So if you will, open up to Ephesians chapter 5. I just want to read this verse that we've come to one more time because we're going to focus on it today in a special way. That being this last contrast in verse 18, which says, "...and do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit." Let's pray together. So Lord, we come before you, before a word like this, thinking of ourselves as the Old Testament temple, reminded that we are the offering on the ground and though we yell and holler and scream or whatever we do, you must fill us. It is everything about our salvation is your work. And so I pray, Lord, that You would open our eyes to behold Your Word, that You would open up our minds to understand the Scriptures just the same way You did for those on the road to Emmaus this morning. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. So I am from a generation now that is getting more and more distance in it, it seems, and I'm able to remember things from my childhood that not everyone, I can't take for granted that everyone else does. And one of the memories that came to my mind this week in this study was coffee tables. Not everybody is even has coffee tables anymore, and if they do, certainly don't use them the same way. But I grew up, grandparents and certain other homes I would be in, seeing a coffee table, and it was somewhat customary, it seemed, to have a puzzle sometimes out on the coffee table. Sometimes it would be done. Sometimes it would be partially done. And it's almost like it would be this pastime to just sit down and work on this puzzle. putting it together. So that memory came back to my mind because it helped me grasp what Paul is saying in Ephesians 5 in this last section as we launch out into it. Last time you could sum up and say essentially what he told us was finish the puzzle. You could think of it that way. That in Adam, Paul sees all of creation decomposing and divided and shattered. And in Christ, He's the great unifier bringing all things back together. And in the resurrection of Christ from the dead, the puzzle has begun, in a sense. There's already some of the new creation that is finished. The way to think about it is, you know, you have the puzzle starting and when you finish, that part that was already started is still there and still looks the same as it did when you began putting the rest of it in there. And in a thousand years from now, in two thousand and three thousand and on into eternity, the body, the actual physical body of Jesus will look like it does now. will look like it did in the first century when he walked out of the grave. In other words, that aspect of the new creation has begun. So this plan of God to begin putting all things back together in Christ is already underway, it's just not yet finished. And in conclusion here in verse 15, essentially what Paul has begun to tell us is the concluding thought to this letter that he leaves us with is our task is to finish the mission, to finish the puzzle as it were. And we know that. For two reasons, we saw last time the thesis statement of the whole last section, the one command is to therefore be careful how you walk and he amplified what that meant or the way to be careful in the way that we walk, by those three contrasts which we saw in referring to wisdom in this book, and the will of the Lord in this book, and being filled in this book, obviously meant to finish the putting of all things back together in Christ, which is the goal of the gospel that has already begun. So give yourself to the redemption of all things in Christ, that is left to be done. But, then he focuses on this last piece of this third contrast, doesn't he? Because after he says, do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit, he then goes into these five participles, speaking, singing, making melody with your heart to the Lord, giving thanks for all things, and submitting. These are five verbs and their participles because they're used to somehow modify the action of being filled with the Spirit. They're somehow giving us more information, more definition about what it means to be filled with the Spirit. So what that means is he didn't do that about wisdom, he didn't do that about the will of the Lord, but he felt compelled to do that about this command to be filled with the Spirit. So He draws our attention to it by the way He writes the next set of verses. And this drawing attention to it, causes every believer I've ever met to think about it and to wonder about it. And it seems to me that I and all believers at some point in their journey think, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? And how do you be filled with the Spirit in certain questions like that? And indeed, whole books have been written on it, and there are movements in Christianity on it. People start getting into something, and they call it the spirit-filled life, and it's in distinction from just the normal Christian life, and you see these emphases, and you hear these teachings. because attention is given to it here in the text by the apostle, that's number one, and because, number two, outside in the history of church there's been a focus on it, and there still is down to this day, and number three, every individual Christian wonders about it at some time or another. For those three reasons, I wanted to spend one sermon asking and answering one question. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? So that's the goal of this sermon. But in order to get there, you have to answer about six smaller questions, to call them that, if you will, in order to get the information to get you in position to be able to answer that one, which will be the seventh. So this will be a sermon of questions for the point. So we start out with number one, how should we take the participles? And again, by that, if you didn't wake up studying grammar today, that is meaning the verbs in verse 19 and 20 and 21. Speaking, singing, making melody, giving thanks, submitting. So these are participles, they are somehow modifying filled with the Spirit, and everyone agrees with that, but there are two different views. Some take them as participles of manner, which means, in other words, these verbs would be thought of as explaining how you're filled with the Spirit. So if you want to get filled with the Spirit, then sing and give thanks and start submitting in all the proper areas of your life that you should be submitting. And I don't think that's how to take it for several reasons. Number one, first of all, I think we fall into taking it that way because we've all experienced in the midst of singing, suddenly you are filled in a fresh way by the Spirit, or in the midst of listening to preaching, or in the midst of serving. That's great advice sometimes when you don't feel like doing the right thing. The exhortation of Cain, remember, was if you do well, will not your feelings change and your countenance be lifted up. So that's one way to follow the Lord, to be like David and say to your heart, Hey, soul, let's go. I don't know about you and your house, but we will follow the Lord. And to lead your heart. And there's a great song, I've always remembered, it's got a line by Stephen Gates years ago. I give my mind the truth and sooner or later my heart follows too. And that's the way to lead your heart. And so, sometimes it does happen by just by an act of the will, you go out and obey the Lord, and eventually your heart will follow. But I don't think that's what is... I think that's why we fall into taking it that way, but I think it's best to interpret that when that happens to us as a further filling of some previous filling that has already been going on rather than I was just empty and I did this thing and then the Spirit came. I don't think that's the way to think about it because to tell people to do something apart from the Spirit so that you will receive the Spirit is Paul's definition of legalism. So look at Galatians 3. And you see this in Galatians 3 verse 1, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. This is the only thing I want to find out from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? So think back to when you were converted, when grace first taught your heart to fear. Did grace wait to fall until you began to repent and began to be sanctified and began to get your life in order? Or is it like Paul, he was on his way to Damascus and suddenly, the Lord came and changed him from the inside out and gave him the Spirit. He goes on, are you so foolish? Verse 3, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, so then does he who provides you with the Spirit and works miracles among you do it by the works of the law by hearing with faith. So in other words, Paul is saying the way you start the Christian life is the way you finish the Christian life. If you want to get more of the Spirit, it's certainly not done by submitting so that you can get it. It's done by hearing with faith, and that opens up the window for the Spirit to come. So the thing I need to do is get the Word in me, and believe the word. That's what I need to be concerned with myself, not doing something in order to get him. So if we're not careful, this idea could lead us back into this disillusioned, disintegrating direction of legalism, which is no good. Now, apart from that, there are some other technical reasons we could get into to take these as participles not of manner, not of explaining how, but I won't get into them. They have technical things to do with other places. When the participles are participles of manner, they have a different case for the noun. It's the dative case instead of the genitive case and I'll spare you of all the dative, genitive, and all of this of the noun case. So I side with those who take them as participles of result. So I need to make correction. In the opening sermon, I referred to these three, you remember three, three, three, I referred to these three as commands. So that needs to be edited. They need to be referred to as consequences. So not as commands. The other view that takes them as means would refer to them as commands. So you get one call in this unit, and then you get three contrasts to show you how to fulfill that call, which you already looked at. And on the third contrast, you get three consequences of being filled with spirit. And then on that third consequence submitting, you get the three contexts in which to do that submitting. So as wine, in other words, as wine has its effects, so being filled the Spirit has its effects. And they are singing, they are thanking, and they are submitting. In other words, these three should be thought of by us as similar to the way we read Galatians 5 and think of the fruits of the Spirit. So these are the fruits of the Spirit. If I have a singing problem, then I have a filling problem. If I have a thinking problem, I have a filling problem. If I have a submitting problem, I have a filling problem because these are all effects. of that. So if I'm not