Ephesians chapter 5. This morning's sermon covers verses 19 to 21, but we'll pick it up in the very tail end of verse 18. Ephesians 5. The very end of verse 18. The Apostle Paul gives us this command to be filled with the Spirit. And which we have a whole message on that, so any questions about that that you might find helpful, hopefully they're covered in that one. But we'll concern ourselves with verses 19 and following now. For after he says this, he goes on to say, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we come before you not out of a formality, but believing that you use prayer believing that this is your word and that we are sinners and that therefore we cannot understand it except by your grace. The remaining sin that is in us would suppress this truth and unrighteousness, just as all day long men are wont to suppress the truth of general revelation and unrighteousness. So Lord, we come before you, bow down as sinners, admitting, even myself, that I would preach it wrong in the wrong spirit or omit things or not emphasize things or emphasis is due. So we pray to you, Lord, that by your spirit you might Be kind to us and gracious to us in your mercy. And allow us to understand your word and open our minds. That you might soften our hearts and our wills. That we might have only one thing on our mind as we study today. What did the Lord say? What is his will? What would he have me to do like Paul there? What would you have me to do, Lord? And so we pray that prayer, Paul, for the Thessalonians, that you might, through this word, perform its work in us who believe, that we might all receive it, preacher and hearer alike, not as the word of man, but for what it really is, the word of God, not as coming from Jeffrey and not ultimately as coming from Paul. But it would just be a moment of us like Mary before the feet of our Lord being discipled by you. So we pray that Lord that you would disciple us now through your word. In Jesus name, Amen. There is a brokenness in our culture when it comes to. Identifying true worship. And if we tend to doubt that, we only have to ask ourselves a few questions. One, what comes to your mind if you were to hear someone say, man, that was a really powerful worship service. I just came out of, if you weren't there and you heard them say that, what would come to your mind? I imagine what would come to your mind, what would come to my mind, it would tend to be things like sweat, maybe some people running, the volume of their singing, maybe some people with their eyes closed and their hands in the air, maybe seven, eight, nine, 10 people coming forward, gathered around the altar, Or what do you think of when you hear someone say, man, I know those people have a lot wrong, but you gotta admit, those people really know how to worship. What comes to your mind about those people who are said to know how to worship? Or what do we imagine is missing in a scenario which happens often? Family comes to pastor and they say, preacher, we just want you to know that we have never experienced church like we have here. We can't find anywhere in this area to hear truth like this. And this church just seems to be intent on being biblical and following the word and sacrificial acts of love. And y'all have loved my children and my family and directing them toward the Lord. We're really just looking for a little more from the worship. And so this family will go somewhere totally different, spend their whole life there, so that when they leave and they go eat lunch, they can say things like, man, I got chills. when so-and-so sang that song. So that they can leave every Sunday and say those people really can worship. Or last line of evidence, if you don't think there's a brokenness in our culture when it comes to identifying true worship, just think of the debates and arguments that have been occasioned through what has been described as the Osbury Revival recently. There is a brokenness in our culture when it comes to identifying true worship, but it doesn't have to be. Not with Ephesians 5. and verses 19 to 21 in front of us. For here in this text, the Apostle Paul, the Apostle Paul, the one who was called up to the third heaven. If anyone knows about spirit field worship, it's the Apostle Paul. There's no one living today who has been in a greater state of spiritual ecstasy than the Apostle Paul. There's literally no one on earth today who has ever been carried along, who has spoke with tongues, who has prophesied. who has seen visions, who has written scripture, who has seen Jesus himself risen in his glory. There's no one with a greater spiritual experience resume than the Apostle Paul. And here in this text, he gives us, he gives us the authoritative description of spirit filled worship. So we don't need an expert in revival. We don't need someone, well, they have seen a lot of things and they have been around and they have read a lot of books. We have the Apostle Paul to tell us for certain what spirit filled worship looks like. Now, we know this because After this command to be filled with the Spirit, we know that's the function of verses 19, 21, because after this command to be filled with the Spirit, he follows it up in these verses with five, what they call five adverb participles. That means that they're verbs, but they're doing the work of adverbs. That means they are modifying this action of being filled. And the way they are modifying them is their adverbs of consequence of their verbals of consequence. In result, they are showing us exactly what a spirit field worshiper looks like. They're showing us exactly what a spirit field worship service looks like. because they are showing us one by one the results of someone who is filled with the Spirit. It looks like speaking, singing, making melody, thanking, and submitting. That last one should be translated that way. It's a