Ephesians chapter 5 please. At the end of chapter 4 we were thinking from that verse which tells us, Grieve not the Holy Spirit. We reminded ourselves from the verse there that we could grieve not the Holy Spirit by being those who are free from falsehood, from lying, those who are free from anger. those who are free from theft, and particularly we thought in that respect of the way in which we can steal from God, steal time, steal praise, steal worship, gathering ourselves together, and then to think too of being free from corrupting talk. we reminded ourselves how that it's important that we consider the fact that the Holy Spirit lives within each and every truly born-again believer and how that we need to be constantly, constantly striving to bring a smile to the face of the Holy Spirit and not to grieve the Holy Spirit. And then we moved on down the verses and we reminded ourselves of how we needed to keep ourselves away, separated from evil, and how easy it was to be caught up in things that were evil, things which we should not be involved with. We thought about the Sweetie Jar Syndrome, how that we should abstain from sin in everything, everything in every way. Then from verses 8 to 14 we were thinking of Jesus as the light of the world. And we were encouraged there, because He is the light of the world, because we are followers of Him, because we have His very nature within us in the power of the Holy Spirit, how that we should, the verse encouraged us, walk as children of the light. And if we endeavoured to do that, then Christ, it says, shall give you light, and how that we could then show that light to the world around us. Come now then please, if you will, to verses 15 down to 21 of this chapter. Paul says, See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Give thanks always for all things unto God, and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. So reads God's precious Word. You'll all no doubt, I imagine, have read at some time or other Alice in Wonderland. In that book the Queen was informed by the inhabitants of Wonderland that in order to get anywhere you had to run very, very fast. Run very fast, they said to her, if you want to get anywhere. And she replied that it takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. In other words, you can't make any progress at all, she says, if you just run. If you want to get somewhere, she says, you must run at least twice as fast as that. That's what Paul's trying to instruct us in here. Our lives are so busy. Even those of you who've been retired longer than I have. we'll know that lives are still very busy. And because we are rushed off our feet, so often, and you'll agree with me I think, we can't attend to everything that we should do. Things have to be set aside. Things have to be left undone. We have to, as they say, prioritise if we're going to get anywhere. But if we fall into that particular mode of life where we can't attend to everything. Things get left undone. You know how that often results in degeneration and evil setting in if we don't keep on top of it all. I'm no gardener as you know, but ignore the garden and it becomes overrun with weeds very quickly. Pay no attention to your body. and it will vegetate and degenerate. A lack of attention to our inner life, Paul is telling us here, and with relationships will mean that our very personal self will decline. We and the world we live in have a natural tendency to corruption. Things that are left unattended to, things that are not kept in order, things that are not taken account of, will gradually corrupt. So this is what Paul is saying here in verses 15 and 16. He's saying that busyness and inattention must be kept under control in our spiritual lives. Why? He says because the days are evil. Time is fleeting and that as Christians we have to be purposefully engaged in buying back from selfishness. It's so easy, isn't it, to allow ourselves to waste time, so easy for us not to apply ourselves to prayer, apply ourselves to reading God's Word, to studying it, to spending time alone with God, leaving no time to get to services and meetings, ignoring, as Paul calls it, the gathering of ourselves together. Paul says that's selfishness, and that's got to be controlled. So we might say, well, how do we do that? Verses 17 and 18 tell us, he says, Paul says, don't be foolish. but rather understand what the will of the Lord is. And what is the will of the Lord? He says in here, in picture language, if you like, don't get drunk on wine. He says live a Holy Spirit filled and ordered life. This is the way Paul says you can redeem the time, that you won't be dragged into wasting time. So just to deal with the drunkenness, Paul forbids it because the word excess there in that verse means literally debauchery. That is what drunkenness leads to, he says. It degrades both the drinker and it also affects others and degrades them. The drunkards seek a good time but succeed only in losing control of their life. Drink will immerse one in the flow of evil days, these evil days that Paul speaks about here. And that leads us to make in life a series of missed opportunities. Paul says, don't follow these things, be filled rather with the Holy Spirit. Why? Well, because whilst alcohol is a depressant, that's its major function, the Holy Spirit is a stimulant. It will encourage us. It will lift us up. It will show us the things of Christ. It will make the things of the Bible real and true to us. It will make us, as we shall see presently as we go along, better people. People who will be attractive to other people. And I'm not saying that because that's what we want to be is necessarily physically attractive to other people. But we want to be attractive to other people because we live a spirit-filled and controlled life. We live out the very life of Christ and we want them to be attracted to that. We want them to ask us. what our hope is. We want them to ask us why we are able to deal with the dreadful circumstances that often come into our life. Why are we able to do that? It is because we have the Holy Spirit living within us. So be filled with the Spirit, he says. Under the influence of alcohol, of course, one loses control. whilst the fruits of the Holy Spirit, or one of them is self-control, go to Galatians 2 Timothy and find it there. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit. Self-control is not one of the fruits of alcohol. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones wrote this. He said, drink is not a stimulant, but it is a depressant. It depresses first and foremost the highest centers of all in the brain. They are the very first to be influenced and affected by alcohol. They control everything that gives man self-control, wisdom, understanding, discrimination, judgment, balance. the power to assess everything. In other words, everything that makes a person behave at their very best and highest is destroyed by drunkenness. The better a person's control, the better the person they are. So he's encouraging us here to be in control. You'll remember how at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit first descended upon the disciples there. And the people around accused them of being filled with new wine. But they were the detractors. There were lots of other people there who were awed by the Holy Spirit's power manifested in them. These disciples were radiating a joyfulness that was not to be seen or found in other folks. Paul says to us, that's the joyfulness that we have to radiate to the world around us. Do we radiate the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Think about the woman at the well in John chapter 4. Jesus says to her, whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst. The water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life. That was the water she got. And as Paul goes on to tell us here, she still has it even to this very day. She is still indwelt by the Holy Spirit having had her sins forgiven. Go back into John's Gospel to the Feast of Tabernacles. You'll remember how that Jesus on that day, having watched that tremendous procession round the town, and how that the priest had lifted up the urn of water and poured it out all over the altar. How that at that particular moment he cries out, if anyone thirsts, let him come to me and I shall give him water. I shall give him water that will flow out from him in rivers of living water. Could it be? Could it be? that the Church needs. We, the Church, the body of Christ. Could it be that we need to be instrumental in producing an outpouring of the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, in this sin-sick, needy world that we live in today? We thought on a past occasion further back in Ephesians how that The only time or the only twice in the world that the people of the world see the glory of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, is in creation and in you and in me. It's the only opportunity they have to see the glory of God, the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul, it seems to be encouraging us here to allow the Holy Spirit to flow out of our lives in all those wonderful graces that we might show to a fallen sinful world, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit resides in each and every one of us, each and every truly born again believer. We have that Holy Spirit given to us upon conversion, given to us in full measure. There are many of today who spend much time praying and waiting for a second blessing of the Holy Spirit. Scripture does not teach that. Scripture teaches quite clearly that on conversion the Holy Spirit comes to live within each and every one of us in full measure. a spring of water, the Lord Jesus Christ said to the woman at the well, springing up into eternal life. And that's the Holy Spirit living within you, within me. So are we demonstrating the fruits of the Spirit in our lives? Paul says, I want you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We're not talking here, as I've said, about a second blessing. But we do need to be allowing the Holy Spirit to fill our lives with these wonderful graces. And we need to have that Holy Spirit pouring out from our lives to each other. We shall see in a moment or two in a fellowship in the church. and also to those who are outside of the grace of God, those who are still strangers to the grace of God. So what is this fullness of the Holy Spirit like then? Well, first of all, the fullness of the Holy Spirit is seen in spiritual communication. Then the fullness of the Spirit is seen in our thanksgiving. And then the fullness of the Spirit is seen in our submission. The fullness of the Holy Spirit then in spiritual communication. Verse 19. Paul says, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Paul is not saying here that we should abandon the use of normal speech. What he's saying here is that We need to be those who are making music in our very souls, in our hearts. Music to God, to the Lord. A joyfulness is what Paul is emphasising here, that needs to be inside each and every one