Worthily, Walk Of God's Calling (Ephesians 4:1-6) Series

Over the past few weeks, we've spent a lot of time talking about God's once-mysterious plan for the entire created order. This plan can be understood in a couple different ways. One, would be that God is creating one family, made up of all different types of people, who live in peace with him, and peace with each other. Another way of talking about God's plan, is to say that God is building a new temple, the church. When God made the church his new temple on earth, He changed things, so that we have access to God everywhere. More than that, God is with us, in a special way, everywhere. And how is God's presence among us, and in us? It's through his Holy Spirit, in particular.

Now, all of this is something we already experience. But Paul also talks about all of this, as something that can be even more so. We are God's temple, and God lives in us, and among us. But we can be a better home for God's Spirit. God can fill us more completely. God can be with us, more completely. And we have the Holy Spirit. But we can be more empowered through his Spirit, so that we are strengthened in our faithfulness, and better anchored in our faith. We can be more enlightened by the Spirit, so that we understand God's big cosmic plan, and our own role in that. Basically, in a word, there is more that God would like to give. God wants to fill the church with all of his fullness. And last week, we cheated ahead to Ephesians 5:18, where Paul commands the church, "Be filled with the Holy Spirit."

How can we be filled with this fullness? How can we be filled with Holy Spirit? If God would like to give us more, how can we get this "more" from God?

I think the answer isn't very complicated. Part of it, though, is very costly.

Usually, I think the first step to receiving this "more" from God, to being filled with the Holy Spirit, is to yield yourself entirely to God, and to His Holy Spirit. There's a surrender that each one of makes, where we give up the entirety of who we are to God, and give him ownership and control. Usually, we do this in prayer. We tell God something like this, "God, I yield myself entirely to you. I yield my family, and my finances, and my job. I surrender everything to you. I give it to you. I give my life to you, to use as you wish." And when you pray something like that to God, you might find that you catch yourself at some point. As you work your way through the things in life that are important to you, you'll find that there's something you'd really rather not surrender to God. That one thing, in particular, is really important to you. And maybe, your voice catches as you yield that to God, because you know it's something that God might actually take from you. You suspect that if you willingly gave God total control over your life, He would very quickly take that one particular thing from you. For me, that one particular thing is my job at [ ]. Most of the time when I pray this prayer, and yield my job to God, I feel this sense of pain and loss. Maybe that sounds cold-blooded, being able to happily surrender everyone and everything else in life, except my job. But my job is a gift from God in many ways, and I'd really rather not lose that gift. And my guess is that the men here, at least, get it. When Jesus called Peter, and he left his job, Peter is giving up the hardest thing. And the fact that his job involved fishing off a boat... it's every North Dakotan's worst nightmare come true.

So the first step to receiving more from God, is to yield yourself entirely from God. Basically, you empty yourself out, so that there's nothing left. And when you're going through this process of surrendering to God, and telling him specifically, "I give you my spouse, and my parents, and my kids, and my money, and my job, and the entirety of myself-- if, at some point in that, you find your words catching, because you really don't want to surrender that particular thing-- that's the thing you probably have to surrender the most. Yielding stuff doesn't mean that God will take it. But yielding, means allowing him to take it.

The second step to receiving more from God, is to ask. Paul has told us that God has made available all of the spiritual blessings in the heavens. He's held nothing back. But, at the same time, we haven't necessarily received all of those blessings. And that's why Paul prays for the church. He asks. Paul asks God to give the Ephesians the Spirit of wisdom and Revelation, so that their hearts would be enlightened. Paul asks God to give his Holy Spirit, in an apparently bigger and more powerful and more full way, so that the Ephesians can be empowered for faithfulness.