submitting and not thinking and not singing, guess what else is not happening? I'm not being filled with the Spirit. So right away, in those three, labeling those in this very first question as being, you may say, well, I wasn't asking that. I mean, mine would have been more like how to be filled with the Spirit. I wasn't asking, like, what about the participles? But In this one, you do see something useful, that right away you're able to label speaking, thinking, and submitting as concrete proofs of someone being full of the Spirit. And they're all three. And so, counterfeit experiences emphasize one of the three, but not all three. For example, you could think of these three as the emotive and the doctrinal and the obedience. So the emotive is you're singing. I mean, there's emotion. And the doctrinal is your mind is not turned off. You're thanking God in the name of Jesus Christ. So you're thinking of doctrine. And then the will is activated through obedience. You're submitting. an emotive response to the doctrine that leads to obedience. That's the fruit of being filled and the evidence of being filled with the Spirit. But you have people all the time, you know, that emphasize the emotive. And they just emphasize worship, what we think of as worship, and a meeting, and running, and skipping, and all this is going on, Undiscerning Christians and some lost people will look at that and they'll say, I know they got that and that and they don't have this and that, but man, they have worship right. And no, they don't. We know that from the Apostle Paul. To be filled with the Spirit is not just to sing. but to have right theology, to give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to be obedient, to be submitting. And then you have, for the doctrinal emphasis, you have your Reformed guys with really big brains that know all of the Greek and Latin, and can tell you all kinds of information, but never sing. Right? You have that danger. Or the guy who's just a nice guy and he's here and he just says, I'm just a sinner saved by grace or whatever, but he never sings. It's just a fact that you look in the Old Testament, when the Spirit came upon someone, something came out. They prophesied, or they spoke, or they said something. And so, Paul says here, the mark of having the Spirit is you sing. You sing, somehow. Then you have the final one, which I think is very telling, those that emphasize the obedience to the exclusion, or no, don't emphasize the obedience, they emphasize not having the obedience. So, you find often people living the most wicked lifestyle, but man, they just enjoy a good worship service. And it seems what's going on there is they are soothing a guilty conscience with a powerful worship service. And so if you don't get worship right and you think all it is is the meeting and the jumping and the tongues and everything that is happening here, and that's what you mark off as being filled with the Spirit and nothing else, then you're able to look at that and feel like you are just one of the most awesome worshipers while your whole lifestyle is completely disobeying the will of the Lord. So it's not hard, Paul says, to see who's filled with the Spirit. They are someone who's having an emotive response to truth that leads to obedience. So that's how to take the participles. And so the next question that comes up then is, should we think of the Spirit as the content of the filling or the instrument of the filling? How do you take this preposition with? There are those who interpret it to mean the content of the filling, and you may think that they're right, and hopefully you see This kind of sermon is not one that you could just flow through the text and answer all these questions, but these are very significant questions, and how you take them will give you a different view. It may seem obvious to you when you read it that the Spirit is the stuff that you're filled with, that's sort of the way you're supposed to think about it and some people take it that way. But actually, with is an ambiguous preposition. Like you could say, he moved her with his hand and that would be instrumental. My hand was the instrument or the tank was filled with oxygen and that would be the content. meaning, and so it has an ambiguity, so it could mean instrumentally and equivalent then to the preposition by, be filled by the Spirit. or it could mean the spirit is the content. So how do you decide which way to go? I take the instrumental view and therefore think that when we read with, I mean you can keep with, but actually the preposition in Greek is in, similar to our English in, in. But it's super ambiguous. And so, does it mean the sphere of the Spirit, the instrumental means of the Spirit, or the content of the Spirit? So you've got to think this through. And there are four reasons, at least, that I take it as instrumental. And so I think when you read it, you should think by the Spirit. Number one, there are no examples of this preposition used with an object in this case to indicate the content of any filling anywhere in Paul's writings. And he talks about being filled a lot. In other words, he always uses the dative Well, he always uses the genitive case of the object of the preposition when he is using it that way and he doesn't here. This is the dative case. So there's no example of that, of the object in that case being treated this way. So this one would be very odd. If you don't know anything in grammar, fine. Just you do know that someone