Today on Summit Life, Pastor J.D.
Greer brings us a study from Ephesians Chapter 5. There are a lot of people, a lot of Christians in my experience who obsess about whether or not they have the Holy Spirit when they ought to be concentrating on accessing the Spirit that they have in confidence for power and for ministry. Because the question is no longer, do you have the Holy Spirit? The question is how much of you does the Holy Spirit have? Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer, lead pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.
As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. You know, some Christians think you can receive the Holy Spirit months or even years after you've been saved. They think that when he comes there will be a clear outward sign like speaking in tongues or prophesying. Others believe you're sealed with the Spirit when you're first saved and then that's it. They believe in the Spirit in theory but don't know how he really changes anything in their lives moving forward. Today Pastor J.D.
reveals that neither of those views tells the whole story. It's part of our teaching series called Rushing Wind and you can find the whole series on our website jdgreer.com. Pastor J.D. titled this message, Be Filled with the Spirit. So grab your Bible and a pen and let's join in. Ephesians chapter 5, we're going to begin in 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? 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. Or you notice the contrast that he draws. Don't be drunk with wine but be filled by the Spirit. 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. 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. When someone is filled with alcohol, they lose a lot of their inhibitions.
Is that not true? 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's how I would say being filled with the Spirit is like being filled with wine. 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. 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 alcohol dulls your pain. That's why people like it when they're in pain 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. It deadens your pain. 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're less aware of reality.
You're 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 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.
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. For some of you, that really is all He is. He's just a doctrine to you. He is a doctrine. 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, when 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.
It's not that you believe in it as a doctrine, it's 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. There are some of you who were abused by your father. And what you need to hear is the voice of God saying your father did not care about you, but your real father did. You need to hear in the midst of a tragic situation you're going through.
I'm working this for good. You need to hear when you are forsaken, you are my child. I am well pleased in you.
I will never leave you or forsake you. And I'm greater than all things. You need to know the presence of the person of God. He's not a doctrine, He's a person. And He's a person who makes God real.
He's a person who walks with you through pain. That is the fullness of the Spirit. All right, so what is the fullness of the Spirit? It is being filled with and under the control of and alive with the knowledge of God.
Here's our second question. When are we filled with the Spirit? When are we filled with the Spirit? Well, there's a real clue there in verse 18 with how Paul says it, be filled with the Spirit. Now, normally I try not to bog you down with the nuances of Greek verbs, okay?
But I'm going to on this one because it's an important one. In the Greek there, that is what they call a present imperative that implies continual action. In English, you would literally translate this, although it'd be wooden so they don't do that, be being filled. Be being filled with the Spirit continually because it's something that happens over and over and over again. You see, there are two different experiences with the Holy Spirit in the Bible that a lot of people get confused. And it's a little bit more than just a semantic difference.
It's important to understand the distinction of these and I'll show you why after I tell you what they are. The first one is what we call the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit happens when the Holy Spirit happens, hear me out here, happens at salvation. People sometimes will say, well, I was saved on this day, I received Jesus and then three years later I was baptized in the Holy Ghost.
That's impossible. 1 Corinthians 12, 13, for we are all baptized by one Spirit into one body. We're all given the same Spirit to drink. It was the Spirit of God that took you out of your sin and baptized you into the body of Christ. That's Spirit baptism. Ephesians 1, 13, after that you believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. When were you sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise?
When? After you believed. The Holy Spirit was the instrument of your salvation. Titus 3, 5, we were saved by the washing of regeneration and the renewal of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12, 3, Paul says the confession that Jesus is Lord can only be made when you are full of the Spirit.
Romans 8, 9, Paul says it as plainly as it could be said. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. So in other words, if you've not been baptized in the Spirit, you don't belong to Jesus and you're not a Christian. So the idea that you're saved in one place and baptized in another is just not possible.
Now, I know what some of you will say back to that. You're like, whoa, okay, okay. Yeah, I see what those verses say, but I know of some places in Acts where somebody was pretty clearly saved and then later the apostles laid their hands on them and they were baptized in the Spirit and then they spoke in tongues.
