Be Filled with the Spirit

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer.

So here is my point. To be filled with the Spirit is about being under the control of and absolutely alive to the realities of God in the world. Fullness with the Spirit is a felt sense of the attributes of God. Listen to me, the Holy Spirit is more than a doctrine. Today on Summit Life with pastor, author and apologist J.D.

Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. When we first give our lives to Jesus, the Bible says we are sealed with the Holy Spirit. But what exactly does that mean? Is the Spirit just kind of a stamp we get in our spiritual passport to make sure that we'll get into heaven? Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D. explains that we aren't just sealed with the Spirit, as scripture says, but we're also filled with the Spirit.

That sounds like a pretty important detail, doesn't it? I'm going to talk about something that has somehow become controversial among Christians, which is a tragedy because this subject doesn't really need to be controversial. I told you a few weeks ago, the irony is that God gave the Holy Spirit for the purpose of unifying the church. And the irony is, in some ways, it is our discussions about the Holy Spirit that have most divided the church. This is one, the subject of the fullness of the Spirit that really does not need to divide us at all.

I feel like a lot of the people that talk about this end up using different terms for the same thing, and they end up talking past one another. Understanding what I'm going to say to you this morning is what makes the difference between a mundane spiritual life, kind of just a rote, sort of going through the motions spiritual life, and a life that is overflowing and exuding with joy. Anybody need more joy in their spiritual life, anybody?

Duke fans, especially, I'd say right about now. I think that applies to you, I think it applies to all of us. This is for you, okay? Ephesians chapter five, we're going to begin in verse 18. Have your Bible, I'd invite you to open it there. Ephesians chapter five, verse 18. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Addressing one another in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. There are three questions about the fullness of the Spirit that I see answered in those three verses.

Here they are. They are, first of all, what is the filling of the Spirit? Then secondly, when are we filled by the Spirit? And then lastly, how are we filled by the Spirit? So what is it, when does it happen and how does it happen? You say, well, those are all pretty big questions to be answered in three short little verses.

I know. They're all answered at least similarly in those verses, the beginnings of the answer and that's what we'll try to touch on. So let's just go through those in order. Number one, what is the filling of the Spirit? The word filled in Greek that Paul uses here literally means permeated or saturated. It's when every part of you is consumed with something.

For example, the same word in Greek is used in Luke 4-28 when it says that the audience was filled with rage. Have you ever been so angry at something that it wasn't like you could just isolate your anger to one area? It just consumed you. That's all you could think about. You just focused on that. You've been so angry at a friend or so angry at your spouse or so angry at the person who cut you off in traffic or whatever that it just consumed you.

That's filled. That's the same idea that he's using here. If you've ever been hurt and you've been filled with pain, that gives you a pretty good picture of it. Several years ago, I came down with what turned out to be a staph infection. While they were trying to diagnose it, my knee was about the size of a basketball. They needed to draw some fluid out of it. They needed to do it in an emergency situation because they were trying to figure out what was wrong.

My temperature was up about 105 degrees. When they're in a hurry, they can deaden the feeling in the skin, but they can't deaden it down the bone and the tendons. They had to go through the kneecap and the tendons to be able to get this.

When that happened, it wasn't my knee that hurt as they're driving that needle in there. It's my whole body was alive with pain. I couldn't see straight. I couldn't talk straight.

I couldn't think about anything because I was filled with pain. That's the image that he's giving there. You notice the contrast that he draws. Don't be drunk with wine, but be filled by the Spirit. He doesn't use the word filled with wine, but that's what he means. Don't be filled with wine when you are drunk. Hopefully that's not any of you that think of this a lot from personal experience. When a person is drunk, alcohol doesn't affect one part of their body.

It consumes all of them so that your thinking is affected, your speech is affected, your reflexes are affected. We can draw a blood sample from any part of your body and it's all consumed with alcohol. That's the idea of being permeated by the Spirit. I'll give you one last word picture since some of you maybe communicate better with that. Let this milk right here represent you. You're the milk. Let this chocolate right here represent the Holy Spirit, which some of you would think is an altogether fitting picture.

