taking your scriptures, turn with me to Psalm 63 for our Old Testament reading. And then we have a few verses to read as we continue with Paul through Ephesians. As you hear Psalm 63, listen to the joy that is set upon things, not of the earth, but in the Lord God. Let us pray. Father, we do pray this morning that it would please you to give us ears to hear. Father, so many things in us stand ready to be a resistance to what you will say. Father, we confess we have many weaknesses, both of the body and of the spirit. but there is no weakness in you. Father, we are easily hardened by something that puts us out of sort, something our eye lands upon or our heart retrieves or our mind ponders. There is no hardness in you, O God, towards your elect people. We pray that you would give us then, Father, according to the measure of your grace, of your mercy. Give us Lord the ability to hear you today unhindered. Let us believe what we hear and take full responsibility to make application of it in this new life that you have made for us in Jesus Christ through your spirit. In his name we pray, amen. Psalm 63. The reading is the chapter. A Psalm of David when he was in the wilderness of Judah. Oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. My flesh faints for you as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary beholding your power and glory. Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live. In your name, I will lift up my hands. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. And my mouth will praise you with joyful lips when I remember you upon my bed and meditate on you in the watches of the night. For you have been my help. And in the shadow of your wings, I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. But those who seek to destroy my life shall go down into the depths of the earth. They shall be given over to the power of the sword. They shall be a portion for jackals, but the king shall rejoice in God. All who swear by him shall exalt, for the mouths of liars will be stopped. Ephesians 5 now. The reading is at verse 18. through 21. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery. but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always for everything to God, the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ." God's word. Living here, in Northeast Wisconsin, you and I are surrounded by more drunkenness than the people of any other state in the union. A study published in 2018, how about 2018? I just did a leap, that was hyperspeed. 2018, this study came out. It listed the 10 drunkest cities in America. Number 10, Mankato, Minnesota. Number 9, Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Number 8, Ames, Iowa. Number 7, Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Now remember, these are the 10 drunkest cities in all 50 states. Number six, La Crosse, Wisconsin. Number five, Fargo, North Dakota. Number four, Madison, Wisconsin. Number three, Green Bay, Wisconsin. Number two, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. And number one, Appleton, Wisconsin. Appleton, Oshkosh, Green Bay. This means that a lot of people living close to where you live are slaves to the devil, in the grip of sin, and right now on their way to hell. For scripture says clearly that drunkards will not inherit the kingdom of God. 1 Corinthians 6.10. Not only drunkards, of course, but drunkards certainly will not escape the wrath to come, even if they're jolly, The average Wisconsinite consumes 634 drinks a year, which is 150 more than the national average. Wisconsin also has an extraordinary number of bars. Almost every state of the 50 has more grocery stores than bars. But not Wisconsin, we have 2.7 times bars more than grocery stores. In fact, there is one bar for every 1,900 people in our state. Compare that to Tennessee, where there is one bar for every 19,000 people. Or Virginia, where there is one bar for every 64,000 people. We have one for every 1,900. We stand out in this state for our love of drinking, especially Northeast Wisconsin. And if we stand out for our drinking too much, it means we also stand out for all of the corruptions that thrive in the shadows of drunkenness. Proverbs 20 verse one says, wine is a mocker, strong drink, a brawler. This means when under the influence of alcohol, we mock things that are good and we quarrel over little things. Proverbs 23, 29 says the drunkard has strife. This means when under the influence of alcohol, we create conflict with people we ought to be at peace with. Proverbs 23, 33 says, the heart of the drunkard utters perverse things. This means, as Matthew Henry said so well, when drunk, we say things contrary to reason, contrary to religion, and contrary to common civility. We speak what we would be ashamed to speak if we were sober, close quote. And then Isaiah 511 adds this, woe to those who rise early in the morning that they may run after strong drink who tarry late into the evening as wine inflames them. They have lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feast, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord or see the work of his hands. This means people who drink too much are definitely having a good time. Isaiah sees that. But they are also under God's judgment and do not know that. Woe to them, he says. They do not think about God in a serious way. They do not think about God's work of salvation. They do not think about how