Our scripture reading this afternoon is taken from Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five, and we'll read the first 21 verses. Begin at verse one. 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 covetedness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor 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 in God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. And 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 found in all that is good. and right and true. And try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfaithful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the thing that they do in secret. But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible. For anything that becomes visible is light. And therefore it says, a wake-up sleeper 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. And 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 Holy 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 reference for Christ. So far the reading of God's most holy word. Our text is verse 18. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Beloved congregation, our Lord Jesus Christ, there are certain things that you pick up from a conversation, sometimes through your reading, some comment that kind of sticks in your mind. And I don't know who said it or where I heard it, but someone made this comment, that if we would grow physically at the same rate as we grow spiritually, many of us would still be in the playpen. If we would grow physically at the same rate that we grow spiritually, many of us would still be in the playpen. Isn't it true that our spiritual growth is very often very slow? We are often mere infants in our faith and in our love for the Lord. We're sometimes so slow in obeying his will. Our spiritual immaturity is often evident in our lack of love for God and our neighbor. It's evident in our selfishness, our pride, our jealousy, unable to get along with other people. You see, if we want to grow spiritually, what we need is to be filled with the Spirit. One of my seminary professors, Professor Hookama, wrote a book on the Holy Spirit, and he said this, such fullness, to be filled with the Holy Spirit, such fullness, he says, is the most important key to victorious Christian living, and to be a radiant Christian witness. You must be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now last Sunday was Pentecost, And I thought that this afternoon we would benefit from a message about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and that is our theme for this afternoon, be filled with the Spirit. And the first thing that we note is that this is a command. It's an urgent command. Secondly, we will see that this is something that involves A lifelong process. It's a continuous process throughout our lives. Thirdly, we will see that it involves submission to the Holy Spirit. And finally, it results in victorious living. First of all then, we note that this is an urgent command. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And now it's important to note that the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to people who were already believers. In his greeting in chapters 1, verse 1, for example, Paul writes to the saints who are in Ephesus, saints, believers, and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. Now, you can only be a believer, you can only be someone who is faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have been born again by the power of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 8 verse 9, for example, we read, now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. Without the Holy Spirit, no one can belong to Christ. 1 Corinthians 12 verse 3, we read that no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. In other words, you cannot confess that Jesus is your Lord and Savior except by the Holy Spirit. And in verse 13 of that same chapter we read, for by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and all have been made to drink into one spirit. Every believer, ever since Adam, right until today, May 27, 2018, every believer is baptized into the body of Christ. by the Holy Spirit. You see, the point is that when Paul wrote this letter to the saints in Ephesus, they were already faithful in the Lord Jesus Christ. They already possessed the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They were born again Christians. So the question is not whether A believer has or does not have the Holy Spirit, whether we're born again or not. No, if we are believers, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. We are His temple. But it is possible to have the Holy Spirit live in us and not be filled with the Holy Spirit. For example, the Bible teaches very clearly that we can grieve the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4 verse 30. We can quench the Holy Spirit, 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19. Quench means we can put out the fire, the power of the Holy Spirit, or we can resist the Spirit by not fully submitting to the will of the Spirit. We can rebel, Isaiah 63 verse 10, we can rebel, we can grieve the Holy Spirit. And so the question is, the question that you and I must answer this afternoon is, are you and I filled with the Holy Spirit? And that's not a question that we can ignore, we cannot shove it aside, because here in our text it is a command, be filled. Not something that you can wait for. It's not some kind of post-emotional, post-conversion emotional experience. It's not something that we have to wait for. No, this is a command. You and I can and should act on it at once. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, in the second place, What does it mean to be filled by the Holy Spirit? And we shall see that it is a continuous process. When I studied this expression, how it is used throughout Scripture to be filled with the Spirit, the context shows that it is used in two different ways. First of all, in some instances it is used when a believer faces a very difficult situation. or has a particular task, that it requires extraordinary gifts or skills. Perhaps it takes an extra amount of boldness and courage. For example, we have an example of that in Acts 4, verse 8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, And in that context, Peter gives a speech to the Sanhedrin. Try to just picture that scene, Peter standing in front of the 71 members of the Sanhedrin, and he preached a very powerful step sermon in their presence. You see, the reason for that, of course, was that in chapter three, we read how Peter had preached a powerful sermon from the steps of the temple, and he had been arrested. for preaching this sermon. And then in Acts 4, we read that they had to appear before the rulers, the elders, the scribes, Annas, the high priest, Caiaphas, and others. You see, beloved, those are the same powerful people, the highest and the most feared religious people at that time. They were the same people who had conspired and arrested Jesus and crucified Him on trumped-up charges. Now imagine, if you and I had to appear before that kind of a body of people, would we not have been shaken in our boots, but not Peter? Remember, just a few days earlier, Peter and all the other disciples, they had shut themselves up in an upper room, and the doors were locked. That's how fearful they were. But this time, Peter is so bold in his speech, it's not some sweet, smooth talk. He's not trying to worm his way out of a tough situation. No, listen, what he says in verse 10 of chapter 4 in Acts, he accused these men, and he says, gentlemen, you are the people who have crucified Jesus. Now talk about somebody stepping on someone's toes. And Peter, without any shame, confesses his faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And there were people in that Sanhedrin, Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection. And then he says, gentlemen, that Jesus Christ, whom you have crucified, God raised from the dead. And if that is not enough, Peter testifies to these learned and educated religious leaders who believe that you could somehow earn your way into heaven and earn your salvation following all kinds of rules and good works and so forth. Peter says to them, there is no salvation in verse 12. He says, Acts 4, verse 12. He says, there is no salvation in any other than in the Jesus whom you have crucified. For there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now that's a bold sermon for these very important religious leaders of the nation of Israel. They were themselves surprised. We read in verse 13 of Acts 4, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and they realized, they perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. Now the question is, where did Peter and John, two ordinary fishermen, without any formal seminary training, unlike the scribes and all the rest of the members of the Sanhedrin, where did they get the boldness Well, read verse eight in chapter four verse of Acts. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them. It was the Holy Spirit who gave him boldness. In that same chapter in verse 23, we read how the people Facing threats this group of believers how they prayed that with all boldness They would speak your word God's Word and verse 41 says and when they had prayed the place where they were assembled together was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the Word of God with boldness Now let me teach you this afternoon just a little bit of Greek I In the Greek language, the tenses of the verbs are very significant. Anyone who's a pastor here and has studied Greek knows that. And the word filled in this particular context is what we call in the Greek the aorist tense. And the aorist tense describes a momentary or a snapshot action. In other words, the Holy Spirit filled Peter at this particular moment, in this particular situation, for a very specific task which enabled him to speak with boldness. And isn't that what Jesus had told them that would happen? In Matthew 10, verse 19 and 20, when they deliver you up, Don't worry about what you should say or speak, for it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak. For it is not you who speak, but it's the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. You see, I believe that this momentary filling of the Holy Spirit is still very much part of our lives today. There are times, for example, in my ministry, I made a very difficult visit. I remember visiting, having to visit and admonish a man who had so much anger and bitterness inside of him. And before that kind of a visit, what do you do? You get on your knees in your study, and you pray for the right words. I remember in the middle of the night, someone with an alcoholic, abusive of his wife, calling me if I would come. What was I going to say? But you see, the Holy Spirit, when you pray, gives you the words to speak. And believe me, we had the best visit, I had the best visit with that person that particular night. Sometimes we face a tragic, very tragic, I remember a husband, very young yet, killed in a traffic accident, leaving a wife and a one, year old baby, you ask yourself, what am I going to say? How am I going to comfort that person? The Holy Spirit gives you the words again and again. It amazes that if you have prayed about it, how the Spirit fills and equips you with what to say. And I'm sure some of you have similar experiences. that you had the boldness in a particular situation to witness to someone. But now let's turn back to our text, Ephesians 5, verse 18, because in this particular context, the verb filled is not in the aorist tense. It's not that momentary