Please take your Bible this morning and turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 this morning. We will continue our series this morning on gratitude and we're moving towards a conclusion this morning, but I want you to, or in the next couple weeks, but this morning I want you to see from Ephesians 5 something about gratitude's practice. How do we actually go about practicing gratitude? It is only by the Spirit. And to remind you of where we've been, we began the first Sunday of November speaking about how gratitude is God's will. And so many people stress and many people wonder, what is God's will for me? Well, ultimately, God's will for us as believers is sanctification. It is a growing Christ-likeness. And what part of that involves is our gratitude. For in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, Paul instructs us in everything to give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. for you. And then we spent the second week in this series going through Psalm 103. And in Psalm 103 we talked about the direction of our gratitude. It's got to be pointed somewhere. And so many people will celebrate Thanksgiving this week and will recognize that they are thankful But to whom are they thankful? And to some degree, it might be to certain individuals in the room or certain bosses or teachers or something like that. But on the whole, people express kind of a blind gratitude. But the Christian's gratitude is far different. The Christian's gratitude is directed toward God. And so David says in Psalm 103, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. He is calling his soul to, he's grabbing himself by the lapels, if you will, to bless the Lord, because his own nature would fight against that. But as a believer, as a God follower, as a Christ follower, we are to bless the Lord. We are to give thanks to Him. And then last week we saw that the source of any believers gratitude ultimately lies in Christ and we saw that from Luke 17 as ten lepers were healed by Jesus and Jesus said go and show yourself to the priest in other words indicating that they had been made clean or cleansed well Nine of them continue going to the priest, having been healed, but one of them turns back and gives thanks to Jesus. And Jesus takes it a step further than just the physical healing and says that your faith has made you whole, or well, or saved. And there's a differentiation between the word for cleansed and the word for saved, well or whole, in Luke 17, verse 19. And so all of that helps us to understand that salvation, the changing of one's heart, the changing of one's desires, is what makes someone, what makes it possible for someone to be a grateful person. And then this morning what I want us to see from Ephesians 5 is how that gratitude is lived out in the life of a Christian, the practice of gratitude. Ephesians chapter 5, and let's begin reading in verse 1. Ephesians chapter 5 beginning in verse number 1. Paul writes here, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness or foolish talk or crude joking which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure or who is covetous, that is, an idolater, has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the lord Walk as children of light for the fruit of light is bound in all that is good and right and true And try to discern what is pleasing to the lord take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness But instead expose them for it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret But when anything is exposed to the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully, then, how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 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 and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. This concludes the reading of God's Word. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word. Thank you for its truth. We pray now that as we come to it and we seek to study it and to understand its meaning to its original readers and to us, we ask that you'd help us now, I pray, by your Spirit, by your grace, convict us of sin, empty us of self, and fill us with your Spirit so that we might please you in all of our ways. We thank you, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. City of Ephesus was a truly fascinating city. And you can read more of that, of course, in history and also in Acts chapter 19. But it was a huge city, and it acted as an epicenter for worship of most of the Greek and Roman gods. For over two years, Paul had an effective ministry presence there, and many were brought to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Years later, though, after being imprisoned in Rome, he wrote this important letter to the churches there. And this letter to the Ephesians is divided into two halves. Chapters 1 through 3 are primarily doctrinal. That is, they tell the story of the gospel. How is it that one has been made right with God? And Paul spends a lot of time diving into that, that it's because of God's election, God's choosing of sinners to himself. It is because Sinners have been made right with God by the blood of the cross. It is though because they were sinners they have been made right with God. God who is rich in mercy for the great love with which he loved us sent his died in our place, sent his son to die in our place so that we could be made right with him. And so chapters 1 through 3 are those doctrinal passages. But then the second half of Ephesians deals with the practical implications of the gospel being received. And it's not