Be filled with the Spirit

All right, full disclosure, I'm going to start off this lesson by saying there is no way we're getting through all of what is in this passage. Roger emailed me, was it Monday? My whole week was just super busy at work, but he emailed me Monday some commentary.

But before the commentary section that he was sharing with me, he said, you've got a really tremendous verse here in verse 18. And I concur entirely. I found myself challenged in my own thinking through studying this, and I hope that if you haven't been challenged in these places before, you find yourself equally challenged, but in a good way. It's a growth opportunity way, not in a feeling guilty or that kind of thing sort of a way.

Alright, we're going to step back. I'm going to read selections from chapter 5 leading up to verse 18. Paul starts chapter 5, he says, Therefore be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.

Verse 3, But immorality or any impurity or greed must not even be named among you as is proper among saints. verse 15, which is where we read last week, and then we'll read the rest of our passage. She says, Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men, but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father."

I'm going to throw in 21 because it's a run-on sentence, but we're not going to go over 21 this morning. He says, "...and be subject to one another in fear of Christ." So there's a whole lot in here and in just 18. We could spend probably the whole lesson talking about 18. We won't. I want to be respectful of the rest of what's in here.

So Paul's last statement, as he presented comparison and contrast between the flesh and the spirit, was focused on doing the will of God. As he continues on with the stewardship of time, he's pointing towards a heavenly mindset and how that impacts our earthly ministry to one another. So he says here, Do not be drunk with wine, but instead be filled with the Holy Spirit. Drunkenness was culturally really prominent, hugely prominent. a significant problem inside of the Roman Empire, where they worshipped the god Dionysus. Dionysus was the god of a number of things, but he was first and foremost the god of wine, and he was the god of drunkenness, and drunken orgies, and ritual madness, and religious ecstasy.

Now we all hear that and at Holly Hills Bible Church we go, well that sounds like a bad thing. But imagine if you will that this is what your neighbors are doing. This is culturally normative. The Hebrews the Jews who grew up with the law would have at least theoretically been a little bit farther away from that. They should have been if they were obeying the law, right? But the pagan rituals that were so common were normative for the Roman citizens.

And as it turns out, this idea of being drunk and having fertility as a result of the drunkenness. There's this whole idea of daily life rooted in the deities intervening on your behalf. You've got to make them happy by doing what it is that makes them happy. What makes them happy? Getting drunk. Taking that in, That sounds pretty ridiculous to us, right?

In modern understanding of science and the way alcohol impacts our bodies, we could talk about things with a more technical perspective. But fundamentally here, the culture was embracing this because it was normal within the worship of Dionysus. And it turns out the worship of Dionysus grew over time. So, by the time, it was at least 700 years before the New Testament that we find earlier references to Dionysus or Bacchus as he's known in the Greek name. But the idea that this thing was developing culturally is significant.

Paul's admission, or admonition not admission, is tied to what God is contrasting to ritual madness, to drunkenness, and this idea of being filled with the alcohol and instead be filled by the Holy Spirit. I want to emphasize a few things here because at Holly Hills we're really, I'm going to say that this is a sarcasm, so hear this very carefully, we're legalistically against legalism, right? We're very rigidly against legalism at Holly Hills, okay? And so I want to emphasize some things. The one thing is that alcohol is not drunkenness.

If we look at the New Testament context here, we see that Paul is strongly against excess consumption. And the fruit of the spirit is self-control. Alcohol does not lead to self-control. High consumption of alcohol doesn't lead to self-control. So it's a significant concern.

But we also see that Paul attempts to preserve liberty, which is, I think, an important thing for us to consider. It is not a position that Paul presents of, there should never be any alcohol. But what he says is there should never be drunkenness. And I think that's really important.

Now, I'm going to put myself on the record here as saying that I don't have a problem with the consumption of alcohol. I consume alcohol, but I have to do it in moderation. It's one of those things where I have known people that say, I will never drink alcohol. I'm worried that it will impact my testimony. Amen. Don't. I don't want to coerce you and bend your arm and say, well, Christians must have alcohol. I had somebody tell me that once. Christians have liberty. You've got to have alcohol so you can show you have the liberty.

Don't think that's the point here. I would say that Paul's first and primary concern is that we're abiding secondarily, that we're not causing anyone to stumble. That's really important. The not stumbling thing is a big deal. I have inadvertently on occasion by consuming alcohol caused people to stumble and that was not okay with me and I had to apologize.