mistake in the English translation. present participles are signaled by the ING ending. And so they should really put it that way to help make that point to English readers. But then you notice you say, okay, well, there's five results, but then you notice that the first three, this singing, speaking, and making melody really can just be put under the one category of singing. And there's a couple of reasons for that. The speaking and the making melody are done in song. So that's one reason. And also you can't see it in English, but in Greek, the noun translated psalm, where it says speaking to one another in psalms is the same root of what's translated in verb form as making melody. So if you wanted to translate it to bring it out, it would say, speaking to one another in Psalms and psalming with your heart to the Lord. So it's the same word just in its verb form or noun form, just the same link, as you can see there in English, clearly with in song and then singing. So in both these cases, you have the noun form and then you have the verb form. Psalms, singing, psalms and psalming with your heart to the Lord. This makes it clear that Paul does not have in mind three different activities here. But just one in the same activity, activity viewed from three different perspectives. And after you recognize this, you realize that what you really have here is just three categories of result or consequence of being filled with the Spirit. And they follow nicely in the way that they've divided the verses for us. There is the singing mentioned in verse 19. That's the first result. There is the giving of thanks mentioned in verse 20. And there is this submitting mentioned in verse 21. Just not hard to tell who a spirit filled person is. It turns out it's not hard to tell what a spirit filled worship service looks like. Such a person and a people will be singing, thanking, and submitting in the particular ways that Paul describes those activities right here. So let's look at them in detail one at a time. First of all, in verse 19, we see singing. And I suppose the first thing you note about this singing is this adjective spiritual. It comes at the end where he mentions speaking to one another in psalms, hymns, and then he mentioned songs, but he adds spiritual to the songs. Now, most commentators view this adjective as modifying not just songs, but hymns and psalms as well. These then are psalms, hymns, and songs sung by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. This confirms the result. These things happen as a result of being prompted by the Spirit. That they are spiritual says nothing. Here's a point to get. Notice we just have a tendency to read this in the text. We talk all the time about exegesis and eisegesis. reading out of the text versus reading into it. Every time we're just so enculturated and indoctrinated in this idea to associate spiritual with spontaneity that we just inject that in here. But that these are spiritually prompted says nothing about their spontaneity, only about their source, that they are spirit led. So we need to cleanse out of our mind this idea that spirit led necessarily means sweating and jumping. You can be calmly sitting in the pew, singing the song, it is well with my soul and be full of God's spirit. Your mind is focused on the Lord. Your heart is strengthened in the truth. And it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a higher thing you need to attain. That they are expressed to one another is the next thing you notice. He says, speaking to one another. And this is interesting. That shows that Paul has intelligible communication in mind, not meditation, not a trance. He does not have in mind, although it's fine if you raise your hands and close your eyes and think. He does not have in mind unknown speech or tongues. but intelligible, thoughtful language that people understand. You are speaking to one another. We do this, right? We say, oh, come let us. We speak to one another when you sing. You say, come, come all you faithful or come all you unfaithful in that new version. As to these three categories, though, this is maybe the next thing you notice. Psalms, hymns, songs. What do we make of this? All the commentaries agree that I searched on this. Their uses, which I won't take the time to develop it and clog up the whole sermon, but their uses in the New Testament, they really provide no sureness of categorizing them as three different types of singing. I mean, the songs just seem to be an outburst of praise that a couple of ways the word hymn is used. It's also a hymn of praise and song is a song of praise. So taken together, though, the best we can say is that you can say for sure is they seem to refer to the full range of singing that the spirit prompts. So use the full range of singing that the Spirit prompts. Now singing and making melody are joined by the conjunction and, and that tells us those should be taken together, being the verbal forms of those nouns I just mentioned. And so it's like as commenting on the same activity from a different perspective. So speak in Psalms as, showing the prompting perspective as being from the spirit. These songs and these songs need to be spiritual. But the second phrase, this second modifying phrase is interesting. It says with your heart and then to the Lord. So the first maybe way of saying use songs and Psalms is looking at the spiritualness of it, the origin of it. And then the second make it, you know, psalming and singing here. He puts that in the verbal form because he wants to call attention to another thing, that it's with your heart and that it's to the Lord. So what is with your heart mean? And to the Lord mean about this psalming and this singing the heart, you know, from scripture refers to the issues of life. It is the Bible's way, you know, when you, when you look at each other, we look at