that chapters 4 through 6 are not doctrinal, but that they primarily focus on the implications of the gospel. And that important division is marked in chapter 4, verse 1. If you look at the text, chapter 1, chapter over, chapter 4, verse 1, you can see there that Paul says, therefore I, the prisoner of the Lord, implore you, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called." And so that exhortation is similar to that that he gave to other churches that he wrote to. Consider the letter to the Colossians, when he says, As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. He says in chapter 1 verse 10 of Colossians that you are to walk in a manner worthy or pleasing to the Lord. And so that same exhortation is given here. We see it in verse 1 for instance when he says, therefore be imitators of God as dear children, as beloved children. A little bit of the King James slips out every now and then. Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children. In other words, you are to live your lives in accordance with God, mimicking in a sense, in all the right ways, mimicking him as beloved children. How do we do that? How are those who are loved by God who are saved by God. How are we to do that? Well, verse 2, it says, walk in love. And the term walk is used three times in the passage we have read. We're told in verse 2. Look at the text, verse 2, walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and a sacrifice to God. And then we're told in verse 8, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. walk as children of light. And then the third time Paul uses this, and he speaks of our walk as our daily life, our daily walk as Christians, is verse 15. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise. So the Christian life, the Christian walk is characterized by a love for Christ, a walk that is characterized by light and spiritual truth, and then it is a walk of wisdom. And Paul flushes out what that walk in wisdom looks like in verses 16 and 17. It's first making the best use of the time, right? God has given each of us a life to live. And we are to use our lives, we are to be good stewards of our lives. Why? Well, verse 16 says, because the days are evil. We live in a broken and wicked culture. And so our lives are to be used as stewards of God's glory to be seen in the world. The days are evil. But then secondly, in verse 17, We are also, this is also part of our walk is to understand what the will of God is. And I already stated for you before that part of what God's will is is that we be thankful people. And he touches on that several times in this chapter, doesn't he? Where he mentions thanksgiving or thankfulness, gratitude in those ways. But how is that possible? How does it work its way out? Well, I think we need to back up and we're gonna focus our attention on verses 18 through 21 this morning. And the first thing that we see, the first thing is this command to be filled with the Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit. And this is essential. If we are to be people that are thankful, among other things, but if we are to be thankful people, it is because we are following this command to be filled with the Spirit. Look at verse 18. and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit." So this command here is passive. So that is not that we do all the work in this, but it's still a command. It is something that the Spirit is doing, filling us, but it is something of which we must also have an active role to play. It is this command. The command is to be filled with the Spirit. So what is it to be filled with the Spirit? What is that? What does that mean? What are we talking about? Well, sometimes being filled with the Spirit is something that God did for a particular person, for a particular place and time, and a particular responsibility that they had. So for instance, right, we're in the book of Judges on Wednesday night, and we've seen several times, even most recently with Samson, that the Spirit of the Lord stirred him. Chapter 13, verse 25, Manoah's wife gave birth to Samson, and the Lord stirred him in the womb. And he was stirred, chapter 13 of Judges verse 5, because he was going to begin to save the people from the hand of the Philistines. So he was stirred by the Spirit for a particular purpose. And we see that many times throughout the Old Testament as the Holy Spirit comes on someone. It is different than the New Testament understanding of the Spirit's indwelling of the believer. Think about John the Baptist, who was also filled with the Spirit from his mother's womb. Or the Apostle Paul, who was filled with the Spirit when he was on Cyprus confronting a man who was telling false things to the governor. And we see that other times where the Holy Spirit fills in the sense of equipping men or women for offices in the church. And here we see something that is not entirely disconnected from that, but it is something that's part of the ordinary Christian life. And surprisingly, if you were, let's back up, if I was to ask you to describe being filled with the Spirit, how would you think to describe that? You could give a number of different things to try to come up with ways, and yet Paul's is maybe different than what all of us would initially run to. And what Paul does here in verse 18 is he likens being filled with the Spirit to being drunk. So that's interesting. He says, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but, it's a contrastive command, but instead be filled with the spirit. And there are similarities and differences between being