filling of the Holy Spirit. In other words, when God's word here in our text commands the saints of Ephesus and us today to be filled with the Holy Spirit, it is not a filling of the Spirit for a particular moment or a particular occasion. No, here the verb in the Greek is in the present tense. We suggest that we must continuously be filled with the Holy Spirit. We must be filled with the Holy Spirit all the time. It's like breathing. You constantly have to breathe in and out in order to stay alive, so we also have to be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to remain alive. We read in Luke 4, verse 1 that Jesus, in his human nature, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. In Acts 6, verse 4, the qualification in choosing a deacon, They had to be men of good reputation and full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. Stephen was one of those deacons. He described in Acts 6 verse 5, he was a man being full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Barnabas in Acts 11 verse 24 is described as a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. Now, each of these instances, as well as John the Baptist, Luke 1, verse 20, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul, Acts 13, verse 9, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. And this does not, in those cases, does not refer to a momentary filling, but a continuous filling with the Holy Spirit. In other words, it should be a permanent characteristic of a believer. You see, people who knew Stephen and Barnabas, they would describe them as men full of the Holy Spirit. If I had to get a character reference for any one of you, I should be able to write whatever your name is, Lynn, John, Roger, Mary, Anne, Nancy. I should be able to write, these are people who are filled with the Holy Spirit. It should be evident in every believer's life that he or she is filled with the Holy Spirit. But I'd raise the question, how do we identify, how do we recognize someone who is filled with the Holy Spirit? In explaining what it means to being filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul compares it with someone who is drunk. Drunk with wine. You're not, he says, be drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but instead be filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, to be drunk with wine is the exact opposite of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, at first you say, well, that's a bit of a strange comparison for Paul to make. But you remember, of course, that on the first Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the followers of Jesus, and the people heard the disciples speaking in different languages, they were poked fun of, and they were equating the filling of the Holy Spirit with being full of wine. And so when Paul here speaks of being drunk with wine, the Ephesian saints knew exactly what he was talking about. Because drinking was a problem in those days as well as it is today. Not unlikely that some of the people that Paul is addressing before their conversion were drunkards. Drunken immoral orgies were very much part of their pagan religion before they were converted. because it was believed that their frenzied or drunken state was one way to get in touch with their pagan god. Now, all of us know that drinking is very destructive. I don't know what exactly the statistics are, but the Laredes that I read were that there were at least 20 million alcoholics in our nation, of which 300 or three and a half million are teenagers. And of course, that all results in failed marriages and all kinds of pain and misery and all kinds of hurts. What is it that alcohol does? Well, it clouds the mind, doesn't it? It affects the faculties of a person. It corrupts the normal functions of the body and of the mind. A person under the influence of alcohol loses control over himself or herself. After a while, the person doesn't know what he is saying or what he is doing. He says all kinds of stupid things. As Paul says, it leads to debauchery. Don't let that eight-cylinder word frighten you or scare you. It's just another way of saying that drinking leads to unrestrained, irresponsible, careless living. Now, in contrast, Paul says, be filled continuously with the Holy Spirit. Instead of being under the influence of wine, be under the influence of the Spirit. Instead of losing control over your sins, Be under the control of the Spirit who does not cloud your mind, but who sharpens your senses. Instead of being filled with wine which fogs up the brain so that you lose the ability to judge and make sound decisions, be filled with the Holy Spirit who sharpens your intellect and your thinking and gives you deeper insight into things. to be filled with the Spirit is to submit yourself completely under the Spirit's control, so that your will is in harmony with the Spirit's will, and the will of the Spirit is in turn in complete harmony with God's will as revealed in Scripture. You see, to be filled with the Holy Spirit is basically the same as to have the mind of Christ. Paul says in Philippians 2 verse 5, let this mind be in you which is also in Christ Jesus. To have the same mind as Christ. Conduct yourself as Jesus would. So how do you identify or recognize a spirit-filled believer? Well, notice how our text comes right smack in the middle of all kinds of instruction. How the saints in Ephesus, how they should live and walk. In chapter 4, verse 1, for example, Paul calls them to walk wordly of the calling with which they were called. But Paul is saying, look, look, believers in Ephesus, you have been chosen by God's sovereign grace. You have been redeemed through the blood of your Savior, Jesus Christ. Now walk as a redeemed people. Walk worthy of your calling. And then it goes on to describe what that kind of walk consists of. It consists