has a normal way of doing things and saying things. It would be odd for them to suddenly do differently. So that's number one. Number two, there is nothing in the context of this book to demand that we take it that way. There's nothing in the flow of the argument to demand you take it that way. Number three, the instrumental use of this preposition with the Spirit is well established in Paul. Let me show you some examples in 1 Corinthians 12. And in verse 3, we read this, Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. And then verse 13, For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Now those use the same preposition The Spirit is the object of it. So you have that, and then you even have a place where Paul talks about being filled with things, and he clearly says the Spirit is the instrument of it, and that is Romans 15 verse 13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So I take it as by. And so when you read with, think of it as being filled by the Spirit. That then raises the third question. What then is the content of what we're being filled with? And I'll just sum it up and show you where I get it from. If I had to just put the best you can do, it's very hard. So this is not the answer. Just take this as a answer. Someone could put it better. Maybe one of you could put it better when you think about it after this sermon. But I would say the content is, the Holy Spirit-mediated, redemptive presence of God and Christ." The Holy Spirit-mediated, redemptive presence of God and Christ. Just listen to these verses. Remember, fullness has a context in this letter. 3.19, it is called the fullness of God. The fullness of God, that you may be filled up with all the fullness of God. And there He mentioned glory, power, and love. So if it were just glory, you might think of just presence in general. And that could be something an angel unfallen in heaven could be filled with, the glory of God. But then he mentions power. which is His mighty act of redemption, and then love, which is in Christ, the Messiah, which, by the way, 4.13 calls it the fullness of Christ, until we all attain this mature man, and he calls it the fullness of Christ. So the fullness is the fullness of the person of God with all of His redemptive attributes and the fullness is the fullness of the person of Jesus with all of his attributes which in context are grace and truth. This fullness is the grace that the church has been given and we minister to one another the grace of Christ and the truth of Christ until we're all attained the full fullness and so you really end up with something like the redemptive presence of God and Christ, which the other two uses in this book confirm. 123, the church is called His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So the fullness in us, of God and Christ is meant to redeem more things around us, not just us. And that matches 4.10 where He is said to have given these graces to the church so that He might fill all things. So He fills all things through filling us, and we fill the things around us. That's how Christ exercises His sovereignty, His redemptive sovereignty. His kingdom spreads through His members who are full of His Spirit, who take His Word and Spirit, you will be witnesses and you'll receive power. And the book says this is all that Jesus continued to do and to teach. He has poured forth this that you both see and hear. Peter says. So Jesus is active. He's not just sitting on the throne. He's active, pouring out the Spirit, filling this city with this teaching. And so the filling is done by Him through His members. So you can do no better, I think, than to just say the content of what the Holy Spirit is filling us with is the Holy Spirit mediated redemptive presence of God in Christ. The attributes of His love and His glory and His grace and His truth in your heart and His presence mediating it to you. That's what it is to be filled with the content. So that's the filling. But then comes the fourth of these six questions, because you want to know, if you are a little bit of a Granarian, you think, well, this is kind of strange, because it's a command, but it's in the passive voice. How do you do a passive command? Be filled. It's like saying be tanned or be heated. How do you be heated? There's others where he says be strengthened in the Lord. be about the work of being strengthened by the Lord. It's a pretty interesting way to talk. And so here, it's very interesting, be filled by the Spirit. So you have to think through, in order to get this doctrine right, how to do a passive command. And I had some help this week, because I was reading the Fellowship of the Ring and they go through this forest and they're trying to go through this forest to a certain spot and the forest keeps moving and sending them other directions and turning them around and so we say it's not letting them through. It's not allowing them to pass. We use the word let when we're talking about a passive, like you're trying to give a kid medicine. You say, let me give it to you. You know, be still, let it happen. Be injected, right, with this medicine or whatever it is. And so it's really gospel, it's really amazing. Like the way to be filled with the Spirit is to be still. and let him lead, let him do what he's wanting to do. It's very amazing. So, but filling, maybe you could think of, maybe the children could think of like an animated, like cars or something where you have an animated thing that contains something and it has a