drunk and the spirit filling. So, think with me for a moment about drunkenness. What happens when someone is drunk? Well, drunkenness happens, this seems elementary, but follow with me. Drunkenness happens when excessive alcoholic beverages comes from outside a person to inside a person and it takes over them. We call it being under the influence. It's this idea of being taken over. People do and say all kinds of things when they are drunk that they would not otherwise say or do. We know this is because of the dulling of our natural inhibitions. There is not stimulation, but a dulling. Yet nevertheless, from the outside, it appears that something is coming and taking them over. More than that, drunkenness happens progressively. It's not like, for most people, you take one drink and you're just gone. But it happens progressively, slowly. In addition, those who are drunk do not stay drunk indefinitely. When someone reaches that state, if they stop drinking, it begins to wear off and they sober up. Okay, so what's the point? The point is that being filled with the Spirit has similar qualities to that. To be filled with the Spirit means, first of all, that you are under the influence of the Spirit. It means to be under the influence of the Spirit. It means to be controlled by the Spirit of God in every area of our life, including our thoughts, and our words, and our actions, and our relationships, in our work, in our schoolwork, and our emotions, all of life. It's how we respond in all circumstances, responding like Christ, because we're filled with the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit means that He is the controlling force in our lives, so that we, as a result of being filled with the Spirit, know true joy, know true peace, We know victory over sin. We know how we ought to live for the Lord, and we rejoice in that. And rejoice not in a way that's self-seeking or self-serving, but in a way that honors God. To be filled with the Spirit is to have a love for the things that God loves, and a hatred for the things that God hates. You get the picture here, but that isn't all. There's also a contrast to drunkenness. This is also crucial. Because drunkenness results in what, according to the text? What does it result in? What's the word there? If you're using an English Standard Version, it's the word debauchery. Right? It leads to debauchery. What is that? Well, debauchery is an extreme indulgence. If you're reading a King James Version, it's the word excess there. It leads to an excess. It leads to an extreme indulgence of sinful desires and pleasures. Getting drunk is sin. So, sidebar here, drinking is not sin. Okay, so different people have different convictions about this, but drinking is not sin. So we ought to, as Christians, be careful about calling something sin, that God is not called sin. Drinking is not sin. Drunkenness is sin. So, for some, it may be really unwise to drink at all, because it may lead there quite naturally for you. Especially those who have a problem of alcoholism or drunkenness in the past, it may be unwise for you to drink at all. And that's a sidebar, and Proverbs speaks a lot about the wisdom in that. But this is not a command to refrain from drinking. This is a command against drunkenness. So if you're drunk, you're in sin. And that is just as much a sin as fornication and adultery, as stealing and lying and anything else. Murder, it's on the same par. You say, whoa, I mean, I guess I knew that, but I didn't know that. Drunkenness is a sin, and it ought to be repented of and turned from. But the point here is that in the same way that this drunkenness, it takes over us, it takes over our natural desires and leads to more sin, there is a contrast to that. Because being filled with the Spirit does not lead to further sin, but rather being filled with the Spirit strengthens our self-control and leads to godliness. And so, drunkenness leads to further sin and further being out of control. But being filled with the Spirit helps us to express our thoughts and our feelings and our desires in a healthy and proper and useful way. And that requires control. So being filled with the Spirit with our emotions and desires and all that doesn't mean that just the floodgates are open and our emotions and desires run wild wherever they want. And that can happen for all of us. We can, depending on who we are, our personalities and things, that can happen more easily than for others. But someone who is seeking to be filled with the spirit is someone who has strength under control. Strength is a good thing, right? All of us want to be strong, no one wants to be weak, but strength is not a great thing when it's used to wrestle a toddler. And you're stronger and bigger, and it can produce major harm. Control is necessary. And so what the Spirit does is He strengthens our control in such a way that's foundational for all the other fruit of the Spirit. And note, not fruits, plural, but the fruit, singular. In Galatians 5, it is identified as singular fruit. Love, and joy, and peace, and patience, and gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control, all of that. Foundationally, those traits are produced by someone who's being filled with the Spirit. In other words, they have their lives under the control of the Spirit. Why is it that I react sometimes the way that I do? Why is it that I don't respond in a loving way? Why is it that I'm impatient? Why is it that I have no sense of self-control? Why is it that I'm not as gentle as I ought to be? It is simply because my life is not being