Right? For example, Acts 19, Paul shows up in Ephesus and there's a group of believers there. Then he starts preaching to them. They're called the disciples of John. They've got some knowledge about Jesus.
Paul's, you know, instructing them. He mentions the Holy Spirit and they're like, Holy what? And he's like, Holy Spirit, we've never heard of the Holy Spirit. So Paul backtracks, goes back, starts teaching about the Holy Spirit. Then he lays his hands on them. They're filled with the Spirit and they speak in tongues. You're like, there, you see? You got somebody that's saved here, baptized in the Spirit here later.
That's a model for all of us. That's how we're supposed to do it in the church. Okay, let me tell you what's happening there and let me explain that what's happening in light of all these other passages and how we weave all those together.
Because see, that one experience is not going to invalidate all those passages I just read to you. You got to understand what's happening in the book of Acts, okay? The Great Commission was that the Jewish apostles were to take the Gospel to every different people group in the world. Now this was a completely new thing for Jews because up until this point salvation had only been a Jewish thing. The Spirit of God had only dwelt in Jerusalem on the temple and now the Spirit of God is going out into all these different people groups. And so what God did is he gave signs that went with the spread of the Gospel to validate to the Jews that this was really happening.
And one of those signs, there were twofold. One, the apostles would lay their hands showing their endorsement of the movement in this people group and then God would give the gift of tongues to this new people to show that he was validating it, to show that God no longer just spoke through the Hebrew tongue, he spoke in other tongues. And so what you see throughout Acts is every time the Gospel goes to a new group you see this ceremony that consists of the laying on of hands and the speaking in tongues. So you see it in Acts 2 with the Jews, you see it in Acts 8 with the Samaritans, new group. Acts 10 with the Gentiles, new group.
Acts 19 with the the disciples of John the Baptist. This is a ceremony. Now after the initial ceremony for the group, it's not like every individual member of that group goes to the same ceremony.
Let me give you an analogy. Running water came to New York City and somewhere around the turn of the 19th century I think and you know New York has five boroughs and so every time running water went into a new borough, the mayor would come to you know the front point of that borough and they would do a ribbon cutting ceremony and they have a big hoopla about you know running water is now coming to this area. Well after that initial ceremony as water then went to each individual house, the mayor didn't come back out and go through the ceremony. He went through it once signifying the progress in each group and after that they just flipped on the spigot. Well same thing is happening with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is coming, there's this ceremony because you are wanting to validate to a Jewish community that has only known salvation of the presence of God in them, validate that God's taken it everywhere.
But after that initial ceremony you don't see that same thing over and over and over again so what you find is throughout the epistles that Paul writes, he is never telling a believer to seek the baptism of the Spirit. He's telling the believer to access the baptism of the Spirit. You're listening to some important and timely teaching here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.
Greer. Before we move on I wanted to take a second to shout out a very special group of people, our gospel partners. This is a team that is fully on board with the mission of Summit Life and gives generously each and every month. We've been talking a lot about power sources lately on the program and it's not an exaggeration to say that in cooperation with the Holy Spirit they are the financial fuel behind everything we do including broadcasting this program every weekday on your radio station. We call them gospel partners because that's exactly what they do. They are actually partnering with us to help make the gospel known around the globe. This month we are sending each of our faithful givers a copy of Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel which is a commentary co-written by Pastor J.D. If Summit Life has become a trusted source of spiritual nourishment for you, would you consider partnering with us today to give a one-time gift or to join us as a monthly gospel partner as well as get your copy of Exalting Jesus in First and Second Samuel? Call us right away.
The number is 866-335-5220 or you can visit us online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching. Once again here's Pastor J.D. Baptism of the Spirit happens one time when you're saved but while there is one baptism there are many repeated fillings. That's what Paul is referring to, be being filled.
That occur frequently. Every time that you are wanting to know God more, every time you need power and mission to overcome temptation, that's when you access the fullness of the Spirit. Let me tell you why this is important. Because there are a lot of people, a lot of Christians in my experience who obsess about whether or not they have the Holy Spirit when they ought to be concentrating on accessing the Spirit that they have in confidence for power and for ministry. Because the question is no longer do you have the Holy Spirit, the question is how much of you does the Holy Spirit have? And because you begin to access what's already there.