each other, like who is Chali actually? Is she the hair? Is she the eyes? Is she the, and who is Summer? Who is Jaypo? Well, yeah, that's part of it. God made us physical, but there's an eye there. There's a person there. There's something deeper. And underneath and within, there's a consciousness there, a spirit there, a person dwelling in this body. And the core of that person has affections and wills and inclinations and dreams and hopes and desires and a core. And the Bible uses this idea of your heart as being the very center of your being. From which issues, the proverb says, all the all the issues of life. So to say this is amazing to me, to sing with your heart and to make melody with your heart means with your whole being. With your whole being, from your very core, radiate out with the full range of singing unto the Lord. That's the idea. And in this letter, Lord means Christ. So spirit prompted songs about what God has done in Christ. Even on the day of Pentecost. When they first spoke in tongues, those who heard heard them declaring the mighty deeds of the Lord. About what he had accomplished in Christ. The hymns that you see in the New Testament are like this. In Revelation, we find hymns And they are to Christ and they sang a new song saying, worthy are you to take the book and to break its seals for you were slain and purchased for God and so on. We see it three or four times in Revelation. As well, there are sections in the New Testament that you may know that scholars think that these were fragments of hymns that Paul would use a fragment of a hymn to make a point like we would in a sermon. You may be in the middle of a sermon and then you may quote a hymn to make a point. These are places like Philippians 2, the descent and the ascent of Christ, or Colossians 1, that section of by him and in him all things were created, or 1 Timothy 3, great is the mystery of godliness. He was revealed in the flesh and so on. They think of those as hymns, or Romans 1, that he was born a descendant of David, declared the Son of God with power. These are various areas that they think of these as early church hymns. And it come to my mind, there's this famous letter of Pliny the Younger in A.D. 112. He was a Roman governor. And there's a famous letter that he writes to the emperor Trajan, who's a pagan emperor. He's a pagan governor. writing to a pagan emperor, and he's trying to seek advice on how to handle the Christian movement. And it's in this letter on how to handle this new Christian movement that this pagan governor in describing the Christians One of his descriptions is they would rise early in the morning and sing a hymn of praise to Christ as God. That was the big threat to the empire. What are we going to do with these people spreading this idea that the crucified one is God? And they get up every morning and they meet and they sing a hymn of praise to Christ as God. And this is interesting. He cites them doing this antiphonally, which is a word for that singing that goes back and forth. You divide your choir into two halves. This is amazing. The early church, according to this Roman governor, woke up in the morning and it was responsive singing. It's this verse. They were addressing one another in the spirit prompted songs with their heart to the Lord. It was about the Lord, just like the seraphim in Isaiah 6. And one called out to the other. saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of his glory. So the purpose, get this, is look at the beauty of the Trinitarian nature of this worship. We're talking about spirit prompted singing in praise to God and to Christ. for what they have done for the purpose of edifying the saints and reminding them and speaking to them about what God has done in Christ. That's what spirit field worship looks like. That's what a spirit field individual looks like. They want to meet with the saints as often as they can and from their being radiate songs to God and to Christ and through that vertical worship to send out horizontal encouragements to the saints around them. But we need not say, right, that a person who is singing to God that way is also doing something else. And so you move to number two, thanking. They will also be thanking God, won't they? The first thing you notice in verse 20 about this thanking is how it is an obvious corollary to being filled. Of course, you'll be expressing gratitude for benefits that you've received if you're singing about this. But the specificity of this Thanksgiving is pointed out, isn't it, by four modifiers. Notice them with me one at a time. First of all, he says always. always giving thanks. This tells us when we're to give thanks. Listen to this. This is the part that will be roughest for us to hear, convicting to hear. But he tells us here that there is no season of life in which your whole being should not still be radiating with songs to God and to Christ. Isn't that what this means? And if you still have not learned this very difficult lesson, which no doubt all of us are still learning it of sorrowful and always rejoicing to where you would say, well, Jeffrey, I mean, what do you mean like just straight thanksgiving all through life? Like we're automatons? It's not okay to cry? And as has been said over and over, when people would respond to Paul's statement to always give thanks and say, Paul, may we not cry? You'd think he would look at them and say, you still have so much to learn. about the emotional life of a believer. You think way too simplistically. What did I just say that would make you think you may not cry? Why do you think that weeping and joy cannot exist in the same heart at the same moment That's why he says, as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. He writes that to the Philippians, and he says, Epaphroditus, God healed him so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. He