under the control of the Spirit as it ought to be. That's the bottom line answer. So for those of us who find ourselves often out of control, impatient, unkind, unloving, We need to not try harder to be loving and patient and kind and all of that. Those are good things in a sense, but we ought to seek the Spirit's filling. We ought to be under the control of the Spirit, and I'll help you understand more of that in a bit of how we get there. But lives that are lived under the control of the Spirit produce that kind of behavior. It's the result of, it is the result of the Spirit's filling. The Spirit builds up and strengthens our self-control, unlike drunkenness that destroys it. And it's not only that the Holy Spirit controls us, but He strengthens our control over us. Drunkenness exposes your natural sinful desires. But being filled with the spirit produces godly desires. It produces a new way. A drunk person, when finally sobered up and they see perhaps the destruction they caused to their car or the destruction to someone's life, they say, you know, that wasn't me. I was drunk. I was just out of my mind. That wasn't me. That's not who I am. The problem is that's exactly who you are. It's just exposing who you are underneath. And here's the encouragement. You're not the only one. You may be the only one drunk in that moment, but you're not the only one that has those problems. It's just exposing them for all to see. Being filled with the Spirit, then, doesn't merely expose our sinful desires, but it exposes them in such a way that We know the grace of God to overcome those sinful desires. Where God's spirit actually is fit for every occasion and he changes our desires so the things that we, and this is a struggle, right? Paul says in Romans 7 that the things that I don't wanna do, I end up doing. So this ongoing struggle with the spirit and the flesh is a very real one. But it's one that we must continue to fight. The struggle is very much real, but if it continues to, if it goes beyond the struggle, where we're just giving in to our sin, then we're not living filled with the Spirit. So a Spirit-filled person says, by God's help, I'm going to live controlled, controlled emotions, that help me to respond in a way that is fit for every occasion. The Spirit is the one, He is the person that helps us to do that. And it's really important for us to also understand that this only applies to Christians. In a sense, this text only applies to Christians. Now, if you're not a Christian, there is application for you, and I'll try to flesh that out more as well, but this is something that only happens for believers. So perhaps the reason that you don't know the Spirit's filling, you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't know that at all, it may be because you don't know Christ. So let me call you to repent of your sins and believe on Christ. Believe the gospel, the good news. It is sufficient to save your soul. Not merely to help you live a better life now and help you be moral and good and do all kinds of... That won't help you. What's going to help you is the gospel. Because when the gospel comes to us, it comes and it changes our desires so that we actually desire God's things. The natural person does not desire the things of the Spirit of God for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he understand them because they're spiritually discerned. So if the things of God are spiritually discerned, It is the Spirit that is helping us to discern them, and by us I mean believers. And the Holy Spirit does this in such a way that He helps us to put to death the old man, the old sinful nature, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. So connected to this then, the Spirit's filling is different than merely the reception of the Spirit at the new birth. This is clear from various places in scripture, but in Acts chapter 2 verse 38, when Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost, he says, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So we need to understand, those of you with Pentecostal background, that there is not some second blessing. There is not some second blessing that you need to work to. The Holy Spirit is given to every believer when they become a Christian. And yet, we are all like leaky buckets who are continually needing to be filled with the Spirit, continually. The filling of the Spirit then is also not a status. It is possible through good habits and conviction to be established in a sense where you are living out the fruit of the Spirit. But being filled with the Spirit is not a status that you reach at a certain point and then you're no longer one who needs to be filled with the Spirit. Again, we're like leaky buckets who need to be continually filled and refilled. Also, there are varying degrees to which we would be filled with the Spirit. It's not like you're either filled or you're not. Just like there are varying degrees of drunkenness, right? So then, obedience to this command to be filled with the Spirit is a daily exercise. It is a daily exercise of prayer and fasting and meditation on the Word of God so that He fills us with Himself. We need to do this if we will ever know true joy and true peace and true usefulness and true progress in the Christian life. It requires this Spirit filling. And as the Spirit fills us, He applies more and more of the character of Christ in us so that we do know true joy and love and peace and confidence. in Him, so we need to seek this filling daily and zealously. We need to pray for this, that God would fill us with His