Is the Spirit's Filling That Big a Deal?, Part 2

Are you looking for an appropriate prayer as you start a new day? Lord, I'm yours today. Remind me as I get to my place of employment. Remind me, Lord, as I meet with those individuals who may be difficult to deal with.

Remind me that I'm yours. And help me to depend, to lean on you, and to have you fill my mind and my thoughts so that I am literally filled with your presence and power and dynamic. For many Christians, prayer has become an ongoing conversation with God throughout the day.

It starts first thing in the morning, and the quiet dialogue continues as the day rolls on. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll is teaching from a variety of New Testament passages that speak to this interactive relationship with God. In particular, we're looking at what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

We'll begin right where we left off on our previous program. Chuck titled his message with a question. Is the Spirit's filling that big a deal? Now let me show you some things in Ephesians 5 verse 18.

Do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Let's focus our attention on the second of the two commands. Stay with me now.

Keep thinking. Look at that command. Be filled with the Spirit. To begin with, I've said it already, but let me repeat.

I want to make four observations about it. First of all, it is in the imperative mood. You be filled with the Spirit, I suppose we could say, and with the inflection of my voice, you can tell it's not a mild, casual recommendation.

This is not a polite, calm piece of advice. It is a straightforward, firm command. We have no more liberty to escape this duty than to ignore the ethical commands that surround it. Chapters 4 and 5 mention work hard, speak the truth, be kind, forgive, be tender-hearted, be filled with the Spirit. You see, it's in the same Spirit as those other commands.

So Christian, let me admonish you, let me admonish us. If our lives are not filled with the Spirit, we are not obeying God's direct command. It is an imperative mood. Interestingly, it is in the plural form. He's not directing this to one special group of people or one super spiritual saint in the church at Ephesus or for that matter in the church you may be a part of. He is saying to all of us universally across the board, all believers are to be equally filled with the Spirit of God. Third, it is in the passive voice.

Did you notice that? Be filled. The command is not fill yourself up with the Spirit.

No. The New English Bible does a good job with this rendering. Let the Holy Spirit fill you. But don't make too much of that. Just as a person gets drunk by drinking alcohol, so an individual is filled with the Spirit by involving himself in the process that leads to it. For example, I cannot be filled with the Spirit and operate my life with known sin at work. I cannot be filled with the Spirit while at the same time operating in the flesh for my own glory. I cannot be filled with the Spirit while I am walking against God's will and depending upon myself.

I need to be sure that in my life I have taken care of the sins that have emerged, that I have not ignored the wrong that I have done to others. I need to walk in dependence on the Lord on a daily basis, many a morning I begin my day by sitting on the side of the bed and saying, without necessarily speaking it aloud, this is your day, Lord. I want to be at your disposal.

I have no idea what the day holds. But before I ever begin, even with my first cup of coffee, before I ever get dressed, I want you to know from this moment on through this day, I'm yours. Now, once again, I don't necessarily mechanically go through that statement every morning, but that's filled my mind.

I operate my life, and many of you do that too. Lord, I'm yours today. Remind me as I get to my place of employment, we might say.

Remind me as I'm on the freeway. Remind me, Lord, as I meet with those individuals who may be difficult to deal with. Remind me that I'm yours. And help me to depend, to lean on you, and to have you fill my mind and my thoughts. Take control of my senses so that I am literally filled with your presence and power and dynamic.

I want to be your tool, your vessel today. I can't make it happen, and so I'm saying, Lord, fill me with your spirit today. It's a proper prayer. Please observe also, or at least take note, that it is in the present tense. It's a continuous appropriation. This is not some great, high and mighty moment where you go through an experience of the fullness of the spirit, and from then on, you are on that all-time high, which never wanes. I see it as a regular thing.

We are regularly to pray. Fill me, Lord, for this moment. Fill me in this hour. Fill me as I'm facing what I have to face. It is like walking, and you begin to walk without thinking about walking. When we're little, we don't do it that way. Every step is a magnificent achievement. And then once we learn to put two or three steps together, we begin to put four or five together. And then before you know it, by the time you've reached a young age of three, four, five, you're walking and not even thinking about it.

It's just a part of life. The filling of the spirit is much like that. It becomes a part of our conscious life. But we learn to walk carefully, and we say to the Lord as we walk in him, Lord, this is your day, and I take this next step, and yet this next step for you.

Help me with it. Now, what happens when I am filled with the Spirit? Just right here in the passage, we're told at least four things that are affected in the Christian's life.

Do not get drunk with wine, that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. And now, there are some participles that follow. These are the results of being filled with the Spirit. First of all, his filling affects our speaking. And look at how he puts it, speaking to one another. Colossians 3.6 just has to be read along with this, so hold your place here and go to 3.16, I should have said, Colossians 3.16.

