Ephesians 5:18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be constantly filled with the Holy Spirit,
1. Note the contrast between wine and the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will change your life!
Paul mentions a number of practical things related to the filling of the Spirit:
Wisdom for living in this evil age (vv. 15-16). Understanding of God’s will (v. 17). A joyful heart filled with singing to the Lord (v. 19) A heart filled with thanksgiving (v. 20). An attitude of mutual submission (v. 21).
2. This is a command.
The filling of the Spirit isn’t an optional part of the Christian life.
Every Christian is to be filled with the Spirit all of the time. If you aren’t, you are out of God’s will.
3. It is in the present tense.
We need to be filled again and again
4. It is in the passive voice.
To be “be filled” means that the filling of the Spirit is a work of God, not man or woman.
1. The Holy Spirit is ready and willing to fill us at any moment. 2. We must make ourselves available to him.
5. It is a plural command.
God intends—and desires—that all his children be filled with the Holy Spirit.
The church as a church is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit fills us one by one, our corporate life will be transformed.
We need the filling of the Spirit not simply for ourselves but for the reformation and revival of local churches everywhere.
The issue of Control
The filling of the Spirit is what happens when the Holy Spirit has the controlling interest in your life.
It is “control by consent”
Being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn’t mean I have more of the Spirit, it means the Spirit has more of me.
The issue of Cooperation
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?
The issue of Contact
His power is always available
The filling of the Spirit: It is that state in which the Holy Spirit is free to do all that he came into my life to do.
We are continually to be controlled by the Spirit, cooperating with the Spirit, and in contact with the Spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:19-22 (ESV) Do not quench the Spirit. 20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. 22 Abstain from every form of evil.
Quench not the spirit in the present imperative means to stop doing it or not to have the habit of doing it.
Galatians 5:17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Prophecy in the New Testament can mean the spoken word. But more often it refers to the written words of Scripture.
God’s Word is not to be treated lightly, but rather taken seriously.
But prophecy is also the preaching and teaching of the written word.
Acts 17:11b (NCV) The Bereans were eager to hear what Paul and Silas said and studied the Scriptures every day to find out if these things were true.
3 John 11 ‘Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God’
Don’t Grieve The Holy Spirit
Ephesians 4:29-32 (ESV) 29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
The Spirit, who is the divine cause of reconciliation and unity in the body, is especially grieved when unwholesome speech is uttered by members against one another.
The Spirit is grieved when God’s people continue in any of the sins that divide and destroy the unity of the body.
As is fitting for those who have stripped off what belongs to the old man or woman, anger in all its forms and the vices associated with it are to be removed totally from Believers.
Colossians 3:8 (ESV) But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.
In both Old and New Testaments the term most frequently referred to ‘speech against God’, and therefore was rendered ‘blasphemy’.
Against others it has the sense of defamation and covers any type of slander, either by lies or gossip.
Believers are urged to ‘be kind to one another, compassionate, and forgiving each other’.
This does not come naturally and cannot be produced from one’s innate resources; it is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22).
We, who are Christians, are to be tenderhearted, which will mean being sympathetic to the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
We are to forgive each other, and that forgiveness is to be worked out in our ongoing relationships.
Some Christians are so full of themselves, they have no room for the Holy Spirit. Some Christians have simply closed their heart to the work of the Holy Spirit.
” It’s not the people “out there” that need to be revived by God’s Spirit. It’s you and it’s me.
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