Spirit. So, we'll come back more to that in a bit. So, the command is, be filled with the Spirit. What does it look like for someone to be filled with the Spirit? That comes to point number two. What are the marks of being filled with the Spirit. The marks of being Spirit-filled. The marks of being Spirit-filled. There are four marks that Paul mentions here in his letter to the Ephesians that are essential for our understanding. Okay, so the command, be filled with the Spirit, what would that look like? These four marks provide us something to aim at, in a sense, as we seek to walk by the Spirit. First of all, letter eight is word-soaked fellowship. word-soaked fellowship. If you look at the text in verse 19, he uses this word addressing, which if you're using a King James specifically, maybe in other translations, it says speaking. So speaking or addressing one another. And if you look at it, it says addressing one another in psalms. And so I'm going to stop right there. There's some debate as to what exactly the psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are. Some would conclude that this would include only singing scripture or only singing psalms because some would argue that these are just variations of of different words that describe the Psalms, and I understand the argument, I wouldn't agree fully, but the fact that he mentions the Psalms here, I think, speaks to the fact that you're addressing one another with scripture, or scriptural truth. The larger principle here is that those who are filled with God's Spirit are also those who are filled with the Word of God. And we are filled with the Word of God in such a way that it flows almost seamlessly out to one another in the ways that we encourage one another, in the ways that we speak to one another and about one another. To be filled with the Spirit is to address one another, to speak to one another. And there's a parallel passage to this that is so helpful. So I want you to hold your place here and turn over to Colossians chapter 3. Colossians chapter 3 when we work through the book of Colossians We were in this passage a little more closely, but I want us to look at this again Colossians chapter 3 verses 15 through 17 Colossians chapter 3 verses 15 through 17 we know that these are parallel passages because Paul essentially mirrors each thought of Each passage and you'll see that here Colossians chapter 3 and verses 15 through 17 Paul writes here in Colossians chapter 3, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you are called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. So, if you can kind of flip back and forth between both passages here, keeping your finger there, when you're looking at the passages, the only difference that you should notice really here is that being filled with the Spirit in the Colossians passage is being likened to allowing the Word of Christ to dwell in us richly. So in verse 16, let the Word of Christ dwell in us richly. And here he says in verse 19 of Ephesians 5, addressing one another. And that addressing of one another is rooted in the fact that we have been so filled with the Word of God. We have been so filled with His Word that it's dwelling in us richly. So, in other words, to have the Word of God dwelling in you richly is to be under the control of the Spirit, to be filled with the Spirit. So, when we as believers are saturated by the Word of God and controlled by the Spirit, it means that the Bible is shaping your thinking. So, is the Bible, believer, this morning I'm talking to you, is the Bible shaping the way that you think? Because if the Bible is shaping your way of thinking, God is at the center of everything. If you're saturated with the Word of God, you have a God-centered perspective on life. So there's this marvelous sense in which you could say, here is my worldview in a nutshell. From Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. And the more saturated with the Word I am, the more under the influence of the Spirit I am, therefore the Spirit is informing my decisions with scriptural backing. So I am living my life under the control of God's Word because the Spirit speaks through the Word. Holy men of God speak as they were moved, as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit, 1 Peter tells us. So if the Holy Spirit has given this Word so that we would know God, then we, if we are to know God, if we are to be filled with the Spirit, must know the Word. So how is your Bible knowledge? I mean, really, how well do you know your Bible? How well can you rehearse its truth to yourself? Because knowing God's Word keeps us from sin. It helps us, even in our sin, to come back to the Lord. You must know the Bible. And I have such great concern, and I'm obviously not the only one, but it's such great concern that Christians, especially in the United States of America and the West, do not know the Bible very well. And we should not grow discouraged because so-and-so knows more of the Bible than me. Rather, it ought to motivate us. Lord, help me to know your word. Help me read your word, help me study your word. We are to be diligent to present ourselves as one approved to God, a worker who has no need, no right to be dismayed or discouraged, ashamed. We are to work to know God's word. Does this make sense? If God's at the center of my life because His word's at the center of my life, how I respond in situations is going to be different. At least it ought to be. Or, at the very least, there ought to be the recognition that my responses are not correct, and they need