of lowliness, gentleness, bearing with one another in love. being forgiving of each other. In the same chapter, four, verse 17, he says that you're no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk. And then again, that follows a whole list of all kinds of instructions how not to live as the Gentiles, what they should do and what they should not do. Then in chapter five, verse one, he calls them to be imitators of God. and walk in love as Christ also has loved us. Again, this is followed by another long list of what you should and what you should not do as part of being a Christian, a follower of Jesus Christ. You see, beloved, you identify, you recognize a spirit-filled believer if that person lives worthy of his calling. As a person who prizes the fact that he or she has been chosen by Christ even before the foundation of will, redeemed by His blood, who therefore no longer lives as the Gentiles do, not according to the flesh, not according to the will, he does no longer grieve or quench or resist the Spirit by putting his own will before God's will, but who instead imitates God and walks in love even as Christ loved him. In brief, a spirit-filled person is not just someone who speaks in tongues, as some say. A spirit-filled person is one who willingly and gladly submits him or herself under the control of the Spirit, who rules and guides us by God's Word. Now, someone may ask, how can I grow spiritually? How can I become more and more continuously filled with the Spirit? Well, the answer is very simple. You must pray. That's what I did before I came this afternoon, standing behind this pulpit. I prayed for the Holy Spirit to fill me. We read in Luke 11 verse 13, if you then, being evil, know how to give gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Ask Him. How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Some of you probably know that R.C. Sproul has passed away. We attended the Ligonier Conference this spring. Dr. Parson wrote about R.C. Sproul in a little pamphlet, and he said how he was surprised at being the kind of communicator that R.C. Sproul was. how he got very nervous every time that he had to preach. Even though he was a gifted speaker and had preached for many years, he still got nervous. Beloved, I can identify with that. I still get nervous before I preach. Because to preach is an awesome responsibility. I very often ask my wife, pray for me. And then she will respond very often, I already did. We need the Holy Spirit in order to proclaim the Word of God. to be continuously filled, you must fill yourself with the book with the Holy Spirit inspired, that is the Bible. You must immerse yourself in Scripture so that more and more your thoughts, your standards, your standards are in harmony with the will of the Spirit as revealed in God's Word. And finally, you must not forsake the assembling of God's people as they gather together every Sunday for worship and instruction to be inspired and encouraged by the Word of God. You know, we read in Romans 10 that faith comes from hearing the Word of Christ. You know, every Sunday when we worship, I like to think that the church is the workshop of the Holy Spirit. The church is the workshop of the Holy Spirit. I don't know how old you are, but let's say you're 50 years old, and you attend church twice every Sunday. Let's say you were, take a couple Sundays, perhaps you were sick or you had other reasons. But that means that if you attended 50 Sundays every year for 50 years, twice, then according to my figure, then you have listened to 5,000 sermons. And how the Holy Spirit instructed you through the preaching of the word of God. I tell my catechism student, if you only go once to church, you know, you miss so much. Because you will have, instead of 5,000, you'll only have 25,000 at the year 50. You see, it's through the means of the preaching of the word of God these means of grace, as well as the sacraments, that we place ourselves more and more under the influence and under the control of the Holy Spirit. And our daily walk with God should show that we are indeed a Spirit-filled person who submits to the Word of God. and the will as revealed. Finally, being filled with the Holy Spirit leads to a victorious life. John MacArthur, talking about this particular subject, compared being filled with the Spirit like a glove. He says, a glove by and of itself is useless, is powerless, unless you put your hand in it. In the same way, a Christian is powerless unless he or she is filled with the Spirit. You know, Scripture sometimes speaks of someone being full of joy, being filled with joy. What do we mean when we say someone is filled with joy? Well, it means that The person's heart, his mind, his thoughts are completely occupied or filled with joy. In the same way, if I am filled with the Spirit, my thoughts, my heart, my mind is continuously filled with the Holy Spirit. I'm conscious of the fact that my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. And therefore, I would never think of grieving the Holy Spirit by engaging in pornography. or any other immoral sin, because my body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. How can I grieve Him? How can I resist doing His will as revealed to me in Scripture? Instead, I will do everything possible. I will strive to fight and do what the Spirit wants me to do. And that leads to victorious living. When you made profession of your faith, there was one promise that you made. You said that you would crucify your old nature and you would lead a godly life. That's what you made promise before God and His people. Are you living up to that promise? When I looked up these passages that deal with being filled with the Holy Spirit, it struck me how being filled with the Spirit is always linked with some spiritual quality, such as faith, wisdom, joy, boldness, and