Be Filled With the Spirit
Part 5 of series “God in Five Weeks”
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
10/22/2006
Ernest T. Campbell tells the story of an Anglican bishop who was asked to preach at a Christian conference in England. For many weeks he did not respond to the invitation. Finally, the corresponding secretary for the conference wrote this insistent note: He said, "We must know if you are coming. We need to make our plans." The bishop wrote back that he was waiting for the guidance of the Holy Spirit on the matter, and he would let them know his decision in four weeks. An exasperated secretary fired back this letter: "Bishop, please don’t bother. Cancel the invitation. We are not interested in having anyone speak at our conference who lives four weeks away from the Holy Spirit." I hope this morning we can all move closer than four weeks away from the Holy Spirit.
Today we reach the end of our series on The Trinity. I do hope you have come to a deeper appreciation already for the mystery of God. Although we cannot understand the Trinity, we can understand that God IS Trinity and thereby believe more specifically and worship more reverently. Let’s look more closely at the Holy Spirit today.
Where does the Holy Spirit come from? I made it clear a few weeks ago that everything begins with God. God is the prime-mover as I said. He is the initiator, the one who put the gears of the universe into motion, who put the plan together to draw us close to him and allow a relationship between us and God to be possible. God the Father came up with this plan, and God the Son took human form and came to this world to work the plan. So where does the Spirit fall into all of this?
In John 14 Jesus says…
John 14:15-17 (NIV)
15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever--
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
So the answer to our question of where the Holy Spirit comes from is that the Spirit, like the Son, comes from the Father. Both the Son and the Spirit owe their existence to the Father. Again, remember, it is not that the Father created them in any sense – they are equally God and they are co-eternal with the Father. But in some mystical sense, they derive their existence from him. He is the eternal first-cause. But the Son and Spirit are eternal as well, so although they derive their existence from the Father, the Father did not create them. Yes, it’s mysterious. That’s Trinity for you.
Now let’s spend some time dealing with how the Holy Spirit interacts with human beings. Remember a few weeks ago I said that we can’t learn about the persons of the Trinity by studying them separately? In order to answer the question how does the Holy Spirit interact with human beings, we have to start with the Father and the Son. Jesus said:
Matthew 11:27 (BBE)
27 All things have been given to me by my Father; and no one has knowledge of the Son, but the Father; and no one has knowledge of the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will make it clear.
So everything the Son has – all his knowledge, everything he teaches, all his authority – everything has been given to Him by the Father. Now we come to the Spirit. In John, Jesus says:
John 16:12-15 (NIV)
12 "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
14 He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
Isn’t that fascinating? In Matthew we learn that the Father has given everything to the Son. Here in John, we learn that the Spirit will take what the Son has (that the Son got from the Father!) and make it known to us. So the major role of the Holy Spirit is making the Son known to us. And what was the Son’s major role?
John 8:28 (NIV)
28 So Jesus said, "When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am [the one I claim to be] and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.
The Son’s role is to make the Father known to us. So let’s put this together. The Father initiated a plan that would allow us to have a relationship with Him. This relationship would come through the Son. The Son would come to earth and walk among us, teach us, die for our sins, and rise again in order to reconcile us to the Father. So now that the Son is back with the Father, how do we come to Jesus? We come to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. The Spirit takes everything the Father gave to the Son and makes it known to us. So our salvation comes from God, through Jesus, by the Holy Spirit. Does that make sense? I’ll say it again. Our salvation comes from the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit. And with that statement I have encapsulated the unique function of each person in the Trinity, in relation to human beings.
So far we have talked about where the Holy Spirit comes from and in general what the Holy Spirit does. Today we’ll not cover the hundreds of specific things the Spirit does as he enables us to follow Christ or we’d be here the rest of the day. For now I want to turn to what I believe is most critical for you and me at this point, and that is the question of what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. The Bible often mentions or suggests this phrase, this idea of being filled with the Holy Spirit. Does that idea seem strange? It’s a completely Biblical idea. Let’s look at some examples, starting in the Old Testament.