There are a few other biblical considerations, so I want to make sure that we take those in context here. The first one is that in this context, the culture would have seen wine as a way to speak to and with the God. But the Bible tells us it hinders our setting our minds on Him. So here we see this idea that we don't want to get drunk Because that's going to hinder. There's an instead, there's a contrast. That doesn't mean that some consumption for you, if it is a liberty that you choose to take, is okay.

But we want to make sure that abiding is first and foremost an understanding. I think it's worth noting that the first recorded miracle was Christ turning water into wine. What I think is kind of fun about this, and fun is There's a whole bunch of things going on there.

His mom says, Mary says, go with my son. Go with him. Now, Mary requests this, but who authorizes the miraculous? Who does Christ say he does the miracles on behalf of? The Father. So Mary can ask, but Jesus has to say, Father, is this your will? And the father says, go ahead. Let's do this thing.

But the people were already intoxicated. I think that's kind of an interesting thing. The steward says, normally people give this wine. They have the good stuff up front and they give the cheap stuff out at the end. But the miraculous thing there, Jesus never sinned. So if we say that alcohol consumption is sin, that's a problem. Communion was with wine. It was diluted wine. It's worth calling out. It was diluted wine.

Now, Romans 14.21. Let's turn there. Let's read that together because we want to make sure that we don't listen to Randy's opinion. We listen to Paul's opinion. I have a lot of opinions. They're not worth anything.

Romans 14.21. Now, I happen to love meat, so this also talks about meat, too. So let's take a look at this. 1421. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.

Now, it's easy to focus on the meat or the wine there, but I'm concerned about the anything. Right? The anything is actually much more alarming to me because anything is very broad. Anything is... A lot of stuff. It could be financial. A quick one here. One of those anythings could involve something as simple as sugar. If you've got diabetes or if you're pre-diabetic, that's the stumbling block you need to use. You've got to watch it.

So things that are a stumbling block are a concern within the body. In this case, wine is an example of that, or meat is an example of that. The larger context of the meat is not just that you're not vegetarian, but that it might be offered to idols.

Paul instructs Timothy in 1 Timothy 3.3 that elders should not be addicted to wine. So that's an important thing. Addiction is a problem. If it controls you, you're addicted. If you've got to have it to function, that's an addiction. Now it turns out that could be work, that could be play, that could be any number of things.

But in this case, Paul's admonition to Timothy is that if somebody desires to be an elder, if they're addicted to much wine, that's probably an indicator that they're not ready for the role. However, in the same letter at 1 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy to consume some wine. Have some wine for your stomach. So in short, the concern isn't the wine itself, but drunkenness.

If one can carefully consume wine without the dissipation, without addiction, and without causing others to stumble, it is permissible. It's not required. It's permissible. There's liberty there. Now let's talk about this dissipation thing, because dissipation is Maybe a word we don't use a lot. I don't know. Who uses dissipation as a word a lot? Anyone in the room? Yeah. OK. You might.

I'm thinking about dissipation of energy for like an engineer, if you were a mechanical engineer or maybe a steam train or any number of things like that. I've thought of dissipation in that context. But in this case, dissipation is time that has not been saved or redeemed. So he says, redeem the time in verse 16. Redeem the time. You've only got so much time on the planet. Make sure it's redeemed. Make sure it's useful.

It's under the Lord's glory. In this case, he says, getting, in this case, drunk with wine or drunk with anything, pick a thing, if you're consumed with a thing that is a coping mechanism, could be illegal drugs or even legal drugs, if the outcome of the result is that you're not able to function In a way, that applies to the Lord. That's a problem. Now, I'm going to share a little testimony of my own life that happened within the last week and a half. I went to the doctor's office and I said, I'm having problems with certain things. And he gave me a supplement. Here's a supplement. Okay, cool. This seems really good. It made my brain super foggy.

Okay, and it was dissipation so I had to not take it because like this is not working And that's not alcohol. It's not an illegal substance. It's something you could go down to the store and buy and But I knew that I was not going to be able to redeem the time. My mind wasn't functioning, and so the thing had to go. Actually, I ended up finding out that if I took it in the evening, it was okay because I would sleep, which was the purpose for which I was taking the pill. But he's like, take it in the morning and evening. And I was like, all day long, a fog is not good, so not that.

But the idea of dissipation is that we have a stewardship of the time, right? We talked about that last week. There are only so many hours in the day. We're sleeping for theoretically eight of them. Although I can guess in this room eight might be stretching it for most of us. Although I pray for God's blessing in your sleep. It's a big thing.

