When The Spirit Has His Way - Part 2 of 2

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.

When alcohol controls a man, it's pretty ugly. But when the Spirit's in control, a man radiates peace and joy. That's why Paul says to not get drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit. Today, more from Ephesians chapter 5 on learning to walk in the Spirit.

Stay with us. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, when God is evident in a believer's life through His Spirit, it causes a radical change from that person's former life. And you know, Dave, changes like that should be expected because after all, if we have a new life, we're indwelt with the Holy Spirit, God does something within us and creates something within us that has not been there before, the new nature, we can expect that our lives will be different. But realistically, I want to talk to all those who are out there today who say, Pastor Lutzer, if I could talk with you, I would tell you that I have made a very disastrous decision.

Does God meet us even after we have really blown it seriously? I've written a book entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision, and I point out that bad decisions cannot be undone, but they can be redeemed. I wrote this book to encourage people who are so discouraged because of past decisions. For a gift of any amount, it can be yours.

Simply go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. No matter where you are today, listen carefully as we learn to walk in the Spirit. And now comes another command, be filled with the Spirit. You say, well, I thought we had the option. Well, not if you're a believer and you want to be in obedience to God, you don't have that option. It says be filled with the Spirit.

Be filled. And so that's why I'm talking to everybody. I'm talking to young people. I'm talking to children if they can understand where we're at today. I'm talking to those who have walked with God for many years. I'm talking to those who are new to the Christian faith. I'm talking to you if you are a believer.

This command is for you. Be gently controlled by the Spirit. So everybody's included in this now. No matter what burdens you brought to this message, no matter what distractions are in your mind, you are included.

Be filled with the Spirit. First it is a command. Secondly, it is a plural command. Plural.

Now we don't see this here in the English text, but in the Greek text. Yol! Hey, you southerners there.

Yol! Be filled with the Spirit. Now this is so important because this is a misconception that many people have. They think well you know the filling of the Spirit is fine and pastors especially should be filled with the Spirit.

And so they look at those who are on the platform today and they notice the glow that is on their faces and they say now these folks up here, they know what it is to be filled with the Spirit. But I'm just a Joe average Christian. I mess up. I work in a factory. I work in a bank. I work in a hospital and you don't understand the pressures. This can't be for me.

Oh brother, you need the Spirit's fullness and his gentle control as much as any one of us does. I'll tell you, one day I was in a factory where they make cars. I don't know if they still make them this way. This was about 20 years ago and they had one car going along after another and I looked at some people whose only responsibility was to put on the left front tire as that car went through and I thought oh God in your infinite grace don't call me to work in a factory like that. I mean could you imagine the boredom car after car after car and all that you do is put on that front tire. Oh you talk about somebody who needs the filling of the Spirit and it's somebody who works like that as a Christian and if he's going to work with joy and with a sense of satisfaction and today I say I do car number 237 and I do it with joy for Jesus. Now that's what the filling of the Spirit is about. You say well I work in a hospital and you don't understand the pressures. People coming in all the time.

We have emergency cases. How can I be filled with the Spirit? My dear friend, how can you not be filled with the Spirit and live in an atmosphere like that? You know we always think it says in the book of Acts and Peter was filled with the Spirit and he lifted up his voice and he preached and three thousand were converted and we think oh you know it's for people like Peter. My dear friend, the filling of the Spirit is not only so that you might be able to preach like Peter.

It is also necessary that you might be able to die like Lucille Ronaldo. That's the filling of the Spirit. To be able to accept your demise with a sense of joy and anticipation of heaven. That my friend is the filling of the Spirit. That's why it's for everybody and I don't care what your vocation is. So let's dislodge these notions that have kept people from enjoying God.

Enjoying God. So secondly, it's plural. It's plural. Thirdly, it is passive in Greek. You say passive.

Boy, that's a description of my father. What does this mean? Well, it would be good to translate it this way. Let the Spirit fill you. Let the Spirit fill you. It doesn't say now fill yourself with the Spirit in the sense that you go up to a gasoline pump and you fill up a car. But it says let the Spirit fill you. Now what do you draw from that?

I'll tell you what you draw from that. The incredible truth that the Holy Spirit desires to fill us. He wants to.

He is resident that he might be president. That's the whole point. You see, most people look at the Holy Spirit this way. They say, oh, you know, I'd like to be filled with the Spirit, but how am I going to overcome the Spirit's reluctance? What if he doesn't want to control me gently? What if he's disinterested? What do I have to do to somehow make him willing? My dear friend, why do you think he indwells you if he's unwilling?

The simple fact is that is his desire. I want you to know that the filling of the Spirit is something that the Spirit will do unless we prevent him, unless we prevent him. And that's why the Bible said in chapter 4, verse 30 of this book, and grieve not the Spirit of God whereby you are sealed until the day of redemption.

