Are you trying to live the Christian life under your own power? Or are you relying on the power of the Holy Spirit? The difference is like night and day. Today, on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah considers what it means to be filled with the Spirit and how it's the key to living a life of victory.
From the Holy Spirit you may not know, here's David to share his message, the filling of the Spirit. The Bible speaks about being filled with the Spirit of God. Once you become a Christian, what does that mean? We'll talk about it on today's program. And hopefully This mystery that is in the mind of so many people will be resolved, not because I have the answer, but because the Bible has the answer.
will show you from the Scripture what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. and how you can be filled with the Holy Spirit today. In just a moment, we'll get to the teaching of the Word of God. But first, let me remind you that. The Holy Spirit book, the Holy Spirit you may not know.
Is available during the month of June for a gift of any size to Turning Point. This hardcover 250-page book will show you with fresh eyes that through the Holy Spirit, God offers you hope and belonging in God's family. You will find guidance daily for important decisions, a Bible that comes alive and speaks directly to your heart, and unique gifts that encourage others and fill you with purpose. This book is only available from Turning Point. It is not available in any bookstore.
You cannot get it anywhere else. But when you send your gift of any size to Turning Point during the month of June, simply ask for it and it will be sent to your home, your address, immediately. It's yours for a gift of any amount. when you ask for this resource, we'll send it to you right away. We're so happy to have the opportunity to put these resources in your hands.
Long after the radio is silent, the books are there to help you and encourage you, and we hope you take advantage of them. Here is part one of the filling of the spirit. One of the most memorable events of my childhood happened when I was living in Dayton, Ohio, years ago. My father was a pastor in that city, and I was a paper boy at the time. I think it was in the seventh grade.
And my paper route went up and down Woodman Avenue into some very interesting subdivisions that were being built along that road. Living in one of the subdivisions was a very mean man. Mean in every sense of the word. He did everything he could to terrorize the kids who lived in the neighborhood. And if you happened to be a paper boy there, you delivered your papers on that street as fast as you could and got out of there.
One Halloween, some of my buddies and I decided it was time to get even with this guy. We cooked up some elaborate tricks because we knew Mr. Nasty. wouldn't be giving out any treats that night. When my friends and I got to his door, however, It became immediately apparent that somebody had already been there before us with the same idea.
Oh, Mr. Nasty was primed and ready. Came around from outside of the back door and started to chase us, screaming at the top of his lungs. and firing tin cans at us like missiles. I mean, he might have been old, but he was fast.
And he almost got on top of us before we knew what was happening. I have to honestly tell you, I don't think up until that time I'd ever been so afraid in my life. You see, it was dark. It was Halloween. and we were doing something we knew we shouldn't do.
I tell you what I did, but I don't want to contribute to the delinquency of any minors here this morning. I took off from the front porch. As fast as I could, I tore down the cul-de-sac, raced across Woodman Avenue, and jumped over a fence I could not jump over again if I lived to be 100 years old. The next day I found myself back at the scene of the crime. delivering my papers and I remember driving by that fence I had jumped over.
And straddling my bike, and thinking, how in the world did I ever jump over that fence? Man, I should go out for track. Oh. The wonders of adrenaline. I was filled.
With fear. I had discovered strength I never knew I possessed. Have you ever been filled with fear? You know, I've read stories about women, mothers who were filled with fear who actually lifted a car off of one of their children. A possible thing?
No, but when you're filled with fear, all kinds of things happen. There's a story about a young man who was going home from work one night and he decided to take a shortcut through the cemetery. And he did not know that that very day they had dug a fresh grave, and it was dark, and lo and behold, he fell into the grave. And he tried to get out and he couldn't. And every time he tried, he just pulled more dirt in behind him.
Finally, he gave up and thought he'd just sit in the corner of the grave and wait until the daylight, maybe somebody to come and get him. In the meantime, another guy was walking through the cemetery and fell in the other end of the grave. And he started the same routine, trying to get out, pulling dirt down on beside him, and finally. From the end of the grave where the first guy was, he heard. You can't get out of here.
Yeah. But he got out. He was filled with fear. You know, I used to think when I read these passages about being filled with the Spirit, I wanted it like filled up to the waist, filled up to the shoulders, filled up to... No, it's not being filled up like you fill up a canister.
Being filled means be controlled by.
So, when you read the words, be filled with the Spirit, what it means is, be filled with the Spirit. Controlled by the Spirit. And the illustration that's given in Ephesians is an interesting one because. It compares being filled with the Spirit to being drunk with wine. When you're drunk with wine, the wine takes over.
And you end up doing things you never would have done outside of it when you're filled with the Spirit in a very positive way. You live life in a supernatural way, unlike anything you would ever be able to do if he weren't controlling the situation. You say, well, what does this have to do with the world as we live in today? Is it some mysterious doctrine that belongs to the mystics? Does it have anything to do with real life?