But the idea is that we're able to to have a value in our time with an eternal view getting through the next day without pain as good as a mindset. Sometimes we have this idea that pain, especially culturally, is bad and suffering or difficulty. So what do we do? We look for a coping mechanism. So that's kind of the point of this is a dissipation saying, I just need to get through. I'm thinking of athleticism, where they'll say, go through the pain. Pain is good. You don't want to be tougher with the pain. We've got a game to play.

Yeah, and there may be in certain circumstances a time where that's okay. But if we have a stewardship of our days and our nights, that we are to be growing individuals, as we looked at earlier in Chapter 3, And together with that time, there's value. So the dissipation is, hey listen, if you're getting drunk, during that time, it's unlikely that you will have really high productivity. I did work one time with a guy who liked to go out after work, drink, and he'd come back to the office and check in. He would code intoxicated. And then check it in. When he was feeling sober enough to drive home, and the next day we'd come in.

So let me tell you, dissipation may not just impact you, it could impact everyone. So, you know, consider those things. So the next half, and this is where Roger sent me the email and was like, hey, there's a lot of good stuff here, and there certainly is. He says, but be filled with the Spirit. Normally, I don't put a lot of emphasis on but as a word. When we hit but, we say contrast, and we're good. But in the Greek, there's two words that can be translated to but.

There's de, and in this case, he's not using de, he's using ala. Don't confuse that with Mosambibi. And de is For comparison, and I have the example here, we might say we have American cheese, but we also have cheddar. There's comparison. I used but in there so that you could compare them. But Allah is a strong contrast, but. So he's trying to emphasize the contrast.

Listen, these things are not the same. If you come from a pagan culture and a pagan background where you see people having spiritual manifestations, so-called spiritual manifestations because of wine, Paul is having a high contrast to spiritual manifestation of the Holy Spirit in your life.

So he says, but be filled with the Spirit. The word translated filled here is pleruste, which is present, imperative, passive. Which, Jessica got this lesson a little bit early yesterday, because I'm like, listen, this is so cool! So, the thing is, it's present. So right now, everybody's like, okay, right now I'll be filled with the Spirit. Passively. Passively. But it's imperative. Listen, in contrast, instead of getting drunk with wine, imperatively, please, be passively, passively, filled by the Holy Spirit.

And so the amazing thing is that we kind of hear passive and we think, wait, how am I involved then? So how are we involved then? How are you involved? How can you imperatively be passively filled? hang out with Jesus in the Word, that eases the whole problem.

Okay, well I'm going to disagree with you in this context here, okay, but it's alright. I'm not... I hate it when I ask a question, I don't want to be... this is one of those things that's important. The idea is that you... and it's very close to what you said, though, so... you make yourself available as a vessel.

If I'm abiding, That's an important thing, and we're going to take a look in a few sections here on the idea of quenching the Holy Spirit. We can do that. We can either say, I am willing to be abiding, I'm willing to walk in fellowship with the Lord, to be setting my mind on things above, or we can will not to. The Holy Spirit wants to be in your life, involved and enabled.

Now, just in case you think I'm wrong, turn to your last page on your handout here, Flip that over. The Ministry of the Spirit to Believers. Now I adapted this from a handout that Hal Malloy had originally put together. So the last page, page 6 of 6, this is kind of a supplement, if you will.

Here's a list of things the Holy Spirit does in the life of the believer. One, he dwells in believers. And please double check these cross references. I try to go through them and make sure that all the cross references are good. And in fact, finesse some of the language describing them because I wanted to make sure it reflected the scriptural context there.

The Holy Spirit gives believers access to the Father. The Holy Spirit has fellowship with believers. The Holy Spirit teaches believers. The Holy Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to believers. The Holy Spirit transforms believers. 2 Corinthians 3.18 is one of our favorites. The Holy Spirit manifests His fruit through believers. The Holy Spirit gifts every believer for ministry.

Now, let's pause for just a second. All of these are worth studying, but let's talk about this in this context. We're going to take a look at speaking to one another, enabled by the Holy Spirit, through psalms and hymns and spiritual psalms in the next section of this passage. Paul doesn't make any distinction about whether or not you're gifted to do that. Okay? This is for everybody. So that's cool. He's not talking about your singing voice. That's not what he's talking about. But we'll get there.