would have wept. If Epaphroditus died, he just would not have stopped rejoicing. How do you fit that together? Joy is not about happiness. Joy is not about the circumstances. Joy, deep joy, can be expressed with tears running down your face. Like Habakkuk says, no cattle in the stall, no fruit on the vine. Everything has failed. Yet I will rejoice. You see. Always. In every season, then he says for everything. Means children have this right. Sometimes we get super spiritual and we correct children. They want to thank God for their cat or they want to thank God that, you know, they made it here safely. You say, what puny prayers? Well, are they? He says, in everything, for everything. That means be thankful for your animals, be thankful for the safe driving, be thankful for everything. The comprehensiveness of this includes also all suffering and trials. It doesn't just mean we're weird, like I said, that we like trials, that we don't cry, that we're not burdened. It means by faith, hope, and love, we know that they are working for good. And that no weapon against us can ultimately prosper and everything is being turned. Like we used to have these cats. That's what it means for everything to work for good. And we were just terrible little boys trying to torture these four cats. and we would hold them upside down and just try to land them on their back, you know? But they always turn over. I would say try it, but your parents may not like it, I don't know, but they just always turn over. I mean, we would get that cat like an inch from the, and somehow it would turn over. They're so fast, it's just, as soon as you let them go. And God turns everything for good, no matter how bad it looks. You see, he just turned a little wicked experiments of little boys to sermon illustration. And we triumph through them. That's what it means to say, Lord, this is killing me. But by faith, I'm going to thank you for this while the tears of pain are running down my face. If you can't do it then, you're not doing it. Remember, it's not circumstantial. That means you need to do it while the tears are flowing. And he says, to God, even the Father. Obviously, that would come next. Having mentioned this overruling providence, since he is the one from whom all blessings come, he is the one from whom are all things. through whom he's moving everything along. And then he says, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that means recognizing that he's the mediator that makes all these things possible. How could all things be working for the good of sinners without a mediator? That this one in Revelation who was crucified runs the world with nail pierced hands. He is your King and nothing can separate or hinder His purpose. We see this kind of thanksgiving illustrated in the life of the Apostle John when he's on the Owl of Patmos. Are you on a Patmos? Give an outburst of praise to God the Father, to God the Son, and to God, the Holy Spirit. That's what we see in John, right? He's on the island of Patmos and he writes his initial letter and he's writing this, the introduction And he just can't help it. He just seamlessly segues and says, Now unto Him who has released us from our sins by His blood and has made us a kingdom of priests to our God. This is not someone taking his Easter photo with his family. He's on the island of Patmos, rejected by this world with no friends, in loneliness. Are you in a time of plenty, though, where you're not sorrowing and suffering that much? Remember, this was the original sin, right, of Romans 1. They did not give thanks. So if you're in a time of plenty, be giving an outburst of praise of the same for each and every marvelous gift of grace that you are being given. How do believers find you? Do you see what we see here? Worship is about so much more than the worship service. That's what we see here. It envelops the singing, but it envelops your thankfulness. How do believers find you when they have lunch with you? Are you thankful? to God and to Christ? Or are you that guy in the Old Testament that says you're melting the hearts of your brethren because you're just an Eeyore? You have no word. You just, yeah, it's pretty bad. Yeah, it's all going down. Yeah, there's just there's no grasping. And again, like I told the children, this is not positive Polly. If you just by default haven't have a, you know, optimistic personality, That is not spiritual. That's just your default. To be spiritual is to have its spirit prompted because of truth. And you see that can translate to this other person who has a melancholic personality, because it's not based on personality, it's based on truth. It'd be very sad if it's based on personality. They may say, well, I wasn't born with that personality. I guess I can't have any hope. No, no, no. It's rooted in truth. So we don't want to be giving off the vibe that, you know, Christ has never come. There is nothing good happening. All things are working for evil. So literally, I mean, this means at all times, you're just worshiping. Your life is worshiping God when you're bathing the children and you just start singing a hymn or when you're walking through the woods and you just think about something spiritual. You're just being thankful and you're just grabbing things and praising God with them. You're just telling jokes. You're being silly because there's no other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. And you have trusted and you're obeying and you have joy and you're spreading that to these other discouraged hearts around you. You see, it's like Chesterton said, a pessimist. is someone who thinks there's something wrong with everyone in the world except them. And an optimist thinks there's something good with every part of the world except the pessimists. You don't know enough to be pessimistic. Pessimism is for those who see the end of