lid on it and maybe this animated character that I'm imagining is fearful, for whatever reason, of being filled up in his tank and so he doesn't want anybody scared of being filled. And they work with him and they get him there and it's like, they say, be filled, it would be like to take his top off and just let them fill him up. It's this idea that the way you do it, you don't do the filling, you let someone else do the filling. And so, somehow, we are to be continually open to the Spirit's influence and letting the Spirit fill us with this content that was just mentioned. So now, How to be filled with the Spirit? How would you answer it? In light of all that we've seen, this is one major question. It's not the major one we're going to answer, but it's a major one. How to be filled with the Spirit? There are at least a few things you can begin to say. I would say, number one, by prayer. Prayer, and based on chapter 1 verse 17, Paul prays that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. So it comes by prayer, but then I would say also by reading the Word, This is chapter 3 and verse 4, after Paul says, you have heard of my stewardship, how I'm an apostle, how there was revelation given to me, and I'm making known to you the mystery and the will of God and this stuff that I just prayed that you would see. He says in verse 4, by referring to this, all of this mystery and insight. When you read, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ. You've got to read the Bible. Some point in your day, an evening person, a morning person, a midday person, a mid-morning, a mid-evening, somewhere in there, there's got to be the eating of the Word. The reading of it. So, praying, reading the Word, and then faith. Faith. It is by faith. It's not by works. And this is chapter 3, verse 17. So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And you're being rooted and built up and filled up. So, again, it doesn't come by straining to be good enough. It doesn't come that way. It's the Galatians 3. You don't receive the Spirit that way. So if your heart is not even right, what Paul is saying is you don't receive the Spirit by making your heart right first. But you pray and say, Lord, change my heart while I'm reading the word and you look and you look and you look and you pray until you believe the promises. So that's how prayer, word, faith, and the last one I would say, is not only do it alone, but have it mediated to you through the church, and that's based on chapter 4 verse 7, but to each one grace was given according to the measure of Christ's gift, and he goes on to say it's through this. that we all go on to attain the fullness. So if I want to be filled with the Spirit, I don't just pray and read the Word and believe the promises myself by my nightstand. I come amongst the people of God so that I might be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and length and breadth and depth and to know the love of Christ. You know, I may only know a little unit of the love of Christ. I need to know the rest of it. And God has ordained to sanctify me that I shall not know the rest of it without knowing you. And so He's given you some of... I just have the drops of Christ by myself. He's given you thoughts and desires and helps that I don't have and I could not have without you. Very wise Father. So, that's how to be filled with the Spirit. Now, I have one final section here, very interesting, before we answer this final question and close. And that is, how does this help us to see the nature versus grace? relationship and debate. And you may say, I didn't know there was a debate about that. Or you may say, ooh, I heard something about that. Apparently, ever since Thomas Aquinas, nature and grace are categories that Christians have thought in. And very simply, you can think of nature as standing for creation. and grace as standing for new creation or redemption. So you just have this basic Christian worldview of creation, fall, redemption. And so there's nature and then there's the redeeming of nature, right? So there's nature and then there's grace. What Aquinas seems to have gotten wrong was the fall part. He believed in a fall, but he just didn't believe in the fall with a capital F. He believed man was partially fallen. You could say he was fallen in his emotions, he was fallen in his will, but he was not fallen in his intellect, which is why he relied as much as he did on Aristotle. So he didn't believe in the fall of the intellect, so when he envisions grace restoring nature, he envisions something like restoring a house that still has a good foundation. A lot of it's bad and termites and mold and got to go. But foundation's good, we can build upon that. So we can build upon Aristotle's thinking. That's not fallen. The rest is. In Reformed theology then, you have this idea called the noetic effects of sin from the Greek word nous, which is for the mind. And it says, no, no, no. People are not as bad as they could be, of course, that's not what we mean by total, but total in the sense that the whole man, as Isaiah says, from the top of the head to the sole of the foot, is unclean. And that means his thinking is unclean. and his thinking has fallen. And so man's problem is far more serious than he's in his fields and he won't obey. You can't even reach fallen man because his mind is darkened. and his mind is at enmity, and you give him arguments and he just repels them like particles, just sends the light beams back where they came