of us. A joyfulness that is motivated by God's word richly dwelling within our very being. One commentator put it like this, he says, it needs to be like an artesian well that comes from the very depths of the earth and overflows in blessing to folks in producing water. Paul says, I want your communication to be like that. And of course it's inevitable that this heart music that's going on within us, and I think probably you all know what I'm talking about, you feel it, don't you, at times, how that you're singing in your heart, not audibly, but at points, at times, it will come out audibly, won't it? It will come out. It cannot but come out. I think I've told you the story, but I'll tell you again. It just comes to me as I think of this, how I was working in a dry cleaning shop on one occasion, and I was out the back packing out the work, and there was a mirror up on the wall that gave you a sight of the front counter of the shop. I was there on my own. And as I was there, I had the radio on, and Finlandia came on the tune. So I'm singing at the top of my voice, be still my soul. And I looked up in the mirror and there's a lady standing in the shop. So I stopped and went out and apologized. She said, don't apologize. She said, keep singing. It's a wonderful hymn. It was lovely. But that's what happens, isn't it? You can sing it in your heart, in your soul, quietly. But there are times when it just has to come out, doesn't it? Come on, you all sing in the bath, don't you? Or in the shower. You all sing in the car going along at times, don't you? You know, we do, don't we? It just overcomes us, doesn't it? We have to sing this praise. This is what Paul says. This is the fullness of the Spirit coming out in you, because you want to sing these psalms and songs. The public result is, of course, that when believers come together in the church, spiritual music is directed Both horizontally, and by that I mean it's directed to you and to me, we share it with each other, don't we? Quite often when you're singing, it's lovely to sing together and you feel that you're singing these words to each other because you're both enjoying them. But then also, that singing is directed vertically to God himself because we are singing praise and worship to God. Spiritual people, Paul says, should be overflowing in song. Overflow it. We should be those who are producing all the time unpremeditated praise, not stuff that we've just tried to make up or write down, but it should come naturally from our everyday lives, from our heart. It's beautiful. It's soul-satisfying. when we're together, and it's orchestrated, or should be, by the Holy Spirit. This is what Paul is encouraging us to do. Born-again believers then, filled with the Holy Spirit, should have lives that are an ongoing symphony of the soul. It's worth thinking about, isn't it? You shouldn't be embarrassed about singing in the bath or going along in the car. It's a demonstration of the Holy Spirit living within us and us allowing it to fill us and to overtake us. So there we have it then, the Holy Spirit in spiritual communication. to God and to each of us and of course hopefully flowing out to the world around us. Then the fullness of the Spirit in thanksgiving. Paul says in verse 20, give thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Give thanks for all things to God the Father. It says in that verse that those who are filled with the Spirit should be those who are giving thanks always for all things to God. Note, though, that what it's not saying is that we should be giving thanks to God for those things that are evil or wicked. How could we ever do that? There are those who believe that this verse encourages us to give thanks to God for the evil things that go on around us. But how could we ever do that? How can we give thanks to God, a God who abominates evil? And we cannot praise and thank Him for what He abominates, surely. So what is He saying here? Well, he's saying that we can and should praise God for being God, for being God in the midst of these miseries and dreadful things that happen, and for being able to bring good so often out of those evil things. So that's what we should be praising. That's what our spirit should be rejoicing in, the fact that God is God and that He can bring good out of the evil things and the bad things that happen in our lives. That can be so difficult for us at times. To actually thank God for the things that happen in our lives that are not particularly pleasant. He says, praise God that He is always there with you. He's not trying you beyond what you can bear. So, what Paul is saying here, this is a very radical spirit of gratitude. It rules out grumbling, complaining, a negative, sour spirit. He says, don't mourn what we don't have, but rather give thanks for what we have. It's important, isn't it? It's so easy in this world to be covetous of things that other people have, lives that other people have. incomes that other people have. Paul says you mustn't be like that, and don't grumble. If it rains, it rains. We need the rain. We need the rain, but we're a great nation for moaning about the weather, aren't we? It bugs us all the time when it spoils what we want to do. But, you know, we should thank God for it. We should thank God for it, because He's there in it with us, and there's a reason for it. Come rain, snow, or shine, give thanks to God, Paul says, because He is our sovereign Lord. He's God-blessed forever. What he's saying here is, I want you to nurture a positive attitude. not a negative attitude. A positive attitude that will announce to everyone who sees and meets and talks to you that you are different, that you are filled with the Holy Spirit, and that the Holy Spirit is flowing out of you in your thankfulness to God. Be thankful, he's saying. Be thankful in a world that largely has forgotten to be thankful. I heard an article recently on the radio, I think it was, and they were saying there how that folks these days very seldom say thank you for anything. Very strange, but they don't. Paul says, I want you to be thankful because that will demonstrate that you are filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit. And then thirdly, he says, the fullness of the Spirit in submission. Verse 21. Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God. Those indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Paul says, should submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. After all, he was the supreme model of the submission required of the spirit believer. Christ himself is our example, is our supreme model when we want to think about how we should be submitting to one another. Philippians 2 and verse 3 says, Let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. perhaps one of the most difficult things to live out in our lives, isn't it? To submit ourselves to one another, to think that, or to give the impression that everyone around us is better than we are. We like to think that we're the final arbiter in everything. We like people to think that we're the example that they should follow. that we're always right. Paul says that's not the attitude that should be flowing from you through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus, in John 13 verses 14 and 16, you'll remember in that upper room ministry. Let me just read what he says there. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, ye also ought, and the word there is an imperative, you must, ought to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that ye should do as I have done to you. Jesus says that if it's true of the greater, If I can wash your feet, if I can submit to you, as it were, and take a lowly stance, then you can do it to others. It must be true, he says, for the lesser. Sadly today, many churches behave in the exact opposite manner. We see them on our televisions, no doubt, at times. They take being filled with the Spirit, gives them license to be brash and assertive and to be self-promoting. This is how they try to come across many so-called modern-day evangelists. Neither Christ nor the Holy Spirit is like that at all. The Holy Spirit and Christ are never brash, assertive, or self-promoting. In fact, the Holy Spirit is quite the reverse. Jesus said he will not speak of himself, he will speak of me. So the key to the submission enjoined here is profound, it's humble, it's reverent submission to the Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul is saying here that if you can live a life like that, that you will produce a life of exquisite beauty, something which is full of sublime characteristics, all those wonderful, wonderful graces of the Holy Spirit. So a life characterized by spiritual music that flows up to God and out to fellow believers, a heart that is overflowing with thankfulness to God, whatever the circumstances, and a heart that is joyfully submitting to God and to the Lord Jesus Christ and to fellow believers. This, Paul says, is fullness of the Spirit. This is when you are truly filled with the Holy Spirit, when you're living a life such as that. Such a life, though drossled and pressed on every side, makes the very best use of the time allotted to it, redeeming the time. It knows what is important. It correctly prioritizes. And above all, it gives time to eternal issues. So are we filled with the Holy Spirit? Yes, we have the Holy Spirit in each one of us. But is it evident in our lives that it holds a very huge position in our lives? Just notice, first of all, It's a command. It's a command in this reading here that we be filled with the Holy Spirit. It's not a suggestion. We're not free to ignore it. Notice secondly that it's a plural command. It applies to all believers. All are to demonstrate that the Holy Spirit lives within them. So no drunkenness, but controlled by the Holy Spirit, all believers. Thirdly, it is a command calling for us to be passive, to allow the Spirit to fill and flow out of us. We must turn from every known sin and open our hearts and minds to the Word of God. We must yield to the Holy Spirit. And then, fourthly, the command is in the present tense. Receiving the Holy Spirit as a once-and-for-all experience, we are nonetheless to allow the Spirit to constantly fill us, that the graces inherent in Him will be evident in our lives as they benefit us, benefit our fellow believers, and benefit those still in their sins. We have the capacity for spiritual life. We have the Holy Spirit living within us. We have the capacity for a spiritual life and power beyond our imaginings. We cannot underestimate the power of the Holy Spirit. It's given to us, but we have to allow that Holy Spirit to fill us and to flow out of us. in all these wonderful graces that we might show to the world, show to each other, show to God himself, the Lord Jesus Christ and his love for us. Amen. Our hymn, please, before we go to prayer is 295. Come down O love divine, seek thou this soul of mine and visit it with thine own ardour glowing. O comforter, draw near, within my heart appear and kindle it, thy holy flame bestowing. 295.