I mean, does it have anything to do with Monday morning? or the pile of dirty laundry or the stack of bills or The daily commute. Most of us would agree. that the standards of Christianity are impossible. impossibly high.
Christianity is not hard, it's impossible. If you do it in your own strength. Scripture tells us to be humble, to be gentle, to always be rejoicing, to be constantly praying, to be taking every thought into captivity. To be loving those who oppose us, trying in our own strength to do all that is exhausting. Not only is the standard too high, but we face an enemy on every step who's trying to oppose us in our walk with the Lord.
If we don't have a power beyond ourselves, the Christian life becomes one long defeat. I love that old joke about the man who bought a new chainsaw from a local hardware dealer. He took it home and he cut a cord of wood. The dealer happened to be in the area just as the man was finishing up, and he stopped to chat with him. He said, how do you like that new sauce, sir?
He said, well, it's all right, I guess. I tell you the truth, it's not much of an improvement over my old saw. The store owner, I went, really? That doesn't seem right. This is the latest model.
Let me see that thing. And he picked it up. He pulled on the starter cord and the big saw roared to life. And the man who had bought the sauce said, What was that noise?
So, what was going on was, he was trying to saw wood with a power saw. where there was no power. You know, this suk so much of what we do as Christians. We feel frustrated that we can't get stuff done, that we know God has called us to do this and act that way and live this way. But if we do it in our own strength, It will always be frustratingly A failure.
The Bible tells us to be filled with the Spirit. Let me explore that for just a moment. In the Bible, we're told that this is something we are supposed to do. It's nothing less than a command. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
That's what Ephesians 5:18 says.
Now, there are a couple of things about this command that I want you to note. First of all, It's in the imperative mood. That means it's not an option. It isn't something that says if you have time to ponder for days or weeks, you might come to the conclusion of being filled. Not one of those nice sounding but far away goals.
The Word of God says that every believer, no matter who we are, no matter how long we've been saved, is commanded to be filled and controlled by the Holy Spirit. It's in the plural rather than in the singular. That means it's for all of us. It is not just for special people, spiritual giants or super saints. It's for everybody.
And that it's in the passive voice, which means the object has something acting upon it from outside. In other words, we don't feel ourselves. The Holy Spirit is given to us by God, and we pray, and God fills us with His Spirit so that we're controlled by the Spirit. Paul compares being filled with the Spirit to being filled with alcohol. When someone drinks, the alcohol comes from the outside and starts to control them on the inside.
When you let the Holy Spirit have access to your heart, your mind, and your life. He begins to guide and strengthen and empower you from the inside out. And then the last thing about this is that it's in the present tense. That means. You don't just get filled once.
Actually, the text really says, keep on being filled with the Holy Spirit. All of us know There are times when we just settle into doing our own thing. Whether we like to admit it or not, but if you want to have victory in your Christian life, You need to let the Spirit of God tell you what to do. You say, well, how does that work, Pastor? How does the Spirit of God tell me what to do?
First of all, I believe the Spirit of God speaks to us inwardly. The Bible says one of his goals is to convict us. Have you ever noticed that you're walking along doing your own thing, and something comes along, and you yield to it, and you feel very uncomfortable about it? That's the Spirit of God in you saying you're going down the wrong road. The same thing happens when something good approaches and you know you're doing the right thing.
The Spirit of God speaks to you. But most of all, the Spirit of God speaks to us through the Bible. The Bible is God's written word, and when we read that, two things happen. We have the inspiration of the Spirit in the writing of the Bible, and we have the Holy Spirit living within us, helping us to understand. What the Bible says.
I remember hearing a guy said, you know, I never could understand the Bible, then I got saved, and in the meantime, I discovered somebody rewrote it. No, they didn't rewrite the Bible. You just got the interpreter on the inside, and he's helping you understand. The Bible says the natural man does not understand the things of the Spirit, for they're spiritually discerned. That means if you don't have the Holy Spirit because you're not a Christian, you can read the Bible until your eyes fall out, and it won't make any difference in your life.
More and more as I grow in the Lord. I understand that being filled with the Spirit is an ongoing process.
Sometimes as I'm reading and studying the Bible, The Spirit of God will reveal something to me.
Some area of my life or ministry that isn't under his control. And he brings it to mind. He does. And I have to either yield that to him or I have to deny it and go on doing my own thing. We should never imagine that being filled Is a once-for-all deal that you can nail down at some Bible camp and throw a chunk of wood on the bonfire, and it's all settled.
Being filled is a continuous thing. Every day you seek the Lord and you wake up in the morning and say, Spirit of God, control my life today. I want to be a Spirit-led, Spirit-filled person on this day.