all things and know all things, and you're not qualified for either one of those. So how do you know? How do we know anything? We know it from the scripture, from God revealing it to us. So this call to be thankful is just magnify God and Christ at the bath time, at the lunch time, at the bedtime, during the suffering times. And a person who's thanking God that way is a person who'll be doing one more thing. Submitting, verse 21, and submitting to one another in the fear of Christ. There are two views on this submitting, which you should know about. The first is called the mutual submission view. which says it means that we are to act in loving, considerate ways to one another. That's basically how they interpret this exhortation. And this is argued from the fact that it says to one another. So it seems like, you know, we're all to just kind of be submitting to one another, which just means that general Christian ethic that's prescribed in the New Testament, loving service, sacrificial consideration, So this view, just so you know, would say, yes, wives are to submit to husbands, but husbands are also to submit to their wives. And children are to submit to their parents, but parents also at times are to submit to their children. And slaves are to submit to their masters. that sometimes they're to submit to their slaves. And this added phrase in the Lord in the fear of the Lord means something like he alone has authority. No other man has authority. We're all equals and and there's no hierarchy among us. And so we're just all submitting to one another. And that's how it's viewed. You can probably tell by the way I'm describing it that I Don't find it convincing and take the other view for the following reasons. By the way, the other view, you may call it the particular submission view, which says the meaning of the verse is submitting to the God-ordained authorities in your life. So that would mean a husband is a God-ordained authority, so wives submitting to your husbands. A parent is a God-ordained authority, so children submitting to the parents. And masters is a God-ordained authority, so servants submitting to them. That would be the way that we submit to one another. What are the reasons for taking it this way? Number one, the normal meaning of this word, submit, it is hupotasso. The tasso is a military term that means get in order, get in an ordered array. And hubo means under. Get in an ordered array under the will of another. Fall in line according to the wishes of one who is over you. It's the normal meaning all throughout the New Testament of the word. It always envisions one person who is under and another person who is over. And this cannot be if all are submitting. For example, just one, the demons are said to be subject to the disciples. Now, does that mean they gave loving consideration to the disciples? No. It means they ordered themselves according to the command of the disciples. Now that's the general meaning in which anyone in the ancient world would have taken this word. So that's reason number one for taking the particular submission view. Number two is in none of the following relationships does Paul do what other people in evangelicalism say we're supposed to use it as. He doesn't stop and say, and now you husbands submit to your wives. It's missing. And you parents submit to your children and you masters submit to your servants. He never does that. Which you would expect if this is the way we should take it. Instead, what you find is the danger of abusive authority is dealt with not by saying, oh, and you're also to be under their authority, but by special exhortations to not abuse your authority. So after the wife instructs to submit to the husband, the husband is told, hey, handle your authority this way. And after the children are told to submit to the parents, the parents are told, hey, You know, don't provoke your children to anger and all this sort of thing. And after the slaves are told, submit to the masters, the masters are told, hey, and you also have a master in heaven. So treat people right. So that's how the dangers dealt with, not by making everyone submissive and having no hierarchy and everything is flattened. Third, the pronoun is not always reciprocal. For example, Remember that was an argument? Well, the pronoun, one another, means it's reciprocal. Well, in Revelation 6-4 it says that men should slay one another. Now obviously that doesn't mean everyone is mutually slain all at the simultaneous same time. The sense of it would be some men are slaying one another. But everybody's not stabbed at the same time. Galatians 6.2, bear one another's burdens. And in context, this is falling into sin. You who are spiritual, if one is caught in a trespass, restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Bear one another's burdens. Well, obviously, one guy is the one burdened at the moment, and the other is the burden bearer. One is the brother who fell into sin, and one is the brother who, at the moment, has not fallen into sin. And so they're not both bearing each other's burden simultaneously at the same time. So these two are enough to show that the pronoun does not have to be interpreted mutually. So if there are other things in this context to send us the other way, we should be guided by them. So there's two other lines of evidence. Number four, verse 21, as we saw in the opening sermon, is clearly the heading for the three contexts coming. After he says submitting to one another in the fear of Christ, he's going to give these three contexts, wives to husbands, children to parents and slaves to masters. And verse 22 doesn't even have a verb in the original text. So it's just assume it's carried over from 21. So the flow would be as though Paul said, submit to one another, and this is what I mean, wives to husbands. children to parents, slaves to masters. Lastly, number