Because if we grieve him and grieve him and we will not take care of sin in our lives and we will not live reflective lives. You know that there are many Christians who do not live reflective lives? They never take out time for spiritual analysis and inventory. They aren't willing to deal with all the clumps of dirt that exist in their lives, and so they live grieving the Spirit, and so there's always this sense of alienation. They never really enter into that fellowship, that sense of dependence and that gentle control. Now the older we get in the Christian life, the more sensitive we are to the Spirit's leading. You see, when a person is demonized, and there are people who have demons in them, they are driven, they are controlled, they are harassed by the demons. That's not the way the Spirit does it. The Spirit is gentle. The Spirit is a teaching Spirit. The Spirit is a patient Spirit, and therefore he works so gently that if you live a life that is filled with hurriedness and sin, you don't even hear his voice because he is not going to overwhelm you, zap you, put you in your place, and now say, from now on, I'm going to control you. That's not the Holy Spirit, other spirits, but not the Holy Spirit. He is a gentle Spirit. And you see, when we grieve him with sin in our lives, we do not experience his fullness.

We don't know what it is like to walk in the Spirit. So remember, it is a passive form of the command. Fourth, it is present tense. What the idea is is continue to be filled with the Spirit. Now there are some commands in the Bible that operate at a point in time. The Greek expression that is used is eris tense. For example, when Jesus said in John 2 to the people at the wedding when he said, fill the water pots with water, that was eris tense. In other words, once it's done, it's done.

Just do it, and now you've done it, and it's finished. When a command is in present tense, it means ongoing. It means I'm filled with the Spirit today, and I need to be filled with the Spirit tomorrow, and then I need to be filled with the Spirit the day after that. And not only that, I have to be filled moment by moment, moment by moment, moment by moment with the Spirit, constantly punting the ball to God and committing matters to him, constantly depending on the Spirit. That's the whole point of Christian living. That's why D. L. Moody said with that sense of candor and refreshment, the reason I need to be filled with the Spirit so often is because I leak, he said.

Now is there any one of us who doesn't leak? Isn't it possible for you to go to church and to sing his praises and then get on the car on the way home and have a hot temper and be critical of what happened and soon be not Spirit-filled at all, at all? You see, as we develop in our Christian life and learn to walk in the Spirit, we begin to depend upon God almost moment by moment. There are times when I've been on the telephone with somebody and they're asking me a question and I'm just crying in my Spirit, God, I have no idea, no idea how I'm supposed to answer this.

I have no idea what advice to give, no idea in this situation. I'm totally helpless and I'm saying this all the while and they're thinking that I bottled wisdom. But you know, it's interesting, you live that way in helpless dependence moment by moment. And then God comes along and gives you wisdom that you never thought you had. Telephone call ends up being so helpful that you wish the thing had been recorded so that you could remember all the wisdom that you had at that moment. It's God.

It's God. You're in a situation at work and you don't know how to resolve this puzzle of this human dilemma that you're in and you don't know how to resolve this. I mean, somebody crossed you and did the wrong thing and you don't know how to handle it. And so what you do is you say, oh God, I don't know how to handle this. I honestly, truly don't. I'm stumped.

Help me because if you don't help me, I'll not get help from anywhere else. And while you get there and God opens this door and soon you're talking and you're resolving the difficulty this way and things are turning out for you that you never thought would turn out the way they do it. And you look back and you say, wow, I can't believe this.

Well, learn to believe it. It's the spirit of God within you being a paraclete, being what you need at that moment. Remember, we're not talking about a reluctant spirit. We're talking about a spirit who wants to do those things, who's there to do those things. But it's our reluctance and standoffishness that prevents his deep and abiding work. Number five, there is a direct relationship between the filling of the spirit, the filling of the spirit and meditation in the scriptures.

There's a direct relationship. Now, for lack of time, I won't turn to this, but in the book of Colossians, you also have a reference to singing psalms and spiritual hymns and making melody in your hearts to the Lord. But it begins a little differently. It says, let the word of God dwell in you richly, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. What it's really saying is that the same joy created by the blessed Holy Spirit is the joy that is created through meditation in the word. So you see, one of the things we need to do to walk in the spirit is to meditate in the word.

It is having your mind fixed on the promises of God. It is the refreshment that God gives us through this book that enables us to have the faith to walk in the spirit and to enjoy God. That's an important ingredient to the filling of the spirit, the gentle control of the spirit.

Finally, we're at number six. We must receive the spirit's filling by faith. We must receive it by faith. Now, this is very important, but I need to also say that I'm talking now to born-again Christians because you already have the spirit within you.