from. And that is what needs grace. He needs grace in the intellect, not just in the will and the heart. But that aside, they come up with I guess in dominion discussions, how do you put this? Because there always seems to be a camp you could call the graceless nature camp versus the natureless grace camp. When you talk about taking over the world and spreading the gospel. The graceless nature camp are all of those who want to change society without the gospel. All those who want Kevin McCarthy to do it at the House of Representatives. All of those who want to pass laws amongst goats and spend all their effort and energy trying to pull goats around to do the right thing. As if if you pass the law the goats are going to follow the law of course they're not of course they're going to get the potion from Walgreens and everywhere else and Abortion is not even going to hardly make a blimp of difference Based on what the Supreme Court does and that's the whole point of Paul in 2nd Corinthians 3 the new covenant Does what the old covenant can't do it can't touch the heart this covenant goes to the heart and changes the man from the core so that he now delights to do the law of God and you get a bunch of people changed that way and you will change society in a way that you can trust. So these people fall off the horse in wanting nature restored but not by the gospel. And the other side, the other camp, the natureless grace camp, are those who tend toward, they just want to experience the gospel, they just want to have revival meetings, they just want to have special prayer meetings, they just want to focus on the spiritual and shun the physical, and that simply won't do, because God created physical reality, and He called it good. And He rejoices in it. And he loves, he tells Jonah, right? Jonah, ought I not have restored Nineveh? Look at all the animals. He got many animals. God cares about the animals and wants to redeem the animals and delights in the animals that He's made. So it's part of the Christian worldview to not have this narrow, platonic idea that like, no, no, no, we just want to be spiritual and we want to be out of the body and we just want to float with a harp into heaven. And no, no, no, that's not the goal. That's not my goal of my faith. The goal of the faith is the resurrection of the body, certainly. It's a spiritual body, so it's something different than we know now, but it is a body. Matter is good, not bad, in the Christian world view. So you have these two camps, but what I noticed, and why I brought this up, is in seeing Paul Link being filled with the Spirit, to the way we labor for the restoration of all things? Remember the text here. He has told us to be careful how you walk, and He's defined it, which meant to live for this, live for the wisdom of God and the will of the Lord, and the fullness that's been revealed in this letter, which means live for the reunification of all things in Christ that's yet to be done, finish the puzzle, Well, that makes it totally different because now he's saying, finish the puzzle by the Spirit. Take dominion, but not like a Muslim, just beating it down on people. You do it in the Spirit, by the Spirit. Remember Jesus said, if I by the Spirit of God cast out demons among you, then what? Then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. The Spirit of God and the Kingdom of God are synonymous. The Spirit ruling in hearts is the Kingdom of God. That is the prayer. Your kingdom come, your will be done. It's saying, come give the Spirit to this people in Ezekiel 37 who are very dry and I can't get them to not like abortion. So this means we must see these two, we must see these two as complementary. Not contradictory. We don't have to choose. Are you a nature guy without grace? Are you a grace guy without nature? No, no, no. We love all of nature and we want it covered with full grace. We want all of nature redeemed. We want every tear dried. Every hurting heart healed. The gospel casts its net over all of nature to redeem it. The whole creation is groaning and waiting for us to be redeemed, because they're caught up in it. So, nature is not against the Spirit, nor is the Spirit against nature. It is the Spirit who hovered over the waters and created nature. to begin with. And it's the Spirit who redeemed Jesus' human nature. The Spirit is for nature, for redeeming it. So, this means you must be very careful to take dominion by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Paul says, our weapons are not of the flesh, but they are mighty. What does that mean? We live in a democratic republic. Look, if the majority of people don't want something, we can't spend our whole life just trying to force them to want something. It's wrong. That's not how you change the human heart. If that's our society, then we need mission. We need gospel. We need more conversion. The Word, the Spirit, prayer, faith, that needs to happen. So, we don't take over nature by the law, we take over nature by grace, use the Word of God, Spirit of God, create faith in the heart, in God. And when that experience fills over, You say, boy, that's different. That's something you can't do. You can't just virtue signal, you know, with a, you know, I'm glad I just started this. I was talking, the abortion movement, and sad to say this, the abolition abortion movement even, is starting to derail. And hear it with this sermon. Jeff Durbin recently said that in the bill that they tried to pass, supposedly in Louisiana, that