Let me give you, you know I'm big into analogy. So imagine I got all these electrical outlets in my house like you do and when I have a plant that needs electricity I just plug it in. Now imagine that every time I got ready to plug it in I thought I wonder if the electricity is on in this house. So I get on the phone with the power company and ask them to turn on the electricity. Now how efficient do you think that's going to be? You ever called the power company?
Your average wait time is sometime next week right? That's when you'll probably be able to talk to a live human being. How much time am I going to waste trying to validate that something is turned on that really I just need to plug into and access? You got a lot of people trying to ask God for something that he's already given in Christ and they just need to rest in confidence and ask God for the power and the ability that God has made theirs in Christ. By the way you know what the good news is? Jesus has paid that power bill for eternity.
So I never even have to worry about whether or not it's paid up. I just access it because he did it by his blood and I rest in what he did and I access that spirit that is mine and I do it in faith and confidence because I know that his power is readily available. Does that make sense? Here's the third question then. How then are we filled by the spirit?
All right so we saw what it was when it happens. Number three how are we filled by the spirit? Verse 18, be filled with the spirit addressing one another in psalms 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. All right so what do you see there? What do you see there? How we feel by the spirit?
See it? Singing and making melody in our hearts giving thanks in the name of or because of. In the name of means because of or for the sake of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now what exactly does it mean to address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs?
I mean every time you walk out a friend you're like all hell the power of Jesus name. No that's not what it's saying. When you are addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs and when you are singing and making melody in your hearts to the Lord what are you dwelling on? What are you dwelling on? You're dwelling on the gospel and it is as what Paul is saying is as you dwell on the gospel that the fullness of the spirit is released in your life. By the way there's some discrepancy.
I don't mean to get so overly technical on you but I'm just in that kind of mood this morning. There is there's some discrepancy among scholars as to whether singing and making melody in your hearts is the result of being filled by the spirit in verse 18 or whether it's the cause of being filled by the spirit and the answer is both. All right the result of being filled by the spirit is a greater understanding and being in greater touch with the gospel and the result of being in greater touch with the gospel is to be filled by the spirit so it just kind of works like that. By the way there's also some discrepancy as to whether or not Paul says singing and making melody with your heart or singing and making melody in your heart. You say well what difference does that make?
That makes a big difference. If you have a great singing voice then we want you to sing and make melody with your heart. If you don't have a great singing voice we want you to sing and make melody in your hearts okay. So let the hearer understand that's all I'm going to say about that one. The result and the cause of fullness of the spirit is dwelling on the gospel. So what is the gospel? See the gospel is the news about your sin. It is the news that you are wicked. It is the news that you are powerless. It is the news that you are dead in your transgressions. It is the news that you had no prospects. It is the news that you served only condemnation, that you were a child of wrath.
It is the news that God in his grace and his mercy loved you enough that he came and substituted for you and died in your place so that through his merits not your own you could live eternally and have a promise that is secure. The gospel is about the grace of God not about your righteousness. The gospel is that you were powerless. He was powerful.
You were wicked. He was righteous and forgiving. The gospel is the news about God not about you and when you begin to dwell on that the spirit of God is released inside of you. Let me show you this. Yeah, look at Galatians 3. This is a really important verse where Paul makes this same point. Watch this.
Let me ask you this. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or did you receive him by the hearing with faith? Hearing what with faith? The gospel. Does he who supplies the spirit to you present tense and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law now or by what?
Continual. How did you first get the spirit? You heard with faith. How do you continue to be supplied by the spirit? By the hearing the gospel with faith. It is as you hear and believe the gospel that the spirit's power is released more greatly inside of you because you become aware of the attributes of God.
That's what happens. You see that's why we say around here a lot that the gospel is not just the diving board off of which you jump into the pool of Christianity. The gospel is the pool itself.
The gospel is not the way you begin the Christian life. It's also the way you grow in the Christian life because it is hearing the gospel that first brought the spirit into you. It is continuing to believe the gospel that releases the power of the spirit in you.