He indwells you. We're talking here about his gentle control. And if you're here today and you've never received Christ as Savior and all of this makes no sense, whatever, and you wonder what kind of spirituality we're getting into, for you there's a different message, namely that Jesus died for sinners and you need to come and to receive him as Savior. But I'm talking to Christians, talking to Christians. You know, Jesus said that when I ascend into heaven, I will send forth the spirit. And it says in John that before Jesus ascended, the spirit was not yet given because he was not yet glorified. What he said is when I get to heaven, I'm going to send the spirit in a new way. Now, of course, the spirit was here previous to that, but Jesus is saying that the spirit is going to have a new ministry. And that's where he uses the expression about coming to drink and within you there will be this Artesian well and so forth.

So here's the deal. The Bible says as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him. How did you receive him? Was it a matter of works? No, it was a matter of faith. You looked at the cross and you said Jesus died for sinners, therefore I receive Jesus as my Savior in faith.

You maybe never even felt differently. You didn't see Jesus, did you? You just did it in faith. You believed that God was as good as his promises and you believed it.

And then you saw the effects later. Now, in the very same way, when it comes to the filling of the spirit, we need to realize that the spirit as he has been poured out upon God's people, we need to walk in the spirit by faith. You know, there have been times when I've stood up to preach when I'm supposed to be the most holy. Don't you think that that's the time when pastors should be the most holy?

Is when they preach. There have been times when I've stood up and I have not felt holy at all. Some of you say, yeah, we know those times.

We remember them. Well, and yet what I've done is I've just said I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe in the ascended Christ. I believe that he is above all principalities and powers. I believe and I trust and even though I don't feel spiritual, I come in utter dependence upon God. I throw everything at his feet. I kneel before him and say, God, I'm totally helpless.

Help me. And sometimes in those moments, the blessed Holy Spirit of God does things in my life that are really quite amazing because it is not a matter of feeling. It is a matter of faith. We walk by faith, not by sight, not even emotional sight.

F.B. Meyer was a great preacher. Let me read his experience and then after we've read his experience, we're going to learn from him and then we're going to leave here walking in the spirit. Okay.

That's what you agreed on at the beginning of this message, right? Listen. He said, I left the prayer meeting and crept away in the lane praying, O Lord, if there ever was a man who needed the power of the Spirit, it is I. Do you feel that way today? If ever there is somebody who needs the power of the Spirit, it is I. But I do not know how to receive him. I am too tired, too worn, too nervously run down to agonize.

What shall I do? And then he says it was as if he heard a voice that said, look, as you received forgiveness from the dying Christ, take the Holy Spirit from the hand of the living Christ in faith. And he said, I just decided to, in faith, receive.

And he said, when I received, he said, I began taking and have been taking ever since. I speak to you today and point number seven now is for you and for me. I speak to you today. Are you too tired to agonize? Are you too far from God to try to figure it all out? Is there so much crammed into your life that there's not been room for the ministry of the Spirit? You're the person, you're the very person who should come today to receive the Spirit's power. You're the very person who should confess and yield and say, Father, I don't know what this is all about, but in this moment I yield myself to you as much as I can in helplessness.

Help me. And the paraclete, the one who is called alongside of you, comes to say, thank you for submitting to my gentle control. And then you do the same tomorrow and then the same on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and all week. And you discover that you're beginning to walk in the Spirit and God's doing things in your life that you've not seen before.

Are you willing to do that? Let us pray. Father, we come today as your people very needy. We come, Father, and we say with F.B. Meyer, we are too tired, too worn, too busy, too filled with ourselves, unfortunately.

And we don't even know where to begin, but we do want to begin. And Father, we, in an act of utter dependence and faith, we receive the fullness of the Spirit. We receive him today. O Father, it is my desire to walk in the Spirit. As best as I can, I yield to you. Grant me the grace to put away sin and whatever grieves your spirit. Thank you that Jesus ascended to heaven. At this moment in faith, I receive the fullness of the Spirit. My desire is to walk in the Spirit. My desire is to live in the Spirit. And my desire is to submit to the Spirit at all times. Help me to live this way day after day. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well this is Pastor Lutzer. I certainly hope that you prayed that prayer along with us.

We do desire to walk in the Spirit, and that means, of course, dealing radically with sin. Let me ask you a very practical question. Have you ever chosen the second best? Is it possible for God to bless you even though you have somehow bypassed what could be called the first best?

These are the kinds of questions I deal with in my book entitled Making the Best of a Bad Decision. It's a book of hope, but it's a very realistic book and shows that even when we have chosen the second best, God does not remove his blessing. For those of you who are discouraged, for those of you who look back with regrets for a gift of any amount, this book can be yours. Simply go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. I can imagine someone saying, Pastor Lutzer, I don't need that book.

But I can assure you of this, you know someone who does. Go to rtwoffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. The name of the book, Making the Best of a Bad Decision. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, IL 60614. Running to Win is all about helping you find God's roadmap for your race of life. With a time of personal commitment, Pastor Erwin Lutzer today concluded, When the Spirit has His way, the 16th message in a series on Between Heaven and Earth, taken from Ephesians. Next time we get practical, don't miss Teaching on What God Wants Husbands to Know. This is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.