there were so many pastors in Louisiana that were for the bill, but he said hardly none of them showed up. And I just want you to think about that. I'm against that statement, that hardly none of them showed up. whoever said pastors are called to go exhort senators and representatives who don't want to do something, to do something. And there could be a litany of reasons that a biblical pastor didn't have time to show up at this march or rally or whatever. And so instead we ought to think, do you know who influenced western civilization and abortion and rape and murder and everything outside of the New Testament the most? Augustine? Whose mother Monica raised him alone with an unconverted dad? That's a Mother's Day sermon there, that's a Mother's Day sermon. You talk about like, oh no, the Christian family, and it's all got to be like Steve Lawson said, not everyone grows up in a Norman Rockwell painting. Like, No, but she continued to pray and continued to submit to her unconverted husband and pray for Augustine. And then he ends up being converted, one of the most powerful witnesses throughout Western history. So what I'm saying is, Monica was working for the end of abortion in her home. She wasn't holding up a picket sign, but she did more in the end than any of those who were, because she worked for the conversion of her son, and then that changed it. So we have to be very careful about judging Christians on how they're fulfilling the creation mandate, how they're fulfilling the gospel. We all want to get involved in something other than the gospel and say this is the way and everybody who's serious is over here in this way and then we start doing what Jeff did. you start throwing out little judgmental comments like that toward the saints. So, be very careful about that. The way to change abortion and any other sin is through the gospel. And forcing and ramming Herod to pass an abortion law is not gospel preaching. It's just not. It would be good If he did it, to some degree, I guess, hopefully, it would minimize something. But it's not for us to run the world. The secret things belong to the Lord. It's for us not to know the times of the epics, but to be filled with the Spirit, preach the Gospel, lay down and go to sleep, and let God handle the results. And so be very careful about how you look at other Christians, but with that let's end. I think we're in position now to answer this most amazing question has been for me What does it mean to be filled the spirit? I began with a picture of our Christian life kind of capturing the central command and the contrast that he gives and finish the puzzle. Let me give you another one that I think has helped me. And to put some text under it, remember Habakkuk, Isaiah, They use this analogy of water. The earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. And we have feel here for our words. I want you to think of something. Some of y'all may have this, but another thing that I was old enough to experience, not everyone has, is ice cube trays. And so I want to end with that really powerful spiritual analogy with you. But I remember, you know, you just, I don't know why as a boy you get mesmerized by different stuff, but I always thought it was neat that you could turn this little thing, or I remember thinking it was neat and thinking I'm real crafty to turn it at a little angle and you can feel it and feel it, you know, that you feel the first one and you just hold it at that angle and it spills over spills over and spills over. I don't know why I was mesmerized with that, but you know what I'm talking about. So with that analogy in mind, I want you to think of that, and in this analogy that I'm trying to reach for, the water coming into one of those sections, that represents the gospel experience coming into the heart and life of one individual. and that very same water spilling over into other sections represents that one individual taking the graces that Christ has given them as a result, and through them spilling that same experience over into the hearts of others, such that they experience it, and they receive grace, and they want to spill over into other hearts around them. That's how the gospel is spread. And that's how all of society is changed, if it is ever changed. So, what does it mean to be filled with Spirit? I wrote down a paragraph that I want to end with. And there are all the texts in Ephesians under that. go through every one of them. I trust you'll be able to see it in light of what we said. But here it is, three things I want to say. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit? It means, number one, to continuously allow the Word of God and the Spirit of God by prayer and by faith to flow into your heart's water wheel until you experience the fullness of all that God is for you in Jesus to the point that it energizes you to want to see everything around you redeemed. Say it again. Allow the Word of God. That means don't just sit it on the table. Don't not read it in the morning. Because Colossians says, let the Word dwell. Remember the analogy with the lid. You've got to open the lid. and let the Word in. So this is an open lid when I'm reading it. The Word is coming in. So let the Word of God and let the Spirit of God by prayer and by faith flow into your heart until you experience all that God is for you in Jesus. And that experience gives you energy and will and desire and inclination to want to see everything around you redeemed. That's number one. Number two, to