We put that in there like this. When I stir this up, which is the only way that my kids will drink milk. When I stir this up and then I say, where is the chocolate in this? It's in every part of it.

Every molecule there of the milk is attached to the chocolate so that when you drink it, you get chocolate. That has been out here for a while. Let's move on.

That's a picture. You feel, you're permeated so that every part of you is consumed by and saturated by and affected by and alive by the Spirit. Now the contrast that he draws here to alcohol is a good one. He says don't be filled with wine but do be filled with the Spirit because there are some ways that being filled with the Spirit is similar to being filled with wine but then there are other ways that it is very different.

So let's talk first about the ways that being filled with wine and being filled with the Spirit are similar. When you are filled with alcohol, as I mentioned, everything is affected by the presence of that alcohol. How you think, how you react, how you talk, it's all affected. Certain things that used to bother you don't bother you anymore and certain things that don't usually bother you start to bother you. When someone is filled with alcohol, they lose a lot of their inhibitions.

Is that not true? When somebody is drunk, they lose their inhibitions. This past week, I was flying back here to Raleigh-Durham and on one of the legs of my flight, I got upgraded to first class which was an awesome benefit. So I go sit down in first class. I'm feeling pretty good and I sit down next to this friendly looking lady and she starts up a conversation and about three sentences into it, I'm like this lady is drunk. She is, I mean, before we got on the plane, she was drunk. She's sitting there and she's just, I mean, she's just chatty Kathy, you know, the whole time.

And, you know, normally I like to be able to share Christ with the person I'm sitting next to, but, you know, I was like, this woman's not going to remember a thing that I'm saying here. But I noticed how just, how she was saying stuff that I don't think she would typically say. She's just talking.

Everything comes into mind. She's just talking. She's like, she says, she says, I think I recognize you from our previous flight. And she said, because I noticed you. And then I think she felt how awkward that was. And she said, not that I was checking you out or maybe I was, you know.

And I was like, oh my gosh. So I, you know, I take my, I did, I pulled my first maneuver that I always pull when I don't want to talk to the person next to me. It's my book, you know, so I take my book, not the one I wrote, but just a book. And I put it right up close to my face and I start reading it. Do you think that stops this woman?

Of course not. She's like, what are you reading? Now, typically that would be a great, you know, interest for me to say it's about the Bible, it's about God and get into sharing Christ with her.

But again, I knew this was, that was a useless pursuit. So I was like, well, that's kind of, you know, I knew that she'd be like, I love the Bible and start crying or something like that. So I just, you know, I was like, well, so I, so I pulled my second maneuver, which is to, I laid my head back and leaned it like I acted like I was going to sleep. And do you think that stopped her?

Absolutely not. She, you know, leans over and like starts messing with my light. She's like, I'm going to turn off your light for you and make sure that you're comfortable.

And I was like, oh my goodness. So every two or three minutes she keeps talking. So I pulled my final maneuver to get people, to get her, as I put my headphones in and I turned them up as loud as they would possibly go comfortably. And do you think that stopped her? No, she notices that my headphones are on, that I can't hear her. So I kid you not, she starts yelling at me over the headphones about what she wants to talk to me about.

Now I would, I would guess that typically this lady was not like that, but with all this alcohol in her system, her inhibitions have been removed. Well, one of the things that happens when the spirit of God comes into somebody is, I don't want to totally say in a similar way, but in a similar way, their inhibitions are removed, hopefully not in a chatty, annoying way. But see, they begin to not care as much about things they used to care about because they care about other things. So for example, when you see the spirit of God come into the church in the book of Acts, you see they have an uncanny boldness. So that Peter in Acts 2, when he's filled by the spirit, stands up in front of a hostile crowd and says, you need to repent, you need to believe in Jesus, to the same people that crucified Jesus. This was the same Peter, mind you, that less than, or a month or so before, had denied Christ three times in the space of an hour.