so on. We've already seen how this was true of the Apostle Peter, how the Holy Spirit gave him boldness. But when speaking of these qualifications, for example, of a deacon, being filled with the Spirit is linked with wisdom. and being a person of good reputation. A person who drinks, as we already mentioned, is stupid, foolish, careless in his behavior, but a person filled with the Spirit is wise because he has been enlightened by the wisdom found in God's Word, of which the Holy Spirit is the author. And such a person makes decisions and choices which are in keeping with what God demands in His Word. Just think of Stephen. Stephen was a deacon. If we read him in, he was full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Being full of the Holy Spirit is here linked to a strong, deep faith. Stephen had such a strong faith that, like Peter, he dared and had the boldness to preach a very forceful sermon in which he called the people stiff-necked and uncircumcised in their hearts and their ears. And as they stoned him to death, he called on God, and after the example of Jesus, his Savior, he prayed on behalf of his murderers, Lord, do not charge them with this sin. Such faith. You see, such faith is a fruit of being filled with the Holy Spirit. In Acts 5 verse 22, being filled with the Spirit is linked with joy. We read there that the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit. Being filled with the Holy Spirit brings joy and happiness. Paul indicates in the verses that follow our text, a spirit-filled person speaks to one another in psalms, addresses one another in psalms, in hymns and in spiritual song. And he sings and makes melody in his heart to the Lord, giving thanks for the thing. In other words, what Paul is describing here is a joyful worship. And what really struck me is that it says they address or they speak, as some versions have it, they spoke to each other with psalms and hymns and song. They speak. I was reading somewhere that a certain gathering, a preacher asked an actor to recite Psalm 23. And the actor agreed only if the preacher would also read the same psalm. Now the actor's recitation was beautiful and flawless. He received a lengthy applause. But the preacher's voice was kind of rough and broken from many years of preaching, and his diction was not at all polished. But when he finished, there was not a dry eye in the room. And when someone asked the actor what made the difference, he replied, I know the psalm, but he knows the shepherd. You see, beloved, when we recite a psalm or when we sing a hymn, then it should not be something mechanical, but by means of the hymn, we should be speaking to each other. You see, when you and I, we sing, my Jesus, I love thee, then the person next to you and in front of you should know that this is what you really mean. You're speaking, you're testifying, you're witnessing that you indeed love Jesus. When you sing, the Lord is my shepherd, then the people around you should know that you mean it, that the Lord is indeed your shepherd. This afternoon, we recite the creed. And someone said we should recite the creed like soldiers standing at attention. The person behind you, in front of you, beside you should know that when you say, I believe in God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth, that you really mean it. You say, I believe in Jesus, God's only son. The person next to you should know that you really mean it. You don't mumble it. You don't say it so that no one can hear. But you are addressing, you're speaking through your songs and recitation of the apostasy. You're speaking to the person next to you. Paul says in Galatians 5 verse 22, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, and self-control. See, those were the kind of virtues that Stephen and Barnabas and John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul, those were the kind of virtues they possessed. And that's why they were men of good reputation, because they were full of the Spirit. But Stephen or Barnabas or Paul or anyone else is not the ultimate example of a Spirit-filled person. Jesus is. It is human nature. Jesus was full of the Spirit. We read in John 3, verse 34, that God gave His Spirit to Jesus without measure. without measure. Jesus and His human nature was filled with the Spirit. He never did once anything contrary to God's will, but He rendered perfect obedience. Even in the cross, when He faced the terrible pain of dying on the cross, and not only the terrible physical pain, but bearing the wrath of God against Yoremai's sin, He prayed, Not my will, but your will be done. Beloved, may your wife, your husband, your children, and your grandchildren, your relatives, your friends, your neighbors, the people that you work with and do business with, may they be able to see that you are a person full of the Spirit. Remember it's a command. Be filled. And it involves being continuously filled. Continuously submitting to the will of the Holy Spirit as revealed in God's Word. And that should become evident and your daily walk of life. A sermon is not done when a pastor says, Amen. No, the sermon just begins because you and I must now live the sermon and show in our daily walk that like some of the people that we mentioned, we're full of had a good reputation because they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Amen. Almighty God and Father, we come to you and we pray, Heavenly Father, for a rich measure of your Holy Spirit, that those around us, oh, Heavenly Father, can truly see that we are filled by the Spirit. that we live according to your word and that our will is subject and submissive to the will of the Spirit as revealed in your word. Heavenly Father, we pray that all those around us may see and recognize that we are Spirit-filled believers. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.