the degree that this redemption around you relies on the willful decisions of other human beings, Don't coerce them with law and give your life over to that, but give your life over to using the graces that Christ has given you to spill the very same gospel experience of the Word and the Spirit and prayer and faith into their hearts. until they are energized by the Gospel. That's 1 Corinthians 9. Paul says, I do all things for the sake of the Gospel so that I may become a fellow partaker of it. It's like when you see I mean, Monique has shared these pictures I don't know how many times. This beautiful skyline. You see something and just the beauty is spilling out of your heart. And you want to share it with someone. Hey, look at this. Look. Come and see. We have found the Messiah. Right? From Nazareth. Jesus. So that is what Paul is saying. He enjoys the Gospel so much. that he is burdened to want to see other humans enjoy the gospel and become a fellow partaker of it, not just an individual partaker of it. So number two says, to the degree, so this is the filling, I mean the spilling. Remember 1.23, we are the fullness of Him who fills all in all. So it's not just us being filled, but us being spilled out into the rest of creation. So number two, is to the degree that this redemption relies on the decisions of others. You use your graces to spill the very same gospel experience of word, spirit, prayer, faith into their heart until they experience and do the same. And number three, all because you are filled with a burning zeal to see all of creation full of the glory of God for the good of mankind. So, Bob Jennings, after preaching one time on the text about bring the books, in 2 Timothy, Paul said, and bring the books. And he just went off on a tangent, giving an exhortation, are you reading good books? And then he said, well are you? And just stopped it like that in the sermon. So I want to ask you, are you being filled with the Spirit? That means are you continuously letting the Word of God and the Spirit of God through prayer and faith flow into your heart every day? Are you? Or are you not? And do you need to repent of that such that it energizes you? to want to redeem everything and everyone around you and to give yourself to that. It's not hard to see who this is happening to, is it? And so we pick up with that next time with the singing and the thanking and the submitting. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we thank You for Your Word, which is always, it seems always to be a light to our path and to give us wisdom. I think of Moses saying, what great people is there like this that has such a law and such wisdom? And so Lord, You have given us here in just the flow of this text a new piece of wisdom, from Your Word. It's no man's Word, it's Your Word. There's no glory to be had to anyone but You. But there's some wisdom in here, Lord, on how to live and how to take dominion, how to live our lives, how to give it. to you and how to be filled in the Spirit. So I pray, especially for every believer, whether they're young, old, especially old, that you would convict them and us to repent of not reading the Bible every day. and to repent of not thinking of the Holy Spirit who is trying to lead us in opening our heart to Him, and asking His help when we do read it, and repent of not praying when we read Your Word, and repent of being slow of heart. to believe all the wonderful things out of your law and to repent of thinking that we can fix this by doing something. and working, but rather to come to You and say, Lord, here I am, empty. Here I am, my heart is not right. Here I am, I'm just a ball of need and darkness, and I don't have any encouraging thought in me whatsoever. I'm a cube filled with darkness. And to believe You that Your Word calls the things existing when they're not existing, and you can create life and faith and hope in our heart, and so that's why we read your Word, we yearn for your Spirit, and we pray, and we seek to believe it until you fill us. And help us to get that order right, Lord, so that we can truly be of help to someone else. Help us to be like Ezra, who set his heart to study the law of the Lord, and to do it, and then to teach it. in that order, to have it in us and us experience the gospel before we then go out and try to give it to others. I think of Romans 8, Lord. Paul was so carried away that nothing will separate. And then it's no wonder that Romans 9 follows his heart's desire and prayer, and his burden could wish himself a curse. He has such a burden for the lost. We see, we see, Lord, that burden comes from chapter 8 of being able to be so fully assured in your love. That's the kind of heart that cares for the lost. And so, Lord, we pray You would give us that heart. You'd give us the ability to seek You in these ways. Thank You for today. Thank You for every believer who's here. May You make Your face shine on them truly, Lord, and help them with wherever they are. You know, and You have Your gospel to help them. May You help them. And those who aren't saved, Lord, may You have mercy on them. May they know, any of them in here, that we wish for them to be saved. And we wish for them to have everything that we have. We would even wish for them to have more at your table than what you give us. We would do anything that they would come and join and be happy in Jesus. Lord, help us in all these things. Help Trevor tonight as he shares his testimony to these people in Jesus' name. Amen.