has given you in the Holy Spirit.
Let’s go back to our key text - Ephesians 5:18.
I want to give it to you in several different translations:
"Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit" [NIV].
"Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, let the Holy Spirit fill and control you." [NLV]
"Don’t drink too much wine. That cheapens your life. Drink the Spirit of God, huge draughts of him." [TM]
WHAT THE FILLING IS
What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? That’s a good question and I am really glad you asked.
The Bible juxtapositions its command to be filled with the Spirit next to a powerful word picture. "Do not be drunk with wine but be filled with the Holy Spirit." When someone is drunk, intoxicated with alcohol, they are under its power and control. Their speech is affected, they walk noticeably differently.
Someone has said that what God wants is for us to be intoxicated with Him.
Gods desire is that we should be animated by the power of the Holy Spirit, intoxicated, controlled by Him alone. Why? Because that is your source of strength and your power. That is our PRINCIPLE OF POWER. I was intimidated by the presence of man until I became animated by the power of God.
So what does it mean to be filling by the Holy Spirit? It means you have come to that place in your life where you have submitted to His Lordship, surrendered control of your life to Him. Why must you be filled with the Spirit? You must be filled with the Spirit because you are controlled by what fills you.
If a man is filled with anger, than anger controls his life.
If a man is filled with greed, then greed dominates his life.
If a man is filled with lust, then lust governs his life.
If a man is filled with love, then love influences all he does.
And if a man is filled with the Holy Spirit, he is controlled by the Spirit - it is, if you will, "control by consent."
So here’s the question: "Am I going to cooperate with the Holy Spirit and let him lead me or I am going to keep on trying to do things my own way?"
Believers who are not controlled by the Spirit do not loose the Spirit because they are sealed unto the day of redemption (Eph. 1:14) but they loose the fulness or the manifestation of the Spirit.
Believers who are not surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus Christ do not loose the Jesus Christ. He promised never to leave them or forsake them, but they loose the fulness or the blessings that come from obedience.
Three things you need to know about the being filled with the Spirit, and they come from the Greek construction of our verse..
It is a Command - it is something that we must do
It is Continuous - it is something that must happen continually.
It is in the Passive - we cannot do it for ourselves
If we were water glasses, we could set ourselves under the faucet, but we could not turn the water on. This concept implies an act of submission on our part to the work of the Holy Spirit. In the same way that we must allow the Holy Spirit to do the filling, by a simple act of our wills, and likewise we can also stop the Holy Spirit from filling us. This is a sad but true diagnosis of the lives of most Christians today. Ephesians 5:18 is in the passive voice. He doesn’t say, "Fill yourself with the Spirit" but rather "Be filled with the Spirit." That’s a bit hard to understand. It’s like saying to someone, "Be loved." How do you do that? How do you "be loved?" You cannot. But you can make yourself available, put yourself in the place to be loved. So with the Spirit.
WHAT THE FILLING IS
WHAT THE FILLING IS NOT
I want to clear up a little bit of misunderstanding here that I sometimes come across - and it is simply, for the most part anyway, a definition of terms. I have heard people use these distinctive terms interchangeably, and used to do so myself, but to loose the clarity of the distinctiveness is to loose the impact of the meaning.
INDWELLING OF THE SPIRIT
John 14:17 "that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you."
John 20:22 "And He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit."
This every single believer has.
THE BAPTISM IN THE SPIRIT
Acts 8:12 "But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike."
Acts 8:14-17 "Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For He had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit."
This every believer can have.
THE ANOINTING OF THE SPIRIT
The anointing of the Spirit is special unction given you by the Holy Spirit for specific purposes and ministries.
Isaiah 61:1 "The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor."
I John 2:27 "As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him."
WHAT THE FILLING IS
WHAT THE FILLING IS NOT
WHAT THE FILLING WILL ACCOMPLISH
In essence, the filling will accomplish the manifestation of Christ by the Holy Spirit. You have Christ, but many times He is simply not manifest. You got Jesus when you got saved, you got the Spirit when you got saved. You are simply learning how to put yourself in a place where He can manifest Himself to you and through you. What does that manifestation look like?
IT WILL REPLACE YOUR DEATH WITH HIS LIFE
God is a God of life - not death. The only place you get life is from God. Who breathed into man’s nostrils so that he became a living spirit? Who is the only way, the truth and the life? Coke nothing - God adds life.
Now there will always be the death crowd in the church - who fail to understand the life principle of God. They walk around and they take gloom wherever they go. This is how you can tell them.
There is always something wrong with what has happened, no matter how right it is. No matter how well you do it, they will tell you what you did wrong. After the big We Still Pray rally, one of the biggest rallies that God has ever birthed in Asheville, God used me as part of that team that birthed it, I had somebody from this death squad come to me and speak death. He said to me, "I just want you to know that preached against you last Sunday." Why? Because I do not use the 1611 KJV. Watch the death squad, they speak death. Ask Elijah about Jezebel and the death squad.
They always tell you about their need, no matter how much God blessing them. They do not talk about blessings, but about their need.
They are always pleading with God for things He has already given them, but they have simply not received. They got the package, they just never opened it. "Oh God, we beseech Thee that thou wouldst save our souls from the captivity of sin, and transform us by the renewing of our minds." Well what the heck are you praying that for. God’s already done that stupid - just walk in it. Open it. Receive it. If you going to ask God for something, at least ask Him for something He has not already given you.
They are in every group of believers and they always speak death and not life, failure and not success, defeat and not victory. What they need is to be filled. Don’t hang with the death group, they breed death.
IT WILL REPLACE YOUR WEAKNESS WITH HIS STRENGTH
Some people read the verse that says in our weakness He is made strong, and all they got is their weakness, they have not got His ‘strong’. He is not manifest to them or in them.
Moses finally got this when he got arguing with God about whether his weak was going to be more powerful than God’s strong. Listen to me - God’s got a bunch of strong - as a matter off act - He’s got more strong than you ever dreamed possible. When you get filled, that’s what you get.
IT WILL REPLACE YOUR TALENTS WITH HIS GIFTS
Too many times I see Christians, precious born again believers - and the lid on their ministry is their ability. What they need is the filling.
IT WILL REPLACE YOUR UNDERSTANDING WITH HIS REVELATION
How many times have you not been limited by the level of your understanding? When you get filled, you are governed not by human consideration, but by divine revelation.
And when God gives you revelation from His Word, you got something to eat. When God gives you revelation, there will be bread on the table, and if there is bread on the table, there will be fruit on the tree.
The key word to all of this that comes from the filling of the Spirit is the word ‘receive’. Do you realize that what controls what you receive from God is what you believe about God. The source is God, but the gateway of your blessing is how much you receive.
Here’s the principle - WHAT YOU BELIEVE, YOU RECEIVE - WITHIN THE GAMBIT OF HIS PROMISES.
"Be it unto you according to your faith."
Matthew 10:44 "He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward; and he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward."
James 1:21 "Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls."
Hebrews 4:16 "Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."
Being filled with the Spirit is the normal Christian experience. We must be filled continuously, consciously and conspicuously.
Is there anybody here this morning who recognizes that you are empty? Does anybody understand that what you believe, you receive, and want to exercise the option of faith this morning, and believe?
Let us pray.
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