That'll say a word about what I want to refer to here. 15 and 16 of Colossians 3, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another.

Don't go any further, but just pause right there. We begin to speak to one another when we are filled with the Spirit. This is called Christian fellowship. By being filled with the Spirit, we relate to other people. We want to hear what they have to say. We want to learn from one another. And we also want to contribute to each other. If we see our brother in a dangerous or perilous situation, we want to warn him, or our sister as well.

We are in a family together, and it affects our speaking with one another. The filling of the Spirit results in wanting to be together with others in the family of God. I suppose we could use the age-old word, fellowship. We want to have fellowship with others, and that's one of the marks or the blessings of the filling of the Holy Spirit. Now, you were nice enough to wait for that second part.

Look at the rest of it. Speaking to one another, it says this in Colossians 3, 16, as well as in Ephesians 5, 19, from which I'm reading. Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord. His filling leads us to a melodious life, a life that is lived in harmony with other people. There is a lilt. I like that word.

We don't use it very much. There is a lilt in life. There is a joy that comes with the filling of the Spirit. Howie Stevenson, one of his favorite words is singing heartily unto the Lord. We live our lives heartily unto the Lord as we would sing his praises, as we would sing his songs. The Spirit's filling opens our hearts and moves us into a realm of overflow of worship. One of the characteristics of a Spirit-filled believer is that he doesn't wait until Sunday to worship.

He has a daily worship occurring in his life. Now, you may be a singer. You may not be a singer.

You may have a preferred place to sing and it may not be in public. But most of us have melody that sort of bubbles up out of our lives. And I have observed when I am walking in the Spirit that there is usually a song pretty close to the tip of my tongue.

There is a melody on my heart. There is even in a broader sense a desire to live in harmony with my brothers and sisters. I desire that as part of the fellowship. Continue to read in chapter 5 of Ephesians and notice in verse 20 yet another example or result of being filled with the Spirit. Always giving thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Another characteristic of being filled with the Spirit is that you become a thankful person. One of the telltale signs of a Spirit-filled life is gratitude. Show me a grumbler and I'll show you a person who has distanced herself or himself from the Spirit of God, from his filling.

Show me a person who has turned against the favor and the blessings of God and I'll show you a person who has long since forgotten about the filling of the Spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit, there is a sense of thankfulness. There is a quick delight in saying thank you.

We are not hard to please. We are happy to have whatever God provides. There is a sense of gratitude that surrounds the Spirit-filled believer. And then one other while we're here on the subject and that is verse 21, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ, the Spirit of submission. A characteristic of the filling of the Spirit is that we become more submissive.

Now, you read this and you think, well, I hope my wife is listening. Because verse 22, really, that's the one that's on God's heart. Wives, be subject to your own husband. But before that command, there is the command to all of us to be subject to one another.

There is a mutual submission to one another. A teachability, an openness, and not only for the wife toward her husband, but the husband, verse 25, in love toward his wife. So that just as Christ loved the church, the Spirit-filled husband loves his wife.

It's easy to make this submission a one-way street and we men are good at it, aren't we? I have discovered, and I'm very sincere and I'm very serious when I say this, I have discovered that there is no problem with the submission of the woman as long as that man has a heart that is submissive to God. Because with a heart submissive to God, he wants to love his bride, his wife, as Christ loved the church. And there's no one on earth he loves quite like her. And he demonstrates it. Part of love is listening, part of love is caring, part of love is giving up one's own rights, part of love is sharing.

When a wife knows that she is embraced in that kind of affection, she has no trouble at all yielding to the wishes of a husband. The Spirit-filled life will not only change a spirit, the Spirit's filling will not only change a life, it can absolutely transform a home. As I apply all of this, I want to say three things that I believe have not been sufficiently stated, at least in this message. I want to say something to all of us who cannot claim to have received some exceptional manifestation of the Spirit. Some have, many of us have not. And I want to talk first in application to those of us who have not stepped into the realm of such visible and exceptional manifestation. Second, I want to say something to you who have.

And then third, I want to apply it to something to every one of us. The first comment I want to make is that abnormal experiences are not necessary to Christian maturity. Great exceptional manifestations of the Spirit are not required for there to be maturity.

You may have a good friend who is in a particular realm of evangelical Christianity that places a great deal of emphasis on those things. And it may not be your frame of reference. It may not have ever been your experience. You may find yourself uncomfortable in it. You may even feel that you can't defend it from the Scriptures. Let me encourage you to be very gracious.

Be very tolerant. And as a matter of fact, I would pass on the Council of Gamaliel. If you will turn to one more passage before we're through here. Acts chapter 5.

