Filled with the Spirit (Part 3 of 3)

Music playing We say this morning that alcohol is in itself, pharmacologically at least, a depressant and not a stimulant, as it is often represented as being. Those of us, or those of you, those who have found ourselves tempted to go down that road in search of fulfillment will have discovered, along with many, that it is at least a by-path meadow.

It is a dead-end street. It is a sad place to find ourselves. In distinct contrast, the Holy Spirit is, if you like, the ultimate stimulant. And whereas in drunkenness our minds are distorted, our wills are confused, our hearts are confused, when the Spirit of God fills our lives, then it impacts our minds, our intellects, our hearts, our desires, our devotions, and our will. Now, Paul in this letter has already described his readers as those back in chapter 1 who have been sealed with the Spirit of God. You'll see that back in verse 13 of chapter 1. In him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. And that was commensurate with their profession of faith in Jesus and coming to rest in his love. In chapter 4 and towards the end, down in verse 30, he has made further mention of the Holy Spirit, and has said to his readers, Make sure that you do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. And one of the ways in which we would, of course, grieve the Spirit of God is by tracking into the realm that marked our lives before Christ saved us. And so, the reference here to the ongoing work of the Spirit is equally clear. Now, we noted this morning that this is one of the imperatives of the New Testament.

You will see that there. Do not be foolish. Understand the will of the Lord. Don't get drunk with wine.

But be filled with the Spirit. At the same time, you will notice that it is in the present tense. It is in the present tense.

Why is that significant? Because he is not describing a once-for-all event, but he is describing an ongoing reality. And thirdly, again, in terms of language, it is passive. What we're seeing in that is simply this—that we don't fill ourselves. Rather, we are commanded to receive God's fullness.

So how can you be active in something that is actually passive? What are we supposed to do? Is this a call just to, as it were, sit quietly for a while and wait for something to happen to us? Is this an exhortation to go away on our own to have an experience by ourselves?

No, it's not. Some of us would do well to go away on our own and to meditate on things, and we have only encouragement along those lines. I found it most helpful to turn to what is essentially a parallel passage in Paul's letter to the Colossians in chapter 3 in order to answer that question for myself. What does it mean, then? How does it happen that I may be filled with the Holy Spirit on an ongoing, consistent basis? For when you read the Acts of the Apostles, you realize that there were occasions where it says of those who had been baptized in the Holy Spirit that they were filled.

Sometimes they were filled for a special function, for a peculiar responsibility. But it speaks of it in that way. And clearly, the anticipation on Paul's part here is that we will then, as the believers in the Lord Jesus, live in such a way as to experience what it is not to be out of control as a result of our desire for other things but to be brought under control. And God's Word, as we have said to each other routinely, does God's work by God's Spirit. And when you read Colossians 3—and you may want just to turn there to have it in your gaze as I speak to you—it becomes apparent that spiritual fullness is discovered on the path of obedience. And the path of obedience is obedience to the Word of God. So the very direct and distinct parallel is in the sixteenth verse of Colossians 3, where it says, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, and then teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, and singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

The parallel is straightforward and clear. It is as the Word of God dwells in us richly that the Spirit of God consistently and continually fills us. In other words, we should not think for a moment that somehow or another to be filled with the Holy Spirit on an ongoing basis somehow or another diverts us from the Scriptures, but it is rather directly in accord with the Scriptures that we discover the Spirit's fullness. Our minds, then, are transformed by the truth of God's Word, our hearts are then stirred by the teaching of God's Word, and our wills are subdued by the consistent explanation of God's Word. So in other words, as I come to the Bible on a daily basis, as I realize that the Scriptures speak to me, as I come to it not looking for a blessed thought or a peculiar experience, but in order that my mind might be trained by it, in order that my heart might be stirred by it, in order that my will might be subdued by it, then and in that context I discover that the Spirit of God is at work to fulfill the purposes of God in and through me as his child. Sometimes we read our Bibles, and we don't really know what to do with it at all. I have people come and say to me, you know, I read it, but it didn't read very much to me. And I often say to them, What do you expect it to mean to you? Did you apply the normal processes of thought to the reading of the Bible as you would to reading the newspaper or reading a journal in your area of expertise?

Oh no, it never occurred to me to do that. I thought you just read it and waited for it to hit you. Well, something may hit you, but it might not be the most helpful thing possible. So it is in submission to the Word of God that life, then, in the Spirit impacts the totality of life. You will notice, fascinatingly, that the immediate impact of this filling of the Spirit is to be found in the fellowship and worship of God's people.