correcting. Second thing, the second mark here is that there is singing from the heart. singing from the heart. Verse 19, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. And Colossians 3 essentially says the same thing, singing to one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. So he's speaking about corporate worship, yes, but I think there's also an individual aspect of this, that singing is what God's people do. So there ought to be in our lives and in our church more singing, not less singing. And there ought to be a focus on singing. So yes, special music and choir numbers are wonderful. I enjoy them. I think they're great. And I'd like to work some more of those kinds of things into our services. There's nothing wrong with that. But corporate worship of all of us singing to one another is a really important aspect of our worship. Singing, by the way, is a command. You do not have the right to not sing in corporate worship. Not if you will be biblical. And you say, but I can't sing. The Lord understands that. I'm not talking about you who has a hard time actually using your voice. I'm talking about people that are sick, people that are struggling to get the words out, or if you don't know the song and you're just learning. I'm not being a legalist here. Well, I am saying God calls us to sing. and God calls us to sing joyfully because we've been redeemed. We should want to sing, but I don't like singing, my voice isn't great. You know the passage, make a joyful noise to the Lord. Not make a great noise. Some of us don't, I won. That's why I'm so embarrassed at times when I had the mic on and I'm singing and you're like, oh, y'all heard that. But God commands us to sing. So, you refusing to sing is disobedience. On par with any other kind of disobedience. On par with refusing to share the gospel. On par with lying and deception and hatred and all the rest. If God commands us to do something and we don't do it, it is sin. So how do we actually become a singing people? Do we just try harder? No. We seek to be filled with the Spirit and the Spirit fills our hearts and our minds and our voices with so much joy that we can't help but sing. We want to sing. This is not some, well, we just gotta listen to Pastor Dan and follow the rules around here and sing. No! If you do it for that reason, you're missing it entirely and you're not listening. You sing because the Spirit has given you a song to sing. The focus here then is on the purity of our singing, the purity of our worship, the status of our heart. Look at the end of verse 19. He says, from your heart to the Lord. A pure heart is needed in our singing. And so this goes to the opposite side of the extreme where we can do the outward singing, the outward motions of it, and yet like the Pharisees, our hearts are far away. Our hearts need to be in tune with what God's Word says. And that happens as the Spirit fills us with His grace, and with His joy, and with His peace, so that we want to sing and we sing from the purity of our hearts. Hearts that truly desire the things that we're singing. And are there times where we're singing a song and we're going, I'm not sure that I believe that at this moment. I'm singing about God's goodness, and I'm singing about His love, and yet in this moment I feel quite a lack of that. Certainly. Because that's natural and human. So do we just say, well, oh well. No. We say, God, I'm singing these songs and I want them to be true. I know they are true intellectually, but my heart is struggling in saying these words because I don't feel that. Our feelings change, God doesn't, and God will help if you pray that kind of prayer. God help me. Third. Third mark is our thankfulness. The thought that we've been giving our attention to in this series is our thankfulness. And so we're finally getting there in verse 20. Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. You understand that as Christians we have this moral duty to give thanks. Now, we have to be careful with that because that can quickly go to legalism. But our moral duty, as in God has commanded us to be thankful, therefore we have a duty to be thankful. It is a decision, it is a duty, it is an act of our volition or our will, certainly. But it is a command from God, so we have a duty to do it, but it's also a delight. A delight to give thanks. And we looked last week at 1 Corinthians chapter 1 and Philippians chapter 1, as Paul gave thanks to others. He certainly is a model of thankfulness to us. I wanted to go to several of those passages, but for the sake of time, we'll just say that those are wonderful models and examples. And so I encourage you. to look at the Pauline letters in the New Testament as examples of giving thanks to God and giving thanks to others. Paul is clear here about how often we ought to give thanks. How often? He says, give thanks always. All the time. We've seen this before. Give thanks in all circumstances. This means that regularly, constantly, consistently, consciously, characteristically, I'm giving thanks. Always, all of the time, I am to give thanks. That is God's will. And it goes more than just saying thank you to God or thank you to others, which, by the way, we all need help in. Because we do not say verbally, out loud, thank you nearly enough. When someone does something, instinctively, thank you. Thanks for helping me. This ought to be a rapid response from our hearts, and not just perfunctory like we're just doing it, but that it's truly in our hearts that we are thankful. So how do you do that? How do you get there? You be filled with