“Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit,”-{Ephesians 5:18-NLT}
“Be Filled.” – {plerousthe,} It is a command. It’s a verb. Grammatically it is continuous, not a one time event. It can read “Be being filled…Keep being filled.” To live the Christian life, takes power, not of self effort, INDEPENDENT of the Spirit, but it takes Supernatural power of the Holy Spirit to produce “The FRUIT of the Spirit.” It means to be moment by moment filled by the Holy Spirit which is necessary to “walk in the Spirit”… and “The Fruit of The Spirit.” He produces Spiritual fruit in a believers life. It is EXCLUSIVE. For only a believer can have this Spirit producing fruit in a life. “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. “-{Romans 8:9}. If a person does not have the Holy Spirit they do not belong to the LORD! But at conversion you were gifted the Holy Spirit, indeed “sealed with the Spirit,” which speaks of “ownership,” “authentic,” and used to speak of an engagement ring, a down payment for the future. We belong to Him and the Spirit gives life… and He produces a new life, a new relationship with God exclusively through the LORD Jesus, a new power and a new spiritual producing life, spiritual fruit as seen in Galatians 5:
This is what He produces when He is submitted to.
“Be filled”-{Pleroo}- is actually in the passive voice and indicates that you receive the action—the Holy Spirit is continuously filling you. It is simply another facet of the Spirit’s indwelling ministry, which allows you to have daily, moment-by-moment effectiveness and fulfillment in your Christian life. “-{John Mac Arthur}
The word “Filled” – Pleroo – has three shades of meaning to help illustrate the word…
A. – It is used of a ship that has the wind blowing the sails and thus moving the ship along on a path. POWERFUL INFLUENCE. Influencing through Power!
B. – It is used to PERMEATE. Like the woman who broke the alabaster jar for Jesus and the room was “filled” with the aroma. If you walked into that room what would greet you? The smell of the alabaster permeated the whole room. It would fill it!
C. – It Is used to DOMINATE. When Jesus told the disciples He was going away it says they were “filled with sorrow.”-{John 16:6}. The emotion that DOMINATED them was sorrow. When Jesus healed a man’s hand on the Sabbath, the Scribes and Pharisees instead of rejoicing and amazed at Jesus were “filled with rage.”-{Luke 6;11}. What dominated, controlled them was “rage.” This is the emotion that dominated them, their thoughts, their feelings to the exclusion of all other emotions.
We are commanded to continuously, consistently yield to the Holy Spirit’s control, to- “be being filled.”
How do we know if we are filled with the Holy Spirit? What is our life showing? What is being produced in us. What is evident in our lives? The fruit of the flesh or the fruit of the Spirit? “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”- {Galatians 5:22-23}. An apple tree produces apples, an orange tree produces of it’s kind, oranges, so what does the life of the person who is submitting to the Holy Spirit show? Spiritual, supernatural living evidenced by the spiritual fruitful life is producing. The best human works cannot produce this life, only the Holy Spirit can. And He can, and He does!
The EVIDENCE of Being Filled- In Ephesians 5 is…
A. – SPEECH IS DIFFERENT-{v19}
B. – SONG IN YOUR HEART. – {v19}
C. – SAYING THANKS CONTINUOUSLY TO THE LORD. -{v20}
D. – SUBMITTING TO ONE ANOTHER; – {5:21}. It is evident in relationships. Husband and wives, children in submission to their parents in their Attitudes-‘Honor.’ And their Actions, ‘Obey.’ This is how you know if the SPIRIT is being yielded to and controlling you as a son or daughter. How do we know this is an evidence? Because the WORD OF GOD says it is! We are back to the Word!
Knowing your role as revealed in Scripture and fulfilling your responsibility in the role you have in each relationship.
How are we practically filled, controlled, dominated, permeating our lives of His control?