Isn't that what he says? Don't get drunk with wine that's debauchery or excess, but be filled with the Spirit. And here's the first expression of it, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

J. B. Phillips, let the Spirit stimulate your souls, express your joy in singing among yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. In other words, the context, first of all, is in public worship. When Calvin writes the preface to the Genevan Psalter, he quite graphically says, We know by experience that singing has great force and vigor to move and inflame the hearts of men, to invoke and praise God with a more vehement and ardent zeal. And so it is that we ought not to be surprised that the Spirit of God is a stimulant to us in that direction. We know, he says, that this is the case.

Now, there is a horizontal dimension to this, which he mentions immediately. You will notice, addressing one another, as it is in the ESV, or speaking to yourselves. I think the ESV helps us here, addressing one another. In Colossians 3, remember, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another. And this, of course, is where the psalms are a tremendous help. Because when we turn to the psalms, we discover that the psalmist is addressing himself—"Why are you cast down, O my soul?

Why are you disquieted within you?" So he sings a song to himself. He encourages himself and others to sing to one another—"Come, let us worship and bow down. Let us sing to the Lord our God our maker."

That is, on a horizontal basis. So that when the people of God gather, it is incumbent upon us to exhort and encourage each other, and it will be an expression of our spiritual fullness. If you remember the hymn, We're Marching to Zion. Beautiful, beautiful Zion. It's a rather archaic hymn.

It's a good one. But if you recall it at all, you know it has the verse, Let those refused to sing, who never knew our God, by children of the heavenly King, must speak their joys abroad. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it? Let people come to church and say, I don't sing the songs. Let those refused to sing, who never knew our God. We've said to one another, again and again and purposefully so, that for spiritual praise to be genuine amongst the people of God, number one, we have to be spiritually alive, because dead people don't sing. Secondly, we have to be spiritually assisted—hence the importance of the filling of the Spirit of God. And thirdly, we have to be spiritually active. In other words, we have to actually open our mouths and use them and sing, because it is the duty and the privilege of all of us. There is only one group of singers.

We're all together. We may be led from the front, encouraged from the front, but we are not responding to that except to respond in our own hearts and to say, I am committed to this along with each other. So it's absolutely clear that Paul anticipates the fact that the church will sing. Will sing. And the singing and the melody is straightforward. Incidentally, I've grown old having people explain to me what Paul means by psalms and then by hymns and by spiritual songs.

None of them have been very convincing to me at all, and so I haven't chosen to delay on that in any way. Clearly, the content of the songs of Paul would have been the psalms of David—the hymnbook of the church, if you like. A hundred and fifty songs provided by the Spirit of God to the people of God in order that they may take them up and use them to sing his praise. Within the framework of the apostolic church—we find this in the Epistles—there are songs, there are hymns, odes of worship to God that have begun to be there.

We often wonder whether Philippians 2, 5–11 would fit within that category. And when we think in terms of spiritual songs, I think that the adjective spiritual relates to all three areas. And I think perhaps primarily what Paul is saying is the songs that the spiritual person will sing will be spiritual songs, unlike the songs that they used to sing in their preconverted days. And Calvin, he goes on to say, there is a great difference between music, which one makes to entertain men and women, and the psalms which are sung in church in the presence of God and his angels.

So, Spirit-filled lives lead to Spirit-filled praise that is not simply horizontal but actually is ultimately focused on the vertical axis, so that we are singing and making melody to the Lord with our hearts. Melody. Tunes matter. Tunes matter. Or tunes matter, as you might prefer it. But they do matter. And it's unusual for us to take grand words and trivialize them with less than substantial melody. And we know and recognize the difference, and it is important that we do so.

Again, Spurgeon is very, very clear on this. He says, simple melodies are the best and the most sublime. Very few of the more intricate tunes are really musical. Your twists and your fugues and your repetitions and your rattlings up and down the scale are mostly barbarous noise makings, fitter for babble than for Bethel. If you wish to show off your excellent voices, why not meet at home for that purpose? But the Lord's Day and the church of God must not be desecrated to so poor an end. You want to tell us how you really feel, Charles? So you'll notice that this singing and this melody-making is directed to the Lord and from the heart. With your heart, or perhaps in your heart, reminding us that true praise is heart work. True praise is heart work.

I didn't look to this. It comes to my mind right now. But in his reflections on the Psalms, Spurgeon, Lewis, C. S. Lewis, has a wonderful little section on the nature of praise itself.