I thought of this in my preparation. This would be a good one to, a couple of three verses to read. Gamaliel's counsel to his friends as they were wondering what to do with these apostles who were turning the world upside down. Gamaliel says to them, and they took his advice, Acts 5.38. And so in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone for if this plan or action should be of men, it will be overthrown.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them or else you may even be found fighting against God. So my plea to those of us who happen not to be, and I'm trying to stay away from all the labels, in a particular realm of expression of the fullness of the Spirit that has a great deal of exceptional manifestations, if that's not your persuasion, be tolerant of those for whom it is. When I was fresh out of seminary, I felt it necessary to correct all the things that I didn't agree with. I felt it necessary to sort of be a crusader and to address all those particular expressions of the faith that were not of my convictions.

And I have found that that's a great way to waste a lot of energy. God did not call me to clean up the entire world or to run special errands that would get people in line with my convictions. And I have learned over the years to be a little wiser with that. Now, let me speak to you who happen to be of that persuasion.

And there may be many of you. What God has sovereignly given to you has not been given to everyone. The comfort he has brought you in your walk is a comfort that you experience, and I would encourage you not to try to force that or press that upon anyone else.

Don't feel you must be an emissary for your convictions. Try hard not to stereotype all Christian experiences. You will work a lot more easily with the body of Christ, and you will find a great deal more satisfaction in your walk with the Lord if you will simply call that your own personal experience and you feel it is not from the enemy, you feel it is from God, and you cannot even explain how it all has taken place, that's fine.

Just be sure that you have tested the spirits. Be sure that it is of God, and if it is, enjoy it as you feel you should, but try not to force that upon anyone else or to look down your nose as though you have something that they don't have and that makes you especially spiritual. The fullness of the spirit is all of ours to enjoy, and how it works its way out is another matter.

I find it goes in one direction with one person and another way with another, and I am not in the business of writing all the script for the entire world of Christendom. I live very comfortably with there being different expressions of this fullness of the spirit. Third, let me say to all of us, let us seek to enjoy a vast common ground among us. I've said for years there are more things that we have alike than there are those things that separate us. Let us enjoy the vast common ground rather than feel the need to proselyte or defend some particular area of theological or experiential persuasion.

Relax. You take care of your responsibilities before the Lord and let him take care of your brothers and sisters. Since we are all adults in this, let's let God be God and let's understand we are all in his family. C.S. Lewis, shortly after his conversion in 1929, wrote this note to a friend.

I just love it. When all is said and truly said about divisions of Christendom, there remains by God's mercy an enormous common ground. May I read it again? When all is said and truly said about divisions of Christendom, there remains by God's mercy an enormous common ground. Since the common ground is enormous, or as I called it earlier, since it's vast, I suggest that we ask the Spirit of God to give us delight in one another, joy in his presence, and not feel the need to get everybody to agree with us in every realm of our persuasion. There was a time in my Christian life when I think a person saying that, I'd have probably labeled him as a quasi-heretic, you know, soft, not really a person of conviction, but I don't feel that now. I've come to realize that God uses a whole lot of people that I don't even particularly like. And to the surprise of others who don't really like me that much, I am being used, and I think in the heavenlies, our Father finds great pleasure in blessing his people in innumerable ways, and aren't we glad that we are not God? Aren't we glad that our loving Father, who is the source of our fuel and our reason for existence, that he is still on the throne and using us for his glory? Let's pray together.

It's a lonely world out there, Lord. We have succeeded in making a royal mess of things in our few years on this earth. It's not as good a place as we found it when we were born, and if we were to live another hundred years, we would make it even worse.

So we've discovered that when we fill this place, it is worse than how we found it. And the only good that has come in the passing of time has been from your hand. How thankful we are for your Spirit who fuels your work. How grateful for the living Spirit of God who moves and ministers among us.

What I used to resist and resent, Lord, I see now as a variety. And I know there are extremes in these things, and that's not good, but I see various expressions of good things, and I want to thank you for them. I want to thank you for others' tolerance of me and of my quirks and unusual convictions, which really are mine and may not be that important to others.

I thank you for their tolerance of me. I pray that you'll teach us through this that a part of the fullness of the Spirit is this speaking to one another in wisdom and with melody and in fellowship. Lord, take charge of our lives in a new and fresh way. Capture our attention earlier in the day and remind us as we are running headlong into our own will that we're getting terribly close to perilous boundaries and use this message to bring us back in line. Living God, be all that you can possibly be within us as we yield ourselves to you afresh and in you at this moment. In the dear name of Jesus. Amen.

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God uses your generosity to reach into unlikely places, like prisons, with His grace and mercy. So thank you. To give a donation today, call us. If you're listening in the United States, call 800-772-8888, or you can go online to insight.org. . I'm Bill Meyer, inviting you to join us when Chuck Swindoll describes what he calls the spirit who surprises. That's Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, Is the Spirit's Feeling That Big a Deal?, was copyrighted in 1992, 1993, 2003, and 2008, and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2008 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.