The Holy Spirit empowers believers. The Holy Spirit fills believers. Obviously we're looking at that right now. The Holy Spirit desires against the believer's flesh. That's the only way we can have victory over the flesh is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit empowers the mind of the new man. The Holy Spirit frees believers, guides believers, intercedes in prayer for the believers.

That's my favorite one to talk about. Go listen to Roger's lesson on Romans 8. The Holy Spirit is God's guarantee of His promise to the believer, and I apologize for not capitalizing His in number 16 there, is the agent in the believer's sanctification, assures believers, glorifies Christ through believers. Hey, that's a good one.

I like to think that my whole life isn't a waste and that it is bringing glory to the Lord. Well, you're going to need the Holy Spirit for that. The Holy Spirit can be grieved and quenched by the believer. The Holy Spirit is the means by which a believer walks. The Holy Spirit perfects the believer.

And that's a long list. Normally I don't read lists out loud. But I'm telling you there's some really, really, really good stuff in there. Take some time. Don't just read the list. Read the Bible verses. They're better. They're inspired. The list is not.

So, we'll flip back around to where we were in the lesson here. So there is something hidden in the Greek that the translation comes a little short on and this is I think what maybe Roger was as excited about as I am when he sent me the email. It says be filled by the Holy Spirit but the Greek word there also carries with it a really rich concept that is beyond just being filled but it is also to be fulfilled by the Holy Spirit. And I have to tell you right now, I talked to Jessica yesterday when I was giving her the pre-lesson lesson, and I said, I'm really challenged by this because I've been in various times in my life, including recently with work and all the stress I've been dealing with, I've been looking for that fulfillment elsewhere. I'm going to be really honest and transparent with you in that.

Hopefully that doesn't embarrass me too badly where I have to get a talking to. But the reality of the matter is that if we look for our jobs, if we look for our homes, our cars, our families, our money, our social status, and you start to the list gets long of what we might look for our fulfillment in. It's not where we get our fulfillment. So it's going to come up short.

How many of you, when you were younger, wanted to be something famous? I wanted to be a baseball player so bad when I was a little kid. I thought if I could be a baseball player, it would be so cool. I would be able to show the world how good I was as an athlete.

Let me tell you, I am not super athletic, so I don't know where that came into my mind, but it was important at the time. I did collect baseball cards. I had the whole set. But my fulfillment wasn't there, so I kept moving it. Ah, I'll become a musician. And then it was girls. I found one. She's pretty fulfilling. Twenty years in, we're doing all right.

But it's one of those things where my fulfillment isn't in Jessica, and her fulfillment isn't in me. My fulfillment is in the Holy Spirit. And so I was challenged as I read through this thinking, okay, the pagans are fulfilled, as best as they can be, in an empty way, with drunkenness. They're fulfilled with the revelry, the ritual madness, which again, just saying those two words together is crazy in my head. I don't understand that. But we can be confronted with this question and answer not like the pagans with carnality and dissipation and coping, but with rich, indwelling, filling, and fulfilling personhood of God through His Holy Spirit.

So when you mention Ritual Madness, I thought of this one Christian movie that described Pentecost. And of course, it was just people acting. But it went into this almost like it was actually the Holy Spirit working in for the first time in history. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. What did the pagans accuse them of in the upper room?

They're drunk with new wine. That's what they said. I studied the drunkenness for quite a while, so I looked at that. I was like, I want to make sure when I say that we need to have liberty that I've got all my bases covered. But yeah, the Holy Spirit comes upon them and it's in stark contrast. This is the Allah-but of this is God in you, this is Christ in you, and this is the Holy Spirit in you, engaged, actively working in us. So, I have some questions that I had to ask me yesterday, and I'm going to share them with you. Some of them are not answers for this lesson. They're for you to meditate upon in your own personal study. The first one there is, what things in your life appear to be fulfilling, but never are?

If I had been a famous baseball player, that wouldn't have worked. What if I became a multi-multi-multi-millionaire? Would that have made me fulfilled? I know a number of believers, I praise the Lord they're believers, that have been able to earn a good amount of money.

And in most cases, they told me, I didn't ever think I'd have this much money, but it certainly didn't fix the problem of life happening around you. It moved where it was. But it's not fulfilling. Which is challenging, because what does the world around us tell us all the time? If you just had more. More stuff, more money. Now that's not to say that those...

The cool thing is that God gives believers money to be stewards of, to serve on the body, to share with it. So money is not evil either. The next question here is, what does biblical stewardship look like if it is rooted in being fulfilled by God rather than in things? And that's a question that only you can answer, because the Holy Spirit is going to move through you in stewardship. But if we turn to Romans 12, and let's do that real briefly. I'm not going to just pick on Romans as a cross-reference, but let's turn there. Romans chapter 12. And Paul is commending the church body to be exercising their spiritual gifts.