the Spirit. The Spirit produces that in us. So if you are not regularly thankful, then you need to pray and ask God to help you to be a thankful person. To be one who's filled with the Spirit so that the Spirit overflows that into thanksgiving. What's interesting here is, what are we to be thankful for? For what? What are the next three words in the verse? And for everything. We, like the first Thessalonians passage, give thanks in all circumstances. Here, he takes it a step further. For all circumstances. For all things. So, thankful for my trials? Yes. Thankful for brokenness? How can I be thankful for that? Because God is still working. And I don't know how. I don't see that. And yet, scripture commands me to give thanks for everything. Because it's in everything that God is still working together all things, one, according to the counsel of His own will, Ephesians 1.11, and for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose, Romans 8.28. For everything. All circumstances. And this is also a good thing because we know that every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. It comes down from the Father of lights with whom there's no variation or shadow due to change. If our Father knows how to feed the birds and clothe them and all of that, how much more does our Heavenly Father do that for us? God takes care of us. He meets our needs. We're to be thankful for all of God's benefits. Bless the Lord and forget not all of His benefits. We should be thankful for all these things because make no mistake about it, they are the way in which God is teaching us to trust Him. So my trials are actually designed by a good God who desires my holiness. And so we can give thanks for everything. and in everything. And then to whom? To whom are we to be thankful? Look at the text. He says that we are to give thanks to God the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus. And this is all underneath the category of being filled with the Spirit. So this is Trinitarian here. It's to God the Father, through Jesus Christ, and by the Holy Spirit. This doesn't disregard the difficulties of life, but it says whether we live good days or bad days, whether there's hardship or good things, we're seeing everything through the lens of a good and heavenly Father who desires His glory and my good, giving thanks always and for everything. A life of gratitude is one that is lived under the control of the Spirit. The fourth mark, letter D, is an ordered submission to authority. And ordered submission to authority. Verse 21. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Now, you need to understand context is king. Okay? Context is so important here. To what is Paul referring? Because when he says submitting to one another, does that mean we're just looking to bow down to everybody and give all kinds of reverence to everybody? I don't think that's what he's talking about here. Because in the context, Paul goes on in the rest of chapter 5 to speak about relationships at home, specifically, and between employees and employers. Same thing that Colossians chapter 3 does. Speaks about husbands, wives, children, employers, employees. I think with the context there, I think this verse is a bridge verse to that. And he's not so much saying that we need mutual submission, but rather as individuals and as a church, we need to be submissive to the authorities, the rightful authorities in our lives. That includes the government, that includes at the church, that includes in our families, that includes at work, school, wherever it is. This applies to everybody, no matter where the authorities, and we all have authorities over us. We need to be willing to submit to those authorities. And apparently, this is something that a spirit-filled and spirit-controlled person does. So, if we're unwilling to submit to the authorities in our lives, what it indicates is an unwillingness to be filled with the Spirit. And I think this is important for us. Because even Jesus modeled this kind of thing in his own life. He said, when he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, not my will but yours be done. He says, I came not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me. He said it many, many times. That in His human nature, He submitted to the Father, though equal as God submitted to His authority. We see this even in Jesus as He submitted to His earthly parents. In Luke chapter 2, Jesus, we're told, submitted to His parents as they took Him down to Jerusalem. He submitted to them, he honored them, says that he was filled with the Spirit without measure as he submitted to his parents. What am I saying? All of that... Rebellion to lawful authority, unless there's a direct contradiction in the Scripture, unless the Scripture says something and they're contradicting that, a rebellion isn't a godly thing. Someone who's filled with the spirit humbly and joyfully submits to those authorities in their lives. Why? Because the authority is better than them? No. But because God has given that authority in their life. So children ought to obey their parents. Employees ought to follow the directions of their boss. Wives should submit to husbands and husbands should lay down their life for their wife. That's been started to submit to God, by the way, and that as well. These are just some of the marks that Paul mentions here, four of them. A person's life will be remarkably different if they're filled with a spirit. So, brothers and sisters, believers, do you see the marks of the spirits filling in your life? Are you increasingly one who