Remember, a few weeks ago we talked about progressive revelation, how God has revealed himself to us gradually in the pages of scripture, not all at one time? The Holy Spirit takes center stage in the New Testament, but we see traces of him in the Old. Here’s an example.
Exodus 31:1-4 (NIV)
31 Then the LORD said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts—
So Bezalel was filled with the Holy Spirit. Still most of what we know about the Holy Spirit is from the New Testament.
Luke 1:41 (NIV)
41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
Acts 4:31 (NIV)
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Acts 9:17 (NIV)
17 Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, “Brother Saul, the Lord—Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here—has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit.”
Now I want to show you what I think is the most compelling passage in the New Testament about being filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Would you read that with me? Ephesians is a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus. The letter is simply telling Christ-followers how they are to live, and there Paul commands them to be filled with the Spirit. Commands it! This is scripture, my friends. Those of us who follow Christ today are to be filled with the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God’s life – God’s animating presence – inside of those of us who believe.
Galatians 5:16 (NIV)
16 So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.
Galatians 5:25-26 (NIV)
25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
Paul tells us to live by the Spirit, and assumes that we live by the Spirit. It’s a given in the Christian life. For the Christ-follower there is no other way to have an ongoing relationship with God than to “live by the Spirit.” Jesus speaks about this in John chapter 15.
John 15:5-6 (NIV)
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.
Jesus is really talking here about living by the Spirit – “If a man remains in me and I in him.” Well, how else do we remain in Christ and allow Christ to remain in us except through the Spirit of Christ living in us? How do we stay connected to this vine, to this Spirit of God? Though that question is not the topic of this message, I will tell you briefly that the main answer here is prayer. Prayer is the thing that connects our spirit to God’s Spirit. You cannot remain connected to the vine if you do not pray regularly. Everything we need to come to us in the Christian life comes through prayer – healing, encouragement, peace, hope, concern for the lost, understanding of the Bible, love, wisdom, awareness of our own sin, strength to withstand temptation – everything. For the Christian, spiritual life is not primarily about your spirit, but about God’s spirit. We are to “live by the Spirit,” and “keep in step with the Spirit,” and remain in Christ and allow Christ to remain in us, and this happens mainly through prayer.
Since prayer is not our topic today, let us spend our remaining moments looking more closely at this idea of being “filled with the Spirit.” We’ll look at four questions.
1. What is the filling of the Holy Spirit?
2. How often do we need to be filled with the Spirit?
3. What are the conditions for being filled with the Holy Spirit?
4. What are the results of being filled with the Spirit?
First, what is the filling of the Holy Spirit? Ephesians 5:18 provides the critical clue:
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
What this suggests is that the central issue is control. Who, or what, will you allow to control your life? Will it be alcohol? If so you will drink. Will it be sex? If so, you will sleep around. Will it be drugs? If so you will snort, or shoot, or smoke. Will it be the Holy Spirit? If so, you will praise and pray and read scripture and obey. What will you allow to control your life? Both drunk people and spiritual people are controlled by something, and both of them do things under those forms of control that they otherwise would not do. You could say that in both cases they surrender their self-control to whatever it is they allow to control them. The answer then to the question, “What is the filling of the Holy Spirit” is this. The Spirit-filled life is a life controlled by (surrendered to) the Spirit.
We can continue looking to Ephesians 5:18 for the answer to our second question, “How often do we need to be filled with the Spirit?”
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Be filled. This is present tense. It does not say, “Make sure you have been filled,” or “See to it that at some point you were filled.” Be filled – we could say “Keep on being filled.” This means that we can, and should, be filled again and again and again. The believers were filled with the Spirit in Acts chapter 2.
Acts 2:4 (NIV)
4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Then they were filled again in Acts chapter 4.
Acts 4:31 (NIV)
31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.
Notice they were filled again not because of some huge sin they had committed, but because they needed power to speak God’s Word with boldness. They had just been prohibited from preaching the Gospel by the Jewish court, called the Sanhedrin. There were severe penalties for ignoring this warning, and the early believers needed courage to confront a new problem. So how often do we need to be filled? We need to be filled constantly. We need to be filled with God’s Spirit anytime we face a new area of our life where we need God’s power, and we need to be filled anytime we have sinned, because sin breaks our surrender to God and we need to repent and pray that God would fill us again with His Spirit.