You know, and one of those to a middle school age girl, now he's in front of a hostile crowd, filled with confidence and courage. Same thing happens in Acts 4, they're standing in front of the Sanhedrin, he and John are filled with the spirit and they testify boldly to who Jesus is. The whole church is filled with the spirit at the end of Acts 4, and it says that they went out everywhere preaching the word boldly, it says Acts 4, 13, that the people were astonished at the boldness of the early church. Acts chapter 7, Stephen, you know, standing in front of people who have rocks in their hands about to stone him, filled with the spirit and testifies boldly to Jesus. Now, these people were not all type A loudmouths, that wasn't a characteristic personality of the early church, it's that these were normal people who were just so filled with the spirit for the mission of God that they spoke with boldness and power.

Before I move on, can I just ask you this, has that ever happened to you? Has anybody ever been astonished by your boldness? You're so alive with God's heart and his emotions, so aware of his glory in a situation that you forget about your reputation. Sometimes you forget about danger because your eyes are opened to the glory of God and the mission, you're so consumed with him that you forget about all those things you normally care about. Being filled with the spirit, that's our topic today on Summit Life. Thanks for joining us for this important teaching with Pastor J.D.

Greer. I want to take a quick break here to make sure that you know about our featured resource, which we're sending to all of our gospel partners and monthly financial supporters this month. As you know, we just finished studying the life of David here on the program, so our resource is meant to take us a few steps beyond what we learned together. It's called Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel, and it was co-written by Pastor J.D. This commentary offers a comprehensive explanation of selected passages in First and Second Samuel. Frankly, each chapter in this resource is presented like a sermon, making it perfect for preparing a message or Bible study, but also great for devotional reading and meditation. It also includes a section called Reflect and Discuss to help in both a small group setting or in your own personal devotions. The goal is to help us see Jesus, even in these Old Testament books, something Pastor J.D. is always reminding us of. We'd love to send it to you today with your gift of $35 or more to support this ministry.

To give, call us now at 866-335-5220 or by giving online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. Remember I've told you before that the presence of God is when the Spirit of God makes God's attributes come alive to you. You want a definition of the presence of God? Listen, listen very closely. The presence of God in your life is when the Spirit of God makes the attributes of God become real to you.

You start to feel them. And the place that I get that definition is from Exodus 34. When Moses says to God, let me see your glory.

Let me feel your presence. So God says to Moses, well, you can't really be in my presence with sin and live, so you can't see my face. And Moses says, please. And God says, okay. He puts him in a rock, covers him with his hand, and his presence passes by.

Now that's presence, right? His presence passes by, and then it says while his presence is passing by, God declares his name to Moses. So what you've got is God saying, I am Jehovah. I am a God that is full of compassion. I'm a God of mercy. I'm a God who forgives sins. I'm a God who forgives sins for generations on end.

I'm a God of justice. Basically he declares the Gospel to Moses. And so from that you see that the presence of God is when the Spirit of God is taking the Gospel, the attributes of God, and he's making them come alive to you. So that in that moment you are so consumed with them, you are so filled with a sense of his mission that you speak with boldness. So much so that it astonishes people because you see what they don't see. You feel what they don't feel.

It's so real to you that you forget about everything else. Reminds me of the words of Charles Spurgeon who said that if you want to make somebody into an evangelist, put them into hell for 30 seconds, if you could do that. Imagine the boldness that you would share Christ with if you had spent 30 seconds in hell and came out with that kind of understanding. When you've seen the beauty of who God is, when you've seen how great his salvation is, when you've seen how great the danger is, you speak with an uncanny boldness that it astonishes people. So that's how I would say being filled with the Spirit is like being filled with wine, right?

But let me show you some ways that it is different. In the Spirit, you don't lose control of your mind like you do with alcohol. You gain control. The reason I point this out is because there's a whole movement out there that's like, well, you need to get drunk on Jesus. You get drunk on Jesus and you start acting like you've lost your mind. So in some churches that do this, you'll see people, you go in, they're falling down and they're hooping and they're hollering and laughing and barking like a dog and clucking like a chicken.