So he says in verse 6, Since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, each of us is to exercise them accordingly, if prophecy according to the proportion of his faith, if service in his serving, or he who teaches in his teaching, or he who exhorts in his exhortation, he who gives with liberality If I have stewardship and I'm supposed to be giving, but my fulfillment is in my wealth, will I be able to exercise that? No. No, it's going to be a challenge.

But if it's God's stuff, and God's fulfilling you, then the stuff doesn't matter. One of my favorite things about, there's an era of time, Hudson Taylor was prominent during that time, George Mueller, Reese, oh what's his last name, oh it's going to bother me. Anyways, there's a number of Christians during this time that were just exercising faith through not asking for things, but just waiting for the Lord to provide. Now, I'm not going to suggest for a split second that we should all be doing this because that's, I don't think, what we're called to as believers, everyone. But they were waiting for the Holy Spirit to move in other believers to give liberally. So the Holy Spirit moving in us when we consider stewardship If God is fulfilling us rather than our stuff, He may move in us in a rich way. Now this is not about money. I want to emphasize that. This is about the Holy Spirit directing our steps. And we understand our life, our time, our energy, our possessions, in the light of the Sovereign God of the Universe. If He's not directing you to give money, it shouldn't be those guilt things. I've heard of church services where they're like, we need to do a second offering. That's a guilt trip right there. That is not what we're talking about here.

This is stewardship in light of what God has given you and provided. And the last question here is, where does your value come from if you are being fulfilled by God? And the answer is, of course, Christ. It's in God that Christ's value is in you. And we're going to see how much Christ values you as we go through the last part of this chapter. You're going to see He values you a whole lot. Just in case you missed that in chapter 1, or 2, or 3, or 4. So the value that's there is important. So, it's not in this verse here, but I want to call it out because it's important.

First Thessalonians 5.19 tells us, do not quench the Spirit.

So the opposite of being filled by the Holy Spirit and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit is quenching the Spirit. And quenching is the idea of suppressing or dismissing the direction of the Holy Spirit. I'm not abiding and I'm not interested in abiding. And I don't want to do what God wants me to do. I want to do what I want to do. Saying that out loud, that sounds like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum. But quenching the Spirit is that same thing. It's an immaturity. It's a carnal behavior that is us not abiding. And we're not seeking God's direction. And you will be stunned to hear that you will not have the fruit of the Spirit. Right? Anyone stunned really by that? Not at all?

So the idea here is that there is a contrast between this dissipation and being filled with the Holy Spirit. If the pagan idolatry was to get drunk and participate in ritual madness and drunken dissipation to be fulfilled in their person by drunkenness, we have a strong contrast with Holy Spirit guided interaction. And that is a transition there right there. We're going to step into what Paul thinks this Holy Spirit guided interaction looks like in the body.

So he says, speaking to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. So Paul has multiple times now talked to us about speaking in the book of Ephesians. He said in chapter 4 verse 15, speak the truth in love. And that would be really good by itself, but he didn't actually say, just speak the truth in love. He said the second half of the verse. We are to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, even Christ. And then in 25 he says, Therefore, laying aside falsehoods, speak truth, each one of you, with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.

So this idea of speaking is really important. Now, let's ask this. Why do your words matter? This is hard for me sometimes. Sometimes this right here gets me in the James. Starting a forest fire with my tongue, I'm good. Jessica will tell you. I know how to use this for harm. I don't try to harm her, but I can just open my mouth and diarrhea comes out. It's not good. But he says that we're to speak to one another now.

Now why does it matter that we're speaking Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs? They should contain truth. We're already speaking the truth in love. But the Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs are truth. They contain a viral truth. Now I know each one of us probably in this room has been sick at least once or twice with a virus and it's not good. This is a good virus. This is a good viral thing.

Songs are ways we can memorize things that we might not have memorized them before. When you hear, Mary had a little lamb. the rest of your brain goes, oh, Felice is wine and snow. Because you memorized the rhyme, you remembered the thing. Mary had a little lamb, not truth. Really? Not really? She might have, but it's not life-giving, it's not fulfilling. What about, if I just say, amazing grace? Each one of us starts to think, oh, how sweet the sound. It saved a wretch like me, and we all got to me, and we were like, I get that one.