five, in the fear of Christ, this phrase Paul uses only four other times in the New Testament. Two times the object is the Lord, is the fear of the Lord, and two times the direct object is God, the fear of God. But in all times, the context is a holy all. Not a terror, not a paralyzing terror about someone who hates you that you're afraid of, but you can't just translate it reverent. It is fear. It is the Old Testament idea, the fear of the Lord, which is in all toward who he is as the creator and Lord and judge of all things that makes the worshiper order his life under his sovereignty. Like Abraham went into this place and he thought they wouldn't act right because there's no fear of God in this place. And someone who has a fear of God is sensitive to the will of God, and they want to know that their life is in line with his word and his will. So this tells us that we ought to take in the context of this letter, Lord is Christ. And he's the one putting all things under his feet. So it's totally possible to take the fear of the Lord as a supporting motivation for submitting to the God-ordained authority structures in our lives. For those five reasons, I take the specific submission view, not the mutual submission view in light of Christ's power and holiness. Believers filled with the spirit will be submissive to God ordained authority structures, three of which are wives, husbands, children, parents, slave to masters. There are more. And what does this tell us? This this sounds kind of. Mechanical didn't seem spiritual, so let me remind you that Old Testament illustration in Exodus 31, you have these two individuals, Bezalel and Aholiab, who God tells Moses are filled with the spirit. To do what? make this particular item in the tabernacle and this particular item in the tabernacle in this particular way and all craftsmanship to put it together this particular ordered way. People filled with the spirit order their lives according to the will of God. So are you filled with the spirit? The result will be the exact opposite of drunkenness. Drunkenness has its effects, which is disillusion, disorder, everything falling apart, a life falling apart in the chaos. The home will become a place of order. The more the members of the home are filled with the spirit. Wives filled with the Spirit will order themselves into their place. And children filled with the Spirit will order themselves like Jesus, who submitted to His mother and Luke, we're told. And they will order themselves into their place. And slaves filled with the Spirit will order themselves into their place. And the result will be more peace and order and hope in God. So after studying these verses this morning, let's return to our opening questions that we began with. But let's ask it a little bit different because, you know, as well as I do, we'll hear a sermon like this. We'll say the right thing to each other. We got the orthodoxy. Oh, yeah, we worship according to the word. And this is the definition of worship, but we'll still be saying, those people really know how to worship. The most foolish of songs, lacking so much content about God and Christ utterly disorderly lives, disobedient to the word of God in their private life. But we will look at that and because of their sweat and their contorted faces and their apparent sincerity, and we'll say, wow, Wish we could worship like that. So what ought we to say? What ought to come into our minds now, having studied these words in God's providence? We've heard these words today from this text. When we hear someone say, wow, that was a powerful worship service. We should think, well, presumably they mean singing to God and to the Lamb. Right? From the core of their being, encouraging everyone. Presumably, they mean a place filled with thankful people in all things, suffering, the dominoes, the joke, the pizza. People of that type of mindset. Presumably, they mean people who are just, Lord, what would you have me to do? And they're like the hummingbirds, seraphs, just flying, just ready. Give me a command, Lord. What would you have me to go and do? Presumably that's what you mean, right? A powerful worship service? Or what if someone says to you, now those people really can worship. You would expect that. Or what would you say now if someone says to you that line of, we've really grown here and it's so good for our family and y'all love us and it's such gospel fellowship. Should you say something? Or should you say, well, we can't speak to worship like we can talk about this and that and salvation, but when someone's worshiping. I mean, I can't exhort them, can I? I can't correct them. Can I? Of course you can. You see it right here. The Word of God. There's not one. compartment of our life that's outside of the instruction of the Word. It's all under its authority. So yeah, you can. Presumably, you'll be a good ambassador of Christ and a true friend in that conversation and not just secretly think in your mind, well, that was unbiblical, but who am I? Presumably, you will speak what this book calls the truth to one another in love, that by it they may grow. What happens if you don't speak? They just go right on in waywardness. Or if someone wants to know, is what's been happening in Osbury a spirit-filled movement? I mean, as you get the facts, it shouldn't be hard to tell, right? Is it this kind of singing? Is it this kind of thinking? Is it this kind of submitting being produced? So we need to close and we need to ask ourselves some individual questions, though. Not just those people out there. We need to ask ourselves, do you sing Do you sing, not just in church, but privately, driving down the road? Do you ever find yourself singing? And if the answer is no, if you have a singing problem, what does that mean? Are you thankful? Are you in general a thankful person as a result of what God