None of that is exaggerated or made up. And you're like, I just drunk on Jesus. I just lost my mind for Jesus, just like Paul said. No, Paul said that is not what it's like. He said, you see, that is debauchery. In fact, when Paul is talking to the Corinthians about their church services, 1 Corinthians 14, one of the things he criticizes them about is he says, people come into your church service and nobody's running around like a chicken with their head cut off and you guys are yelling this and hooping and hollering and screaming in tongues. He said, the guest or the unbeliever comes in and thinks you've lost your mind. That's not a compliment he's giving to them. Like, and then they know that you're drunk on the Spirit.

He's like, that's a bad thing. In fact, he ends his discussion of what a Spirit-filled service looks like with 1 Corinthians 14, 40. Let everything be done decently and in order. Drunk people don't do things decently and in order.

They can't even walk a line decently and in order, right? So the Spirit of God doesn't make you lose your mind. You gain greater control of your mind. That's one way it's different.

Here's the second way. In the Spirit, you're not deadened to reality. In the Spirit, you're awakened to reality. When you're filled with wine, you're deadened to reality because it reduces your sensitivity to things that hurt you emotionally and physically. That's why people go to it.

That's like the theme of every country music song I've ever heard. But the tragedy in that is alcohol cannot selectively deaden or dull one part of you. It can't just deaden the part of you that's hurting. It deadens all of you so that you are less alive. You are less aware of reality.

You are not as intelligent. You are not as quick and responsive because all of you is dulled and deadened. By contrast, get this, the Spirit makes you more alive.

More alive. Look back at the verses in your Bible leading up to verse 18. Go back to verse 15. Three verses here.

Look what Paul says. Look carefully than how you walk, not as wise but as unwise. Therefore, do not be foolish but understand what the will of the Lord is.

Do not get drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. You see those words? Careful, wise, understanding. Those are words you don't use about somebody when they're drunk. They're not careful.

They're foolish, not wise. They don't have understanding because fullness of the Spirit, get this, is not a dulled consciousness. Fullness of the Spirit is an expanded one. Your eyes are not closed to the pain. They are awakened to a God who is greater than pain. Your heart is not shielded from pain.

Your heart is open to the glory and the presence and the beauty of Jesus. For some of you, the only way you've ever known how to deal with pain is to deaden yourself to it. And the tragedy is you've made yourself less alive. For some of you, it's because you were hurt in a relationship.

You quit trusting people. That's less alive. For some of you, you've literally drowned it in alcohol. For some of you, you've drowned it in distraction.

There are some of you men that bury yourself in your work because your marriage is so bad. That is less alive. What God's Spirit does is He doesn't deaden you to reality. He opens your eyes to reality so that you see the greater plan of God, the greater goodness of God within the pain. I'll give you a couple biblical examples on this. 2 Kings 6, one of my favorite Old Testament stories, which they're all my favorite whenever I'm talking about one of them.

Okay, so this is really one of my favorites, though. 2 Kings 6, Elisha is coming into a city in Israel not far from Jerusalem and he's with one of his servants. And the entire Syrian army, huge, has laid siege all around the mountains and around this valley where they are. And Elisha's servant is just beside himself, as you would be if you think this hostile army is about to come wipe your country off the face of the map. And, you know, Elisha is just kind of, you know, ambled along.

He doesn't really seem like it's that big of a deal. And Elisha's servant is out of his mind and he's like, what's wrong with you? Don't you see these people about to destroy us? And Elisha just says this little casual comment to God and says, God, open his eyes. And all of a sudden, God opens his eyes and around this entire Syrian army, his servant sees a greater army which is the armies of God, angels in chariots of fire who outnumber this Syrian army 10 to 1 and they are standing there with their flaming swords and with their chariots of fire. And all of a sudden, Elisha's servant sees and he's not as terrified anymore about that Syrian army.

You see what just happened? There's two ways that Elisha could have dealt with his servant who was afraid and out of his mind. He could have been like, you're scared, take a shot of whiskey, here's a shot of Jack Daniels, let this calm your nerves, then you'll be okay. But he didn't dull his consciousness, he expanded his consciousness. He helped him see the greater power of God in the midst of the powers that were arrayed against him.