So Paul, when he says that we're speaking, the words of the song are the truth. The melody is part of how we remember it. Last night when I was in Fort Collins helping with some music that they had during their Harvest Festival, I was told I needed to make sure that the songs that I picked out had a country feel to them, which I don't have a lot of. But the idea was that the music will be not offensive or distracting to anyone who's listening, hopefully, but that the words would be meaningful. The words would have value so that if you heard them and you listened and you came in because they invite their whole community into the church, if you hear the words, it's going to challenge you. Oh, wait a minute.

What is this Jesus and this love and this grace and all the principles that are in the various songs that we sing? The meaning, the value is there. So Paul lists three types of songs. He lists psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Now a psalm in this case would have probably been from The Hebrew National Poetry Book, right? The Psalms that we know of. But think about it. What's in the Psalms? What kind of topics are there? Let's list some. Just shout them out. You don't even have to raise a hand. Suffering. Suffering. Alright. Praise and God. Praise and God. Encouragement from God. Encouragement from God. Provisions. Provisions. How about the Messiah? We have prophecies of the Messiah in there. God's faithfulness. God's love.

I'm going to run out of fingers if we keep going. There's 150 psalms. My favorite one is Psalm 150 because it talks about drums. I'm just going to throw that out there. I'm a drummer at heart. I just don't get to play in the church yet. Someday the Lord will let me play drums at church. It's going to happen. I know it. I have faith. So the psalms are in there. The next one is hymns. I'm going to so get a talking to for that. The next one is hymns here, songs of testimony that proclaim God's faithfulness, events that have happened to heroes of the faith. So they're testimony. The song Amazing Grace is a great testimony song where we think about, okay, here's a testimony. I was a wretch, but I've been redeemed. I was a slave trader, but I am no longer. I was a slave to sin, but no longer.

And I get to look forward to eternity, where I get to be with the God of the universe. And then he lists spiritual songs, songs that are rooted in truth and may have been inspired by God's revelation. As God's revealed truth, those in the body who turn those ideas into songs would have likely shared them. So, as it turns out, Christianity is known across the world as the singing religion.

We tend to have more songs than almost any other religious organization that exists out there. We're not an organization, we're an organism, but they're organizations. I write songs and I share them here at Holly Hills. I don't do it because I'm trying to get anybody to think I'm awesome. It's just that this truth in God's Word has impacted me. I put a tune to it and let's sing it.

Maybe you'll remember it. I predict that most of you don't remember my songs, and that's okay. But if you remember the truth that's in it, that matters. In 1 Corinthians 14, when Paul's instructing the church to come together, everybody gets wrapped around the axle in 1 Corinthians 14 about spiritual gifts, but one of the things he says when you come together, some of you come with a psalm. Come, let's sing. Let's memorize what is true about us in Christ. Let's memorize what is true about God. Let's memorize these things. So that if you've memorized them, what do you do with it?

You can speak it. How many times have you found someone in a state of despair and you said, oh, here's a song of encouragement for you. When I used to have nightmares, my mom would come in and she would sing a passage from Philippians. Whatever is right, whatever is true. And she would sing that to me like you're thinking about the scary thing that's in your head, the imaginary thing.

But think about these things. But then there are other things that we can challenge each other with. But if we don't know the songs, we can't speak them to one another. And that's why I want to emphasize, if you're not a great singer, I know a lot of people say, oh, I don't sing out loud, or I don't sing in front of people. Listen, I don't care. Is it true? rap it to me. I don't care. Just speak it in word. Communicate the ideas that are there. I'll play the drums if you rap. Again, I'm joking there.

But the thing is that the value of song and ministry within the body is important. As part of some of the cult religious activity within the Greeks, they would hope for tiny snippets of utterance in the cult religions that they might get little, small ideas from the deities that might be coherent. And Paul says, speak to one another with these big blurbs of coherency that we know reflect God's truth. So the contrast here is significant and should be life-changing. These utterances were not just moderate, small things. It's God's truth shared within the body. They're mnemonic. We memorize things that are true and then they become ministry tools. Teaching is a music ministry. Or, maybe you said otherwise, music ministry is a teaching ministry. Now I once said that on an anonymous blog post. Someone said, hey, I'm looking for people to write anonymous letters to worship leaders. They ask on the internet. I'm like, well, I can do that. I'm a worship leader, but I'd be willing to do this.