has done in Christ and you're spreading that? to others around you, other image bearers of God that are in sin and sorrow and grief and suffering. I mean, are you there? Are you beside them? Are you spreading this attitude? And if not, if you have a thinking problem, what does that mean according to these verses? And are you submitting? Wives? Are you submitting to your husband's children? How quick are you to obey mom and dad? And then servants at work. What kind of employee are you? And if you have a submitting problem. What does that mean, according to this verse? Well, I would submit to you that if being filled with the Spirit leads to these activities, if these activities are missing in your life, that implies you're not being filled with the Spirit. And so what do you need to do? Do you need to grunt to submit? Do you need to grunt to thank, to just think you're just like a little kid who received something, you know, your birthday you didn't like, and your mom's like, say thank you, thank you. Like, no, you don't just create this. You don't go and obey and that's how you get the Spirit. Paul says, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? No, it's by hearing with faith. That's how it always happens. So that's that previous sermon on how to be filled with the Spirit. If I have any one of these three problems, what I need is to get before the Word of God. And well, this is happening. Let it fall. Let the dishes fall. Husbands can help with the dishes if they need to so that their wives have a moment before the word. Whatever had Jesus says, one thing is necessary, Martha. Get before the word of God and in prayer to God and be among the people of God and let in the ministry of the spiritual gifts that are in the church of God until you start singing in this way and until you start thinking in this way and until you start submitting in this way. indirectly, where you've been in the word and you've been in prayer and you've been meeting with the saints and you've been partaking of all the means of grace. And it's like suddenly you turn around like, wow, I'm submitting. Well, yeah, that's how it happens as a result. And wow, look at that, I'm thankful. How did that happen? And wow, I just found myself singing. I'm just out in the yard and raking the leaves and all of a sudden I found myself saying, where did that come from? Being filled with the spirit. Now, if you're not the guy with the problem and you're currently doing this, you say, well, no, I'm I mean, I know I'm not perfect, Jeffrey, but but, you know, it is happening. Praise the Lord. It is happening. I'm in this state. Well, then the exhortation would be never stop it. Keep doing it. For like those blow up slides that we rent for those parties, the moment you turn off the power. The whole thing goes flat. The moment you lose the feeling of the Spirit, you lose the singing, you lose the thinking, and you lose the submitting. And we are living in the tension of the already not yet of salvation. That means there are forces constantly draining you. You have a bucket with holes in it. Monday is going to attack everything you heard today. Tuesday is going to attack how weak you are on Monday and Wednesday is going to attack the weak you of Wednesday. You know this is how it works. You can think a certain way. You could be impacted by the word. And the moment it's over begins the draining process. So you have to fight. This is a perennial command to be being filled, constantly be coming to the meeting, constantly be fellowshipping with the saints, constantly be going to your Bible and in prayer. Why? Why? If anyone asks you, you see, this is how this should work. We have got to teach our children before we die so that they know how to handle this book after we're gone. I'm constantly doing this with mine. I'm like, why should we be doing this? Like, well, no, no, no. Put a verse under it. Put a verse under it. So you say, why are we reading? Oh, here, child, here's why I'm reading. So that I might sing. Don't you want dad to sing? Don't you want dad to be thankful? Don't you want dad to be submissive to the Lord? Well, I got to get that. That's why. That's why. Why do we go into church? Why do we need to go to all the meetings? Well, it's just the right thing to do. No. Ephesians 5. Don't you want us to sing? Don't you want us to be thankful? Don't you want us to be submissive? Well, this is how it happens. So we are mental people. We're not just moral, doing the right thing. Well, it's the right thing to do. No. We have thoughts. And that means as we go now to the Lord's Supper, and we end this service and the fellowship meal after, you can have a motive in your heart. Why am I taking the Lord's supper? Because it's one of the God-ordained means of being filled with the Spirit. It's going to help me sing. It's going to help me be thankful. And it's going to help me submit. There's a thought, right? You have a submission problem. You need the Lord's supper. Why am I going to go over here in a minute and eat, even though all of y'all just cook the finest of Southern foods every time? And I'm going to eat too much Probably, it's just a prediction. But that's not the real reason, is it? Because I'm trying to believe what God has said, that we know the Lord in the communion of the saints, and somehow something will be said, or just seeing people, or just experiencing the saints, just the smiles, or a hug, or whatever. I need it. So let's close and you come and take the Lord's Supper if you are a believer in Jesus Christ. And if you are not, please remember that there's nothing any Christian has here that you cannot also have. And you can have it, and you can have it immediately, because it's all based on the goodness and kindness of the God who created you and made you. And He's not served by your hands as the little picture the children have