Now what are the conditions for being filled with the Holy Spirit? In other words, what is required of us in order for this to happen? I believe there are three. First, since the filling of the Spirit involves control of our lives, we must dedicate ourselves to God for his use, surrender ourselves to his control. Understand I am not speaking of dedication to do something or give up something (go to church, or quit drinking), but rather a complete settling of the question, “Who will run my life?” You cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit until you have settled that question once and for all. If you’re tentative about serving God, if you are still thinking your old way of life looks pretty good and you might want to go back to it at any time, the filling of the Holy Spirit will not happen. Ideally, if you are dedicated to God, then when you have a major decision to make the question is not will I or will I not do the will of God, the question is what is the will of God because I must know it in order to do it.
So if you are to be filled with the Spirit, the first condition is a dedicated life. The second condition is that you not grieve the Spirit.
Ephesians 4:30 (NIV)
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
What grieves God’s spirit? Sin. That’s why I said earlier that sin breaks our surrender to God. Sin is a deal-breaker between us and God. So in times when we say or do things that grieve God’s spirit (commit sin), we must repent and ask for the Holy Spirit to fill us again. It’s a continual opening of ourselves to the presence and power of God.
The third condition for being filled with the Spirit is a life of dependence on God. Earlier we talked about living by the Spirit and keeping in step with the Spirit. That’s shop-talk for maintaining a state of dependence on God. So the three conditions for being filled involve dedication to God, being done with sin in our lives, and constant dependence on God’s power.
The third question we asked was what are the results of being Spirit-filled? There are at least four which we’ll cover very briefly this morning. First is Christlikenesss (Gal. 5 – fruits of the Spirit). Second is worship and praise. Look at our Holy Spirit theme verse:
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
The very next verse reads:
Ephesians 5:19 (NIV)
19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord,
Worship and praise will be a natural result of being filled with the Spirit.
Third is submissiveness. Two verses down from verse 19 we read:
Ephesians 5:21 (NIV)
21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Spirit-control will lead to a submissiveness in you that will set all your life relationships straight – husband/wife, parent/child, employer/employee, etc. Self-control will mess this up.
Fourth is service. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you will use the gifts God has given you to serve others and build the church.
So there it is. What the filling of the Spirit is, how often we need it, what the conditions are, and what the results are.
Have you experienced this filling with God’s Holy Spirit? I want to close this morning by giving you an opportunity to do this. I want to encourage you to be done with sin in your life – just to decide there’s no more place in your life for it. To be sicker of sin in your life than you are of your financial problems, your marriage problems, your social problems, your work problems, and to declare that by the power of God, you’re done with it. And I want to urge you to live a life of dependence on God’s power. I want to encourage and challenge you this morning to be filled with the Spirit in obedience to the command in Ephesians 5:18:
Ephesians 5:18 (NIV)
18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Maybe you didn’t even know you needed to be filled with God’s Spirit until today! Now that you have heard, are you ready to respond?
I’d like us to have a time of prayer this morning. If you have been a spiritual dabbler – kind of one foot in, one foot out – and your heart is thumping in your chest because you know it’s time to give yourself fully to God and step out in faith and ask God to fill you with his Spirit – I want to ask you to come forward for prayer today. Nothing unusual – we’ve had prayer times before when people have come forward. Perhaps you’re torn – part of you wanting to ask God to fill you with his spirit, part of you not sure you’re ready to surrender completely to God. You might come forward and simply share your struggle with God in prayer – he loves you right now while you’re struggling. Whatever your situation, if you want to dedicate yourself completely to God’s will for you and your family and his plan for your life, I invite you to come and pray. You can also pray right there in your seat, but I promise you there is great reward in coming up to be with others who are praying too. Let’s sing, and I invite you to come forward and seek God. Stand, kneel if you wish, but I urge you to respond to what the Holy Spirit is telling you to do.