Is fellowshipping with your brothers and sisters in a way that's soaked in the Word of God? Is the way that you talk to one another and what you say corresponding with God's Word? How much of your conversation involves the Bible? How much of your conversation truly and literally involves some kind of scriptures and principles, truth? Are you one who serves God from the heart? Are you one who sings in corporate worship and individual worship from a heart that's submitted to God? Are you a thankful person more and more? And are you submitting to the authorities that are in your life? These are the marks of the Spirit's work, and there ought to be a righteous discontentment for a desire for more and more of this Spirit's filling if you don't see these marks in your life. Paul is laying them out here, not to discourage you from where you failed, but to encourage you to have a hunger for more of these, so that you would pursue living life by the Spirit. So let's conclude and wrap up with some application this morning. Number one is, if we are to be filled with the Spirit, we must daily seek God through prayer and the Scriptures, with reliance on the Spirit. Daily, every day, we are reading God's Word, we're soaking it in, we're praying over it, praying for God's help, praying for God's direction, praying for His strength, relying on the Lord. Secondly, closely tied to this, is that we're actually submitting to what God's Word teaches, and we know what God's Word teaches by spending time with Him. And then when we do know what God's Word is teaching us, we are submissive to it. This is not a feeling, but rather this is a consistent and constant choice, a yielding our lives to be in accordance with the scripture. So practical implications of that would include that I'm not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but so much the more as you see the day drawing near, Hebrews chapter 10. It means that I'm not forsaking the gathering of the church. It means also that I'm not neglecting to pray for the Spirit's work in my life and in my heart. It means that I'm not neglecting His principles and truth when I'm faced with a decision that has me at sort of a crossroads. It means that I'm living above the ethical lines, that I'm living my life in bounds, and many, many more. Third, I want to talk about applications specifically to Thanksgiving because without a doubt we will gather at some point this week or next or whatever to celebrate with family, friends for Thanksgiving as we celebrate here in the U.S. So it's a good time to be thankful, to be publicly thankful. How do we do that? I want to tell you that we need to trust that God is good. So often the reason we're not as thankful as we ought to be along with not being filled with the Spirit, is that we're not trusting that God is actually good, that God actually provides, that He actually will take care of us. Do not be anxious for anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, Secondly, about this, is that we consciously need to give thanks to God and to others. We consciously need to be thinking that way. As we're trusting God's goodness and we see ways in which we're being helped by the Lord and others, we ought to consciously give thanks. Be always thankful. And you ought to say the words. I really think that there's something important about saying the words out loud. Not just, oh thanks, appreciate it. But no, truly a heartfelt, deep thank you. Third is remembering God's benefits, remembering what He's done, remembering who He is, and then it's also clinging to His love. So often the reason we're not thankful is that we doubt God's love. Well, being filled with the Spirit helps us to understand the deepness of God's love and produce that love out toward others. But all of this will not help any of you if you are not a believer. And so fourth main application this morning is that you need, if you don't know Christ, you need to repent of your sins and believe Him, believe the gospel. The gospel is the good news that Jesus came, lived a perfect sinless life, died on the cross for sinners just like you. and on the third day rose from the dead and was gloriously ascended to his Father." We need to believe that. Turn from your sin, turn away from it, confess it, forsake it. The Bible says that he who confesses and forsakes his sin will have mercy. So we're putting it away and we're trusting Jesus. This being filled with the Spirit is how we actually practice gratitude. We will practice it. It will happen, inevitably. It just, it will happen. As we're being filled with the Spirit. If we're not thankful people, it's because we're not being filled with the Spirit. So be filled with the Spirit. Seek the Spirit through prayer and the Word. This is all kind of a circular thing. But when you get back to what the basics of the Christian life are, you're going to respond in gratitude. Let's pray. Our Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for its truth. We thank you how it teaches us more of you. Lord, help us to be filled with your spirit so that we will walk by your spirit and not fill the desires of our flesh. Help us not to be drunk with wine or drunk with anything else that would seek to control us. but help us to be controlled by the Spirit, so that we would live how you desire us to live, that we would think your thoughts after you, that we would speak your word to others and to ourselves and to you. Lord, thank you for your word. We ask that you'd apply it now richly and deeply to our hearts. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.