1. Be continually by faith yielding to the Control of The Holy Spirit.
2. Be continually submitting, obeying the Word of God.
“Let the Word of Christ dwell in you…”{Read Col 3:16} As the Word of God fills our thinking, we will think The LORD’S thoughts and will, revealing to us His mind and we will be transformed as we think on His Truth and as we apply.
You cannot be “filled with the Spirit” and defiantly disobeying God’s revealed will in His Word at the same time. It is easy to say “I am filled with the Spirit,” but the evidence is our attitudes and actions in regards the WORD OF GOD! Interestingly no one says they are “filled with the Spirit,” in Scripture, others say it of them as in the case of Stephen-{Read Acts 7:55}
The verse warns against getting drunk. Why? It ruins your life. When you are drunk you are under the influence of alcohol. You are not in your right mind. You are controlled and under the influence of something else.
The Contrast
is in v 18 “And do not get drunk…but be filled with The Spirit.”
” First, the contrast in verse 18, “Be not drunk with wine, in which is asotia” – or dissipation or debauchery or hopeless, incurable sickness – that’s what that leads to – “but be filled with the Spirit.” There is the contrast between drunkenness and being filled with the Spirit. And we’ve tried to point out to you in the last couple of weeks that drunkenness was a method used in pagan religions to induce a supposed communion with the deities. In other words, it isn’t a social issue that he’s talking about primarily, although that certainly is true. Before you were a Christian, you might get drunk. When you become a Christian, you shouldn’t. It’s true in a social element. But it’s a theological issue that he really focuses on. The pagans would be drunken and thus they felt they would induce a high level of religious consciousness and commune with the gods.
And I mean when they got drunk, they really got drunk. They would even vomit so that they could drink more, and we have even discovered archaeologically that there are places where they had pits for just that purpose. They would induce a stupidity of drunkenness that they believed would elevate them to commune with the gods,and the apostle Paul is contrasting that very starkly by saying, “You commune with God, you go through your worship of psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, you live your lives of wives submitting to husbands and husbands loving wives, et cetera. You do all of this not as it is induced by drunkenness but as it is induced by the filling of the Spirit of God,” see. Completely different.
Paul points out that we find our joy and we find our exhilaration and we find our communion with God, we find the basis of our worship,the motivation for our liturgy, if you want to call it that, from being filled with the Holy Spirit. Their evil, vile, orgiastic, debauched liturgy of evil music, connected with evil dancing, connected with sexual immorality was induced by drunkenness. Our true worship, our beautiful music, our communion with God is brought on by the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the stark contrast between the drunken, orgiastic worship of the pagan systems and the Spirit-filled beauty of the worship of the true God is in the mind of Paul, and he’s saying, as a Christian, you’ve got to leave that stuff and you’ve got to come to this point, that you’re filled with the Spirit. ” -{John MacArthur}
Why do people usually get drunk Today?
Some observations
A. Happy Hour- to try experience happiness
B. Drown out your sorrows, and deal with your problems
C. To get up courage
D. To Try dull emotional Pain
Consider in contrast with The Holy Spirit controlled believer under His influence…
The Holy Spirit imparts deep seated Joy, delight, satisfaction. “A psalm of David. Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight!”-{Psalm 32:1 NLT}
The Holy Spirit comes alongside and helps us with our problems -{Romans 8;26}
The Holy Spirit imparts strength of courage to do the right thing-“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man.”-{Ephesians 3:16}
The Holy Spirit imparts peace for emotional, spiritual healing.{Gal 5:22-23}
You are commanded to be controlled and you can be controlled by the Spirit by…
Yielding by faith to Him to receive from Him all you need
and
Yielding, obeying to His Word. As you obey His Word you will know His mind, His will and He produces a supernatural life in and through you evidenced by
Speech that is different
A Song in your heart
Saying thanks to God continuously marked as a thankful person
Submitting to God in Serving others in your relationships. Others First…”….”Ourselves Your servants for Jesus sake”-{2 Cor 4:5}