Now, what are the conditions for this gracious act? What do we have to do? How do we go about this? How do I become a spirit-filled Christian? First of all, You have to desire to be filled with the Spirit.
If you have no desire for the Spirit of God to fill you and control you, Guess what? It won't happen. John 7, Jesus says, if anyone thirsts, Let him come to me and drink. And then he tells us later in the verse that that verse is about the Holy Spirit. In the Beatitudes in the New Testament, there's a verse that says.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness. And what that means is, if you're a Christian, Do you ever have this feeling that there should be something else going on in your life beside what's going on right now? You want something more, something different, something More aligned with what God's will is, and you know in your heart you're not walking the straight and arrow, you're living on the fringe areas. If that doesn't bother you, and if you don't have a desire for there to be something more in your life. You're never going to be filled with the Spirit of God because He doesn't come where He's not wanted.
He's not going to come into your life and take control unless you ask Him to, unless you desire for that to happen. Are you thirsty? Maybe a little desperate for a closer walk with God. You say, well, that makes me feel like something's wrong. Let me tell you something.
The Bible says you're blessed if you hunger after righteousness. It doesn't say you're blessed if you're righteous, although that's true. It says you're blessed if you hunger and thirst for righteousness. Do you have a desire? for more of God, more of His will, more of His person.
You're a candidate for the Holy Spirit's filling. That's what the Scripture says.
Some people have told me, Pastor, I wish I could get to the place in my Christian life where I could just be happy. Jesus says, You will be blessed if you hunger and thirst after righteousness. The word blessed is the word happy. Happy is the one who hungers and thirsts after righteousness. Don't deny that in your life.
Don't push that away. Don't say, What's wrong with me? I just keep wanting more of God. If that's true of you, The Bible says you're a candidate. For the Holy Spirit's infilling.
Then you have to denounce sin in your life. Let me tell you something. The Holy Spirit will not cohabit a life that is filled with willful sin. If you're living in habits that are not honoring to the Lord, The Holy Spirit's not going to move in next to that. His first name was Holy.
And he's going to want to be in a place where holding us. is true. Paul explained it like this. He said, since we have these promises, dear friends, Let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates the body and spirit. perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
When we come to be filled with the Holy Spirit, first of all, we have to want to be. We have to desire it, and secondly, we have to be willing to deal with the things in our life. that are not pleasing to the Lord. I'll tell you something I've learned. You say, well, I don't know if there are things like that in my life.
If you ask the Lord to reveal them to you, He flat out will do it. You won't have to ask him a number of times. You won't have to say, Oh, Lord, Lord, please show me the things that are wrong in my life. What I've discovered is If you ask him for that, he will show it to you. Through his word, through a sermon, through something you hear on the radios, through a conversation with, I don't know what it'll be.
But he has this way of always making us aware of the things in our life that are not pleasing to him. You may be afraid to ask that question because you don't want to know the answer. That's what I discover from a lot of folks I know. Why don't you ask the Lord to show you those things in your life that are not pleasing to Him? Because you already know those things in your life that are not pleasing to Him.
You don't need God to tell you those things.
So you don't ask. The Bible says, if you want to be controlled by the Spirit of God, You have to get serious about not living your life according to the old way before you were saved. You need to live your life in a new way. Denounce sin in your life. Third thing you got to do is you have to dedicate yourself fully to Christ.
To be filled with the Spirit is to yield to His control. The Holy Spirit doesn't want to just be the resident of your life, He wants to be the president of your life. He wants to sit on the throne of your life. He wants to rule every day in the decisions you make, in the things you do, in the places you go. I used to pray when I'd get up in the morning, Lord, help me to take Jesus Christ.
With me, wherever I go, and be an influence for him. And then I realized that's where I don't have to pray because he's going with me anyway.
So to be filled with the Spirit is to yield to the Spirit's control. Romans 12, 1 and 2 have been used over the years to illustrate this. And I'm not going to read it from the King James. I'm going to read it from Philip's paraphrase. Because it's so good.
Listen to these words. With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship. to give him your bodies as a living sacrifice. consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don't let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold.
But let God remold your minds from within so that you may prove in practice. That the plan of God for you is good and it meets all of His demands and moves toward the goal of true maturity.
So we say, all right, Lord, you know what I want, and my life is clean now, and I've confessed my sin.
Now I'm just going to give you control in my business. In my home. In my free time, in every part of me, Lord, you've got it all. No strings attached, no clauses, no reservations. You've got me.
Someone has illustrated this as a house with a bunch of rooms in it. Jesus wants access to every room in your life. He wants to control. You can't lock him out of some rooms. You can't say, No, this is my thing over here, Lord.
I'll take care of this. You got all the rest of it, but I got this. He wants absolute, total control.