on the back of their little catechism sheet this week of the fireman carrying out the little child. That's how you come to God for salvation. Lord, I have no ability. My life is a wreck. But you said you would just carry sinners, so I'm throwing myself in your arms. That's salvation. So do that if you haven't. But if you have and you're a believer and you come, maybe we can have these motives in our heart. If you're a person who is not singing and thinking and submitting very well, you may hear your Heavenly Father calling you through this saying, hey, these are results. I'm not asking you to produce these things in your own power. I'm just asking you to come and be filled and I will produce them in you. So can you come and be filled? That means can you come empty? That's the encouragement. That's fine. This is for empty people. And then if the winds of the Spirit are currently blowing through you, come because, Lord, I know I'm in this fallen world and I know I might sin somehow. Or, Lord, I just need to keep coming. Just keep filling me, Lord. That I might stay thankful. That I might stay submissive. That I might stay singing. and I might be a church member, that I might be someone who is here belting out praises to you genuinely and thankfulnesses to you that helps my brothers and sisters. So Lord, I'm coming to take the Lord's supper to be filled for those reasons. Whatever they are, wherever you are, God does call you to come and to be filled and to sing and to thank and to submit. Let's take the words. Christ alone My hope is found. He is my light, my strength, my song. This cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm. What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are still, ♪ With strivings eased by Comforter ♪ By all in all ♪ Here in the love of Christ I stand ♪ In Christ alone of God in this day Jesus here in There in the ground His body lay Light of the world by darkness slain Then bursting forth in glorious day Up from the grave He rose again And as He stands in victory Oh No guilt in life, no fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man. me Oh here in the power of Christ God, we thank you for this morning, just for allowing us to be here and to worship you together. We're thankful for your word, how it's through your word that faith came about in us. And we're thankful that we can come to you and to your word constantly. Just to trust in the promises and to believe on them. God, may that just overflow from us, God, that we would constantly see one another and give thanks to you. And we do pray that you would bless the food and bless our fellowship together, God, because it was sweet. And God, that it would just all be edified to us, God, that we would be rewarded. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. What you're trying to say is we need to I literally was not thinking of that. If anything, today, it gave me a new appreciation for y'all, if anything. That did cross my mind. It did make me think, like, we devalue the importance of the singing. Like, I mean, that's a text right there for the singer. Theology is meant to be in there. Yeah, and I just think we do it so well. Like, when somebody would say that, like, just, it's like, all of it, it's all of it. I know. And we do it really well. I agree. You know, and I'm not talking about the way we sing, just like, what we sing. Scripture, the lyrics, the music. It's just like, it's on. You know, you hear it. I want to know. Hey, even if, you know, I remember hearing one time, it was like, if you were in a church that the gospel was being just let out and everything else, at least you had these hymns that were getting, you would be getting truth out of them like your son. Yeah. Yeah, I was thinking that's a good... I feel like everybody leading worship should have like a little template of just those verses expounded or something. Yeah. Yeah, I always... When you go back home, when you start out talking about the whole debate in worship, Yeah. Mm hmm. Like you would never talk like that in person. Hmm. Oh, I know what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, there's a superficial kind of different Yeah, the simplicity The preachers used to get in that back in the day, like when you say God, like, good. You know, you gotta like, you have all this. And then there was this, this was a little bit before my time, but apparently everybody started to try to talk like Billy Graham. It kind of created this movement. Which I guess so, the whole, the spread of the altar call was, I mean, he popularized it big time. But it's that same thing, like, don't know like let me get some of this anointing they think like if I talk this way yeah Yeah, because still. Yeah. I feel like I still have to constantly, which makes sense, constantly being filled. I have to remind myself. Be myself. Which for you, if you didn't get excited, I'd be like, something's wrong with you. What's wrong? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm saying whether, like me, that's not me, dude. Get excited. If Cory didn't cry, there would be something. Yeah, but you see, there's things you do. I think like me, I wish I cried more like Cory. That's why I don't speak to kids. Did you really hold Ketchup's head down and try to land him on the back? Oh, here we go. I really did. We really did. And I really could not get him to fall on their back. I did eventually get scratched in the face. I'm sure they probably found the cat. Yeah, you're the shot guy. I'm not held responsible if someone gets attacked by a cat. Hey, good brother. This is for the HVAC. OK. All right. Is it? I guess Justin's in the nursery. He was. I think he is. Oh yeah, this thing. genuine sort of, like, felt. You know, I had a desire to be a part of the body and talking to people. I remember when Kevin was passed from the church we'd visit, there was a guy