And he talks about how genuine praise is what happens when somebody says, Did you see that sunset? Would you look at that? Isn't she beautiful?

Isn't that attractive? It doesn't come from anywhere except from deep within. And it is then an expression of the heart, and therefore it is an encouragement to others to consider the reality of it too, so that it arises, if you like, like incense from the coals of a devout affection. It's a good reminder too, because not all of us are very melodious, if we're quite honest.

Some of us could do well to go and have some singing lessons. But the essence and life of praise does not actually lie in the voice but lies in the heart. In the heart. Our voices are the vehicle for the expression of the heart. But it is the heart in which this happens. Now, this, of course, leads to all kinds of questions. Some of us grew up in, you know, the first church of Christ's frigid air, where any expression of emotion at all was frowned upon. Some would come and tap you on the shoulder and suggest that you sit down or sit on your hands, or whatever it might be.

Others of us were brought up on the other end of that spectrum, and we could do well with sitting down and on our hands, perhaps from time to time. There is a difference between spirit-filled emotion and superficial emotionalism. And I think we probably know the difference. We might not always recognize it in ourselves. But I have to remind myself—and perhaps you do too—that my emotional response to a piece of music, to the singing of a hymn or a song, my emotional response is not necessarily an indication of the work of the Spirit of God within my heart.

Right? So, if I am singing, you see, a song, and I don't like the melody, or it's unfamiliar to me, then if I use, as the point of adjudication as to whether this is useful, effective, and meaningful, and so on, my own emotional response to it, then I will inevitably go wrong. And if I am tempted to look around and see others who are apparently deeply emotionally involved in it, I have no way of knowing exactly what that means. But what I do know is this—that it is about truth, and it is not about our taste. It's about truth, and it's not about our taste. True worship, says David Wells, is clearly to express the greatness of God and not simply to find inward release or still less amusement. Worship is theological rather than psychological.

Theological rather than psychological. Now, let me wrap this up. It is, then, making melody to the Lord, in my heart, with my heart, but to the Lord. And so, where is all this going? Well, you've exalted above all things your name and your word. So we'd say with the psalmist, Not to us, O LORD, but to your name be the glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. This, then, is the explanation again of the words of the psalmist. That was Psalm 115. This is Psalm 84, where the psalmist is expressing how he longs, or how she longs, to be amongst the people of God. It's a wonderful expression of anticipation, and you're familiar with this psalm, but let me quote it to you exactly.

How lovely is your dwelling place! O LORD of hosts, my soul longs, yes, faints. For the courts of the LORD, my heart and my flesh, sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, the swallow a nest. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise. In other words, amongst the gathering of the people of God.

The heart of the Spirit-filled pilgrim gives expression to the wonder of God's love. So says Paul, Don't be foolish, be wise. Don't waste your time. Make every good use of the time. And don't get drunk. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. And when you come together and those who are leading you in worship say, Let us worship God, then do it wholeheartedly, engaged. I don't like the tune.

Doesn't matter. If it's true, sing it out. And if you're tone deaf, have your husband help you at home, and remember that it is about your heart and not your voice.

But if you have the combo, then be thankful for it. We are to lift our voices and sing out in wholehearted praise to God. That is Alistair Begg with the final message in a series titled Love, Light, Wisdom. This is Truth for Life and Alistair will close today's program with prayer in just a minute.

So please keep listening. The book we want to tell you about today, the book we're recommending is one you don't want to miss. It's titled Little Pilgrim's Big Journey. This is a children's version of John Bunyan's classic book, The Pilgrim's Progress. We were thrilled to come across this new adaptation of the classic book. This book is beautifully illustrated.

Your kids will love listening to the adventures in the story, meeting the various characters. Most of all, however, your children will learn about the importance of faithfully following God, even when they're tempted to head down a different path. Look for Little Pilgrim's Big Journey on our website and request your copy when you give to support this ministry.

Visit truthforlife.org slash donate or click the book image in the app. Now, here's Alistair. Our God and our Father, we thank you that the Bible is a constant guide to us in every facet of our lives. And we praise you for the clarity of Paul as he addressed those dear folks in Ephesus so long ago. Many of them had come out of a background of just heathen nonsense—silly songs and sensual lyrics and emptiness and futility. And then they had been raised up with Christ and seated in the heavenly places. They had a new song to sing, a song of praise to their God.

They had a melody in their hearts. And in Christ you have granted this to us as well. And so grant that we may then, on this horizontal level, sing out, as it were, to one another and encourage one another, and at least make in and with our hearts melody to you, our Lord and King. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.