God was humiliated in his son to deliver them from sin. They do not think about God's new creation by pouring out his spirit. They do not think about what pleases the Lord. People who love to drink do not love to speak of Christ to their friends or to their family. nor can they. What we all need to hear about alcohol and what we actually all need to say to one another about alcohol is what we hear Paul say in our text. Do not get drunk with wine for that is debauchery. We all need to hear a strong prohibition. We all need to speak a strong prohibition. One of the common speeches a father and mother are found giving in the book of Proverbs to the children is to not get drunk. Regular household conversation, a strong prohibition against drunkenness. If you wanna hear a mother say it, go to Proverbs 31. for homework this afternoon. Now, Paul says it is debauchery. Literally, this word means what cannot be saved. That's the literal Greek translation of debauchery, which is why some translations of this verse use the word dissipation. Now, debauchery, dissipation, you know, it still leaves us a little bit in a cloud, I think. But understand that beneath the word is this literal Greek that says, what cannot be saved, which means that when you are drinking too much, and that becomes your lifestyle, or even incidentally, it means that you are not keeping your life together for its true purpose. You're not saving your life for what it was made for. You are actually dissipating your life. You are Wasting your life would be a good translation. Your life is falling apart. Your life is being squandered. Whether it's slow or quick, drunkenness drains the life out of you. Just like draining out a bank account. Who among you would give somebody all of your private login information and tell them to drain your bank account? Well, drinkers, heavy drinkers are doing that very thing with something more precious than their bank account, their own life. It drains away our attraction to the mercies of Christ. It drains away our will to live a religious life. Too much drinking drains away our resolve to fight against sin. It drains away our ability to speak of Christ to others. Go to a drinking party where there's Christians. 9.9 times out of 10, they are not speaking of Christ. Go to the drinking party where Jesus went, and that's all they spoke about. And he was not drunk. Too much drinking drains away your ambition for the kingdom. and it drains away for sure your ability to pray. So what we need to hear about alcohol, what we need to say about alcohol is this strong prohibition against any drunkenness. Drunkenness is as forbidden as is sexual immorality. And it should be just as scandalous to us, but it is not to your neighbors. To your neighbors, sexual immorality still remains more scandalous than drunkenness. We know that because people cover up their sexual immorality. There's something still alight in their conscience where they know they shouldn't broadcast their affairs and infidelities on Facebook, but they will broadcast their being wasted. This is where you live, and this may be who you are. So we need a strong prohibition. Drunkenness is a scandalous sin. Drunkenness is never okay. It is offensive to God. In fact, being under the control of alcohol, instead of under the control of God, robs God of the life you owe to him, your own life. Scripture says to the Christian, You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. 1 Corinthians 6.20. What price? Well, in another place, scripture says, Christ died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised. 2 Corinthians 5.13. By our Lord's death, He paid the price to liberate us from the life sin and the devil and the world wanted to keep us bound to. Which life is that? A life of self-indulgence. A life where we could only live for ourselves, which means a life where we would only devour ourselves and then end up still under condemnation. Christ died to liberate us from a life of self-devouring and self-indulgence, to live a new life of the new man. He released us from our debt of sin so that we could now live unto God. Now we have to deal with an important question. If drunkenness is so destructive, why doesn't Paul just forbid all drinking? Why not take this more seriously, Paul, and just forbid the drinking of any alcohol in the churches of Christ? Well, the answer why he does not comes to us in two steps. First, alcohol cannot be forbidden because it is a gift of God, blessed by God. If we think otherwise, we are thinking not like God's Word to us. but we are making stuff up as we modulate and try to deal with the behaviors of fallen men. We do not learn our morals from the behavior of fallen men. We learn them from the word of God. Yes? Alcohol is a gift of God and it is blessed by God. Psalm 104, Verse 15 says, God gave wine to gladden the heart of man. Who would say that's an error? In scripture, there are 247 references to alcohol. Only 40 of them are negative. One is in our text today. There are 145 of those which are absolutely positive. And 67 are neutral. So what's a neutral reference to alcohol? Well, somebody being falsely accused of being a drunk, like our Lord. In Mark 9, 43, Jesus said something that we should all remember. Though drinking is never forbidden by God, and though drunkenness is forbidden, that means some of us some of you will have to forbid yourselves to drink for the kingdom. In