It is as you dwell on your powerlessness and dwell on your wickedness and you dwell on the grace of God and God's power and his efficiency. It is then that the spirit of God is released in you. And the reason some of you can't be filled by the spirit is you're so filled with yourself because what you like to think about and talk about is how awesome you are.
So you want to talk about how many A's you got in your report card and how many accomplishments you've made and you want everybody to see what kind of car you drive and you want the people to know how awesome you are. You are so filled with yourself and so out of touch with the gospel that you can never be filled with God's spirit. You can only be filled with your own. The fullness of the spirit comes to those who are most in touch with the gospel because it is a spirit of adoption and a spirit of grace. So when you say, I am wicked. He is righteous.
I am powerless. He is powerful. That's when the spirit of God is beginning to flow inside of you because he's putting you in touch with the grace and the mercy and the beauty of the almighty God. Does that make sense? See, that's when you got to be filled with the spirit when you understand that.
And so let me tell you what this sounds like. I gave you Luke 11 13 a couple weeks ago where it says, if your child asks you for a fish, would you give him a serpent? If you ask for bread, would you give him a stone? How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
Here's what I think about with this. When I pray, this is what my prayers sound like a lot. God, I'm not a very good husband.
And I can just go ahead and acknowledge that to you, to everybody. And because I'm not a great husband, I know that I need you to help me be to my wife what I need to be because I've already seen what I can do. And I've seen the trajectory and I just don't need to try harder because I've tried harder and it just doesn't work. What I need is your spirit to help me be the father that you have told me to be and the husband. I'm not a good dad.
I tend to be selfish and I didn't think about me too much. And I also need to try harder. See, I'm morally bankrupt. I need the spirit to do that. God, the people of the Summit Church, they don't need what I can tell them because I just don't have that much. I need the spirit of God to give me what is needed because I am becoming more in touch with the gospel, which is the news, not about my awesomeness, it is the news about my bankruptcy and his grace. And as I become aware of that, I begin to be filled by God's spirit. The enemy to being filled by the spirit is being filled with yourself. And some of you have spent all your life in an American culture that tells you to be filled with yourself. You cannot be filled with yourself and filled with the spirit.
You have to come to that point of bankruptcy and you have to let him begin to lead. You have to say, God, I need your spirit to be a mom or dad. I need your spirit to be a witness to my friends. I need your spirit to do whatever it is I'm doing so I yield myself to you. That's how you're filled with the spirit, as you reflect on the gospel and that's the fullness of the spirit. It's the cause of and the result of the fullness of the spirit. The Holy Spirit is always present in the gospel. So if you've trusted Jesus as your savior, the spirit is yours both now and forever. What great news today on Summit Life with Pastor J.D.
Greer. A little while ago, I sat down with Pastor J.D. and asked him about his personal library. The book started the floor and go up two stories.
Needless to say, lots of books. I mean, he even has a ladder in there. Here's what he had to say about that. Yes, I love, love, love. I love how Paul, when he's in prison, he tells whoever he sent the message to, like, hey, bring a coke because it's cold in this prison and also bring the books. Yeah, I love it. And I know not everybody is a bookworm, but we want to be able to help you grow your library, whether you're a bookworm or not. And sometimes having the right books to help guide you through parts of the Bible is so helpful.
I love it. Honestly, Molly, I love my kids to see. I keep a special section of books. We're hearing my study right now, but special section at home because I want my kids to know what's important to me.
And there's lots of books on the Bible, lots of books on missions. And so this is the kind of book, this little thing that I've written on 1 and 2 Samuel that it just goes up there. It's a good reference when you have questions about it. If you're teaching, it's also just good to say this is what's important to me.
It'll help you if you've loved the teaching of the life of David, it'll help you go even deeper. It's a great resource in your library. We'd love to give you one. Take a look at jdgrier.com. We're sending a copy to all of our gospel partners, as well as anyone who gives $35 or more to support this ministry. To give, call us now at 866-335-5220.
Or you can always visit our website at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich, so glad to have you with us today. Be sure to join us Thursday, when we conclude today's teaching on what it means to be filled with the Spirit, right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program is produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