So I wrote a letter saying, please consider the lyrical value of the songs that you're presenting to the church, not just the musical quality. Musical quality matters. I'm not saying that we should just play all the wrong notes. But it's a teaching ministry.

And so as a teaching ministry, we start to look at this and it I've got here written down, I'm going to read this because I tried to word it carefully and I think it's worth considering it so that I don't misstate it. Often, in today's churches there's a polarizing effect of people saying things like, I'm more interested in teaching than worship. Or, I didn't feel the music and the teaching was boring. Those are kind of polar opposites, but they miss the point altogether.

The musical part of worship that we have is fundamentally a teaching ministry. And when we teach, we might consider making sure that we consider putting a song in the lesson even. Now, I didn't bring a song into the lesson this morning because I realized that I was not going to have enough time. But I considered bringing a song for the lesson because I think it's important to consider that what we memorize, sometimes through music, can be things that we hold on to for the rest of our lives.

Immaturity says that it's about one or the other, but reality is that it is beyond that altogether. So I've got a list here, 1, 2, 3, 4, and when we look at Ephesians in a broader scope, we find that every part of the believer's interactions directly impacts growth of the individual and the body.

So abiding causes us to consider our thoughts and our lives and our values in light of God's revealed truth and direction. That's being filled and fulfilled by the Holy Spirit in verse 18. Then when we teach or fellowship or worship, we share these truths. So if somebody's teaching, hopefully it's true, right? One would hope. When we are fellowshipping, that's a major part of what Paul was going over in chapters 3 and 4, that there's fellowship and intimacy that causes growth. And then here in chapter 5, that even the worship and the songs cause growth, that we would edify one another with those things. And then, number 3, when we learn these truths in one place, we share them elsewhere.

One time I was at Mike and Donna's Bible study, and Mike taught on 2 Corinthians 3.18, and I was so excited that I went over to Tricia and Aaron's house where we were having Bible study the following Tuesday.

And I said, I know we're going through, and I can't remember what we're going through, maybe it was Genesis, but I was like, I have to tell you about 2 Corinthians 3.18 because this is super important and Genesis can wait.

And so we went over 2 Corinthians 3.18. I'd been meditating on it for a number of days and I had to share it.

If you don't learn it, you can't share it. But once you learn it, the next one, number four, comes in place. When we make these truths part of our thought life, the Lord often reveals new appropriations, new ways that they apply to us, new truths. Sometimes He has to build on things. If I don't understand grace, I can't understand any of the doctrines that build on grace. And that's important. and the cycle starts over again because then we start to learn new things and then we start to share them and then other people share them.

So you see how this is really important? It also means that if you go to church, and you get to church, and you're not having fellowship time, and you're never talking to anybody, and you're never seeing them during the week, you're going to have a hard time cycling through the cycle. So consider the body life as part of what Paul is trying to urge us through. You can't speak to one another in Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs if you don't see one another. Just put it with a nice beautiful ocean background and share it on Facebook. That's really what he wants us to do, right? No. Sorry, that's a bit of a social media jab there.

The next thing here he says, giving thanks to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ. So, I am going to tell you right now, if you look carefully at the first page on the Bible verse translation, He says, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God, to the Father. Now if you look at your Bible translation, it might say even the Father or something to that effect in ASB. Looking at the Greek and looking at how most of the other Bible translations have done it, it's probably not even the Father. It's probably better to the Father. It's in the data, which means to. So I made that variation. I'm going to tell you right now, I'm putting myself under the spotlight. Go do the study, find out if I'm wrong, and then come back to me.

The welling up in our fulfilled and filled hearts pours out into the lives of other believers through ministry as we speak psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another, and those messages will impact the outpouring of our hearts towards the Father. How can we not be moved deeply when we consider God's love, God's life, and God's ministry in and through us? So Paul did a little sneaky thing here, and when I say sneaky, I mean it's right in front of you, but it's easy to miss.

He says, always giving thanks for all things. And I hate all those words that are all and always, because they always convict me. I'm like, man. But think about this. How many times have you told God what he can use in your life? I've done it a number of times, like, oh, Romans 8, 28, all things, except for this pile over here, not for Jesus, right? No! God gets to use that.

Now, let's think about Paul. Paul and Silas in Acts, I believe it's chapter 16, Paul and Silas... Oops, I've gone on the wrong page. Okay, yeah, Acts 16, 23-34. Paul and Silas go to jail. And they're in jail, and they're praising God. And then God opens the jail doors. They're in Philippi, by the way. He opens the jail doors, and the jailer comes out, and he panics, and he's about to kill himself, because he knows he's going to do it the fast, easy way. The Romans are going to make it painful. And Paul and Silas say, Wait, wait, wait. We're all here.