Some of you know that I went to Dallas Seminary. Dallas Seminary is a wonderful place. It was founded by a man named Lewis Sperry Chafer. I was there when the school was founded. That was a long, long time ago.
But I've read a lot about this man and he was unique. He did things most people wouldn't have the courage to do. And usually it turned out pretty good. I remember reading that on one occasion in Dallas, he was asked to speak at a banquet. And there were a lot of preliminaries.
A lot of music, a lot of announcements, along with various presentations and endless acknowledgments. I know what that's like. I've been in that spot. I went to a place once where they had a bunch of sponsors on the radio and they let every sponsor speak for five minutes.
Well, this event with Lewis Berry Schaefer, it was three hours before he got to speak. Three hours. He immediately endeared himself to the audience when he got up and he said, I had prepared a somewhat lengthy message, but the hour is late. I will not detain you. Therefore, I'm just going to present a three-point outline of the message and let the Spirit of God speak to your heart.
Here's what he said. My subject is the reasonableness of fully surrendering our lives to God. Reason number one, he is all-wise and he knows better than anyone else what is best for my life. Reason number two: He's almighty, and he has the power to accomplish that which is best for me. Reason number three, he loves me more than anyone else in the world loves me.
Conclusion: The most logical thing a Christian can do is to surrender his life completely to God. What more can I say? What need I say more? And with that, he sat down. He got a standing ovation.
Not because of the message, but because it was over. But the message was worth an ovation. God knows you better than anyone else knows you. God loves you more than anyone else loves you. And God is more powerful than anyone else could ever be, can accomplish in you what no one else can do.
So, why wouldn't you want to give your life over to Him? and His Spirit in your heart. You have to have a desire to be filled. You have to denounce sin in your life. You have to dedicate yourself completely to the Lord.
And the Bible says that when we do these things, The Holy Spirit We'll take control. There are two verses in the New Testament that have often intrigued me about the Holy Spirit. Maybe you've read them and wondered what in the world does that mean. They have a lot to do with what we're talking about today because These things can get in the way. of the Spirit of God controlling your life.
1 Thessalonians 5.19 says this, Do not quench the Holy Spirit. What in the world does that mean? It means that when the Holy Spirit's on fire in your life, don't throw cold water on what He wants you to do. Don't shut him down. Don't put him on hold.
You quench the Holy Spirit by not doing something He tells you to do. And when you walk in the Spirit and are filled with the Spirit, you don't want to quench Him. When He tells you to do something, do it, because if you don't, you're quenching Him. You're pouring water on the influence of the Spirit in your life. That's why.
Total obedience is required here. You don't get to pray about it. You don't give me a couple weeks to think this over, Lord. He tells you to do something, you know it's from him, you do it. And if you don't, you quench the Holy Spirit.
The other one in the New Testament that's similar to this is in Ephesians 4:30 that says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God. How do we breathe the Holy Spirit?
Well If you're not going to walk in the Spirit, if you're not going to be filled with the Spirit, The last thing you want to do is to grieve him or in any way to shut him down. The Holy Spirit tells you to do something and you don't do it. You grieve him. You do something that's dishonoring to the Lord, you grieve him. The Holy Spirit.
is a living, vital person who lives within you and wants to help you live your life.
So, you have the Holy Spirit if you're a Christian. But does the Holy Spirit have you? That's the question. To be filled with the Spirit is to be under the control of the Spirit of God. He is filling you with His presence and with His power.
And if you know anything at all about that, even for a moment in time, you know that's where you always want to be. We'll have more of this on Monday after the weekend, part two of the filling of the spirit.
Next week, we're going to talk also about the illumination of the spirit and what it means to walk in the spirit. These are truths that are found in the book. The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, which has just been released, and that book is the resource for the month of June here on Turning Point. If you want to have a copy of this book, Send a gift of any size to Turning Point. That gift will be used exclusively to help.
spread the gospel around the world. And when you do that, you simply have to ask for the book and it'll be sent to you. It's our way of saying thank you in a tangible way and adding value to your life as a follower of Christ. Give us the opportunity to do that. Do it today.
will respond immediately. In the meantime, have a great weekend. Be sure to watch us on television if you're where you can find us. And most of all, go to church. We'll see you on Monday.
The message you've just heard originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Turning Point is also on radio and TV this weekend. To learn where you can find it, visit our website davidjeremiah.org/slash radio. That's davidjeremiah.org slash radio or call 800-947-1993.
Ask for your copy of David's new book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, a valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the English Standard, New International and New King James Versions, complete with notes and articles from Dr. Jeremiah's decades of study. Let us know how God is using this ministry by dropping us a note to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California, 92163.
This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us Monday as we continue the Holy Spirit You May Not Know on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.