Mark 9.43, our Savior said, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands go to hell to the unquenchable fire. Mark 9.43. Now that's a strong figure of speech. Our Lord is urging you not to fool around with anything that has previously been enslavement to you as sin. Don't fool around with it. It is better for you to spend the rest of your life dry and not become an apostate. And the Lord will give you grace to do it. So it is true that drinking is not forbidden, drunkenness is forbidden, and some, maybe more than we know, should forbid it to themselves. Now second, the second reason Paul does not forbid all drinking is because the end of drunkenness is no victory in itself. This is very important. The Apostle Paul would never declare victory. He would never plant his flag if he could get an entire city to have no drunks anymore. He wouldn't even call for the flag. In fact, morality without Christ is damnation, right? Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees, and they knew, those Pharisees, they knew very well how to clean themselves up on the outside. Our Lord said to them, you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. Matthew 23, 27. The least drunk city in the United States, is Salt Lake City, where the deity of Christ is denied by the largest population of any city in the world. So you see there is a drunkenness that does not need alcohol, right? And that's the drunkenness of pride. That's what our Lord was speaking about. People who were not drunk but thought themselves righteous. And they were drunk in another way. Drunk with pride, the intoxication of self-righteousness which refuses to embrace the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It is a pride which refuses to glory in the cross of Christ. There are indeed people who can truly say, I have my drinking under control. But they cannot say, I am controlled by the Spirit of God. They cannot say God's Spirit gives me joy in Jesus Christ. They can easily and naturally speak of their own works, but they cannot speak of God's works in His Son through His Spirit. Romans 14, 17 says, the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. So please do listen. There is forgiveness and righteousness and peace for any drunk who comes to Christ. Go and find the oldest, longest drunk you know, and you have complete authority to say that to him. There is forgiveness, there is righteousness, and there is peace for any drunk who comes to Christ. Whether you are a drunk on wine or a drunk on pride, the blood of Christ will cleanse you of all your sin and make you new. but there is no forgiveness for anyone who only comes to sobriety. There is no gospel for somebody who will only go so far as sobriety. Jesus said in John 6, 63, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. which means your own ability to stay sober does not earn you eternal life with God. It is God's spirit who brings eternal life to you by bringing Christ to you and bringing you to Christ. So Paul says, do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit. See, he's not just a moralist who wants men to stop drinking so they don't ruin his property at 2 a.m. on their way home from the bar. He is a gospel minister. He wants souls saved and kept in the Word of God. So, be filled with the Spirit. That is the privilege of those who belong to Christ as Savior. Instead of being controlled by wine, they are to be controlled by God's Spirit. That's the juxtaposition of the text that Paul wants us to see. Now this does not mean we drink God's Spirit up from a literal cup. This does not mean we tap into God's Spirit through some sort of meditation where we try to get out of ourselves. That's not what he means. This does not mean that we put headphones on and Christian music will fill us up with God's Spirit. Now what this means, be filled with the Spirit, is let the Holy Spirit control you by giving you a clear sight of the great worth of Jesus Christ. Galatians 4.6 says, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. To be filled with the Spirit is to be gripped and constrained and compelled and controlled by the glory of Jesus Christ, your Savior. Notice in verse 19, it is Jesus to whom we sing. In verse 20, it is Jesus through whom we give thanks. In verse 21, it is the fear of Jesus which compels us to submit to one another. Do you see what Paul's thinking is like? Those verses, 19, 20, 21, those are all results of being filled with the Spirit. There's one verb, and it's be filled, and everything after it are participles of result. The singing, the making of melody, the admonishing or addressing, the submitting, those are all participles showing the results of being filled with the Spirit, but they are all actions directed towards the person of Jesus Christ. So you cannot be filled with the Spirit in reference to the Spirit. You're filled with the Spirit in reference to Jesus Christ, which requires faith and hearing and believing. So the Spirit persuades us to serve Christ. This is Paul's teaching in this passage. The Spirit persuades us to serve Christ in specific acts of devotion in his church. That's someone who is filled with the Spirit. And I say in his church because Paul says in verse 19, we will be addressing one another. with Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. And he says in verse 21, we will be submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. You cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit without a church. So to be filled with the Spirit, and this might be exhilarating, what I'm about to say, or disappointing. To be filled with the Spirit means We are, doesn't mean, doesn't mean we are excited. It means rather that we are committed to God's praise in the midst of God's people. Committed to serve Christ with a sincere joy in his church manifested in song and thanks. Committed to do our part in filling the ears of other Christians with praises to Christ our King. I hope this is a relief to you, that to be filled with the Spirit does not mean you're excited. It should be a relief to you, because we often get this idea that to be filled with the Spirit is to have like a certain mood or a certain vibe about us. Sometimes we'll see somebody talking to a fellow Christian who's very cheerful, and when that cheerful person walks away, that Christian will say, boy, she's really filled with the Spirit. Or we might hear someone give us this idea that to be filled with the Spirit is a private experience that no one can comprehend, not even the one who says they're filled with the Spirit. But Paul shows us here that neither of these ideas are true. It's not a mood. It's not just effervescence of personality. It's not a private experience that somehow falls on us when we least expect it. To be filled with the Spirit results in gathering with the church, singing to Christ, giving thanks to God through Christ, together, together, one another. Why together? Because the gospel has not just become my wine of gladness. The gospel is your wine of gladness too. It's the wine of gladness to all believers. And so we all desire to come together and put in one another's ears the joy we have in the gospel of God's son. The gospel is the libation of our holy drinking party. That's right. that sinners like us are forever loved by God in Christ should be more than a little intoxicating in the most holy ways. Remember what we heard when we read Psalm 63 a while ago. Your steadfast love is better than life. Now, I have to admit, If one of my girls came home from high school and said, dad, I met this boy. His steadfast love is better than life to me. I'm sure I would say, well, could you just go do your homework and we'll talk about it later. But listen to those words. To whom can we say them and not be fools? To the Lord God. To whom can we say them and not be idolaters? the living God. Your steadfast love is better than life. My lips praise you. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food and my mouth will praise you with joyful lips. Those are joyful passions. Those are the joyful passions of love. Those are the joyful passions of sinners who know they are kept by God and the bonds of holy love. You see, the more you know your sin, the more you walk around like an awestruck lover who's been loved. If you know not much sin, Jesus said, you love not much. He said that to a wicked wanton woman who had come out of sin and wept on his feet at a dinner party. So this is why the church wants to sing together. The gospel has loosened our hearts like wine. The gospel has loosened our hearts from worry. The gospel has loosened our hearts from hopelessness. The gospel has loosened our hearts from bitterness, from dread, from the fear that we hated, were hated by God or that we were maybe contemptible to God. The gospel has loosened our hearts from all of that tightness that we aren't loved, that we deserve hatred forever. The gospel has become our joy, it's become our mirth, and it is to us what alcohol is to those who love drinking parties. Remember the words from Isaiah 5. He said, those wicked excessive drinkers, quote, rose early in the morning to run after strong drink. Here we are. Early in the morning to run after the strong drink of the gospel. Isaiah said those wicked, excessive drinkers, quote, tarried late into the evening as wine inflames them. The Lord's people all over this country will be gathering in the evening worship of God to take more of the drink of the gospel. Isaiah then said they have, quote, lyre and harp, tambourine and flute and wine at their feast, but they do not regard the deeds of the Lord or see the work of his hands. Well, here we are, we have our own feast, we have our own instrument, and we don't forget the deeds of the Lord because we are drinking from the goblet of the gladdening gospel. I want you to understand This is why the people of God have always been commanded to sing. Maybe you've never really known why Christians sing as much as they do. We sing because God has brought us to joy in the free gospel of his son. God is worthy when He is in the presence of His people assembled, when they are before His face, He is worthy of their joy and they present it through song. It's the joy of the gospel that drives the singing of the church since the very beginning. In a fascinating section in Romans 15, Paul is explaining that it was always God's purpose to bring the Gentiles, those people living in the lands of darkness, it was always God's purpose to bring the Gentiles to joy in God through the gospel of His Son. And in that passage of Romans 15, Paul in three verses quotes three Old Testament passages to make his point, and in each of the passages he quotes, they speak about the nation singing to God because of the gospel. Now, Paul didn't choose those passages because he is musically inclined. For all we know, he sang as badly as I. but he chose those passages because he was teaching that it was always God's purpose to bring the Gentiles to joy in the gospel of the son, not simply to sort of a raw forgiveness. Of course there's forgiveness, but we are a people made for joy in the gospel of God's son. And so we are to sing. It's the same reason our Savior sings. Hebrews 2.12 says, and this is words on our Savior's mouth, I will tell of your name to my brothers. He'll tell the name of the Father to his redeemed brethren. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. He sings because the work of the gospel brings him joy. Now we have to remember, this is why we sing. If we don't remember that this is why we sing, we will suffer substantially in our Christian life. Our interest in the worship of God will suffer substantially. Our children's interest in the worship of God will suffer substantially, and perhaps any one of us will suffer fatally if we forget why we sing. Thomas Manton took this up in his commentary on James He said, quote, most people sing from habit and in a formal perfunctory manner, meaning they just do it so that they don't embarrass themselves. And so nobody can say they didn't do it. It's a legalistic singing. He adds, the devil usually takes advantage of this to draw people of uncertain faith to a type of atheism. When they do not know the reason for singing, they are all the sooner won over to the neglect of it. And we begin to slowly teach our heart that there really is no joy in the gospel. And we soon are people seeking joy outside the gospel. I appreciate that Manton calls singing a spiritual recreation. What a fitting term for the expression of joy that God's people bring. Now next Lord's Day, I am going to raise and answer the question for the whole message, what does the church sing? And we're gonna be right back in this passage, looking at it alongside Colossians 3.16, where the passage says, Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. So that's coming next Lord's Day. But I want to close by asking you to think with me about two different life stories taking place in Wisconsin. In the first, a child grows up seeing her parents at their happiest when they are drinking a lot. That's when dad seems easy to get along with. That's when mom seems less bitter when they are drinking a lot. And what does this child learn? She learns that her parents' highest gladness is limited to the things of this world. She learns that her parents' greatest happiness is in the works of man because she sees them getting happy drunk at a wedding. getting happy drunk at a ball game, getting happy drunk at a funeral, getting happy drunk on a nice day, getting happy drunk camping or at the cabin, getting happy drunk with other people who are willing to get happy drunk with them. All the happiness, though, she learns is in the earth. And so she will grow maybe to think happiness is only in the earth. All of them are fatally enslaved. to a present evil age. Now think about another child. She grows up seeing her parents happiest when they are speaking of the Lord in the gospel. When they are washing away each other's sins in the home with the gospel. When dad gathers the family to sing in the home, maybe not worthy of a recording, but worthy of the joy of the gospel. And this child grows up knowing and believing because of the intensity that mom and dad put on getting to the assembly of God's people on the Lord's day to sing praise to God. She grows up learning that the true gladness of life is not something that can be seen in the earth, but believed in the word of God, the gospel of God's son. So I close with a simple point. Drunkenness is debauchery, but the most spirit-filled people on the earth are those who sing songs to Christ and the assembly of God's people. Let us pray. Our gracious God and Father, we confess that we have taken too little joy from the gospel of your son. because we have thought we've had too little sin to be forgiven much. Father, we pray for your forgiving grace to us, your children. Forgive us, Father, for looking upon the gospel as a legalist might, something that we just want to make sure we have the facts right so we can pass the test, and we turn the gospel into a rule We pray that we would indeed, Father, look upon it for all of its steel-hard-straight propositions and relish in them, but also look upon it as a bottomless well of joy meant to guard your people against seeking a gladness in a bottle, seeking a gladness in some luxury or leisure of the earth, seeking a gladness in some performance of theirs and vocation or competition. Father, we pray that you would take us all by the heart and give us a clearer sight of the glory of your son so that we would not be a people who are inebriated with trifling joys of this present evil age. And Father, we pray for everyone and anyone of your people who is tempted to drunkenness, tempted by anxiety, tempted by worry, tempted by despair, tempted by frivolity and amusement, tempted by a manner of making themselves accepted among friends, tempted by all these things, we pray for a severing cut in the hearts of your people, that they would indeed come out of the world for the glory of Jesus Christ and so be sent back in it to be a useful salt and light to a joy that cannot be taken. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.