Because if you're in jail, and doors miraculously open up, you're going to want to know what's going on. And so the jailer waits, and the jailer doesn't kill himself, which is good, and he becomes a believer. Now, it doesn't say this in the letter to the Philippians, so I'm going to call myself out and say this is a supposition, but I think it was important that the jailer and the miraculous things that took place there happened so that the church in Philippi can be built up. We wouldn't have the story in Acts 16, we wouldn't have the letter to the Philippians if there was no church there, if it wasn't established, and we wouldn't have the letter to Philemon for his runaway slave Onesimus because he was in Philippi.

More than likely. But the thing is that this is a really important place. But if you said to me, hey, go to jail, that sounds great. Paul was like, I'm in. Let's go to jail. I'm thinking maybe not. I have other obligations on Tuesday. So we can say, always give thanks and think, I can think of some places I don't want to do that. Paul was in jail. He was wounded and bleeding. He'd been beaten. And he's praising God. So when he says it, he's saying it from a position of having done it. He's not just hypothetically saying you should do it.

So Paul says, always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, to the Father. So in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, why are we giving thanks? In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Any good guesses on that one? Every good and perfect gift comes from God, the Father is life. So why is it in the name of Jesus in that context? And He's our access to the Father. That's right. He's our advocate. He's our access. We know our position is in Christ. We're positioned in Christ. And so we can, in that name, we know we can go boldly before the throne. Hebrews chapter 4.

And I have to tell you, going boldly before the throne of God sounds terrifying to me if I don't have Jesus, because I don't bring a lot to the table. In fact, I bring, if not a big fat goose egg, negatives. I bring a negative list. But in the name of Christ, in the name of the Lord Jesus, to the Father, all three parts of the Godhead are involved. We have the Holy Spirit, we have our access through Christ, and we have the Father, who we are welling up with thankfulness towards. And that's a powerful place to be.

I can tell you right now that everything that I'm good at being afraid of, and I'm good at worrying about stuff, it's not a spiritual gift, it's a fleshly gift. I know where it comes from. All the things I'm worried about, I forget often that I'm not thankful when they don't happen. I can tell you all the things that I've been through that were difficult trials, I've not always been thankful for.

But in light of what Paul says here, I know that I should be and I know that I can be. And so when I come to a trial and I'm thinking, this is stinky, can we have a do-over and I'll push the easy button? In light of that, I should be able to go to the Lord and I should be able to say, okay, you tell me to be thankful. Let me see it from your perspective so that I can be thankful. I've had all kinds of wounds, physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, all the places that a person has a part of their person. But the Lord can teach me through those. I can be growing past those things. So thankfulness is a core part of that. In conclusion, and this feels like it I've actually managed to get all the way through the lesson, but I must have skipped 60 things.

In conclusion, we can see how God has set up an entirely different way of thinking that doesn't involve the high-risk, carnally-focused way of pagan life. Instead, he has given us an empowerment, a fulfilling relationship with himself and with one another that has eternal impact. What's going to happen in eternity with us together as a body? We know we shall see Him for what you've done. We shall be like Him. We shall see Him as He is. Yeah. And we're going to see us how He sees us.

And I think that's a powerful place to be. Because I'm good at seeing me not in God's light. I'm really good at it. I can come up with a long list of my failures and my mistakes and my sins. But that's not a place of thankfulness. That's not a place of being fulfilled by the Holy Spirit. There are a number of principles given within the New Testament that intersect, but this passage is about to intersect with eternal marriage of Christ to the Church, the representation of our own marriage of that marriage, and our ministry of care toward one another through the Holy Spirit. When we get to the spiritual armor in chapter 6, That's not singular.

That's plural. That's an us. Looking after each other. I got your back, you've got mine. Or your head, depending on which direction your shield is facing. Any other thoughts, questions? I mean, I managed to blitz through all of that, but there's got to be at least one or two things I didn't say.

All right, let's go before the Lord in prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the truth of your word. Thank you that instead of pagan rituals of drunkenness, we have the Holy Spirit indwelling us, filling us, fulfilling us, and making us complete in Christ. We thank you that we can minister to one another and that you've given us sources of truth that we can have confidence in through your word and through singing. And Lord, we thank you that that overflows within us to praise and that we can, in all things, in all ways, bring glory to you. We thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.