Let me give you a second example. 2 Corinthians chapter 6, Paul this time is talking about how hard his life is. And he says, we are always sorrowful yet always rejoicing.

We are poor yet we possess all things. We are beaten down but we're not forsaken. And he says all this, by the way, 2 Corinthians 6, in the spirit, he says.

Why? Because what's the spirit of God done to him? In the midst of his pain, he showed them that there was a God who had a greater plan than the people that were causing his pain did. He was in the midst of pain, seeing that there was a God who was sweeter than pain, deeper than pain, a God who ultimately controlled everything. In the midst of his poverty, it wasn't like God just gave him a ton of money and said, here, this fixes it.

His eyes were open to see that he possessed all things. What happens when you're in the midst of pain? Listen to this. Here's how the spirit of God deals with this. Some of you, the only way you think he can help you deal with pain is to get you out of the situation that you're in. God, heal this disease. God, fix this financial problem. God, make this person go away.

Take away this pain. And you should pray for that. And I pray that God does that for you. But I'm telling you that sometimes what God does is he actually gives you a greater knowledge, expands your knowledge into pain so that you say in Romans 5, 5, God sheds abroad his love in my heart. So that Romans 8, 28, I know that in all things God is working for good for those who he loves and those that love him. I know Romans 8, 16, that he is bearing witness with my spirit in the midst of pain that I am a child of God. Though I feel forsaken, I know that I am not. Though I feel poor, I know that in him I possess all things. Though I feel like I'm beaten down, I know that in all things I'm more than a conqueror through him who loves me.

Though I've been cast off by every person that I know, Hebrews 13, 5, I know that he will never leave me or forsake me. I know that his purpose is for me for good, his plans for me are secure, his promises are eternal, and I have nothing to worry about because goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. That's the fullness of the Spirit, okay? That's what God wants to do with you and in you and through you as he wants to expand your consciousness. So here is my point, to be filled with the Spirit is about being under the control of and absolutely alive to the realities of God in the world.

Fullness with the Spirit is a felt sense of the attributes of God. Listen to me, the Holy Spirit is more than a doctrine. And for some of you that really is all he is, he's just a doctrine to you. He is a doctrine. Okay, I'm not against doctrine, I got a PhD in doctrine, I love doctrine. I'm telling you it's more than doctrine, it is a felt sense of his manifest presence. I feel like D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, the pastor I refer to a lot, he said this, he said, I feel like I spend half my time telling you to care about doctrine than the other half my time telling you that doctrine isn't enough. Doctrine is not enough, it is a felt sense of God's love. Some of you believe in it as a doctrine is that you sense it and you feel it. So that what you hear in the midst of your pain is that there is a God who is greater than your pain. What an important distinction. Sensing God's presence in nearness is a function not just of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, but the real life person of the Spirit who is in us. Thank you for joining us today on Summit Life with pastor, author, and theologian, J.D.

Greer. Pastor J.D., we've said it before, but some books are designed to be read in an evening or at least cover to cover over a few settings. This one we're offering to our listeners this month, however, is not quite like that, is it?

Yeah, yeah, that's right. It's technically a commentary. Think of it as a reference book. Now, I will say, I think it's readable. You know, the same kind of way that you hear us teach on Summit Life is the way this book is written. I've used commentaries like this one as a part of my quiet time.

Sometimes I really want to press into a book. And so I think you could find it that way. But if you're teaching in any way, whether it's just teaching your kids or doing Bible study or something, it's a great resource to have to say, how can I make sure I get this passage right and tied into the larger thing? So anyway, we'd love to be able to give you a copy of this. It goes along with the life of David.

It'll show you some of the some of the stuff you can't cover in a message that will help you go deeper. You can reserve your copy today at J.D. Greer dot com. Thanks, J.D. We'd love to send it to you with your gift of thirty five dollars or more to this ministry. And there are only a few more days to get a hold of this resource to give. Call us at eight six six three three five fifty two twenty.

That's eight six six three three five fifty two twenty. Or you can give online at J.D. Greer dot com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Be sure to listen tomorrow as we continue learning how to be filled with the spirit. That's Wednesday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program is produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.