“Filled With the Spirit”
Ephesians 5:8-21
Paul is writing a letter to the new Christian churches around Ephesus that are just beginning their new lives in Christ. Paul has been trying to help these new believers understand that they are now part of a new humanity, that consists of people who have the Spirit of God living in them. They have come to understand the story of Jesus Christ and what He has done in order to claim them as His own. Paul understands that although the new believers now have a new position in Christ, it doesn’t mean that they are actually living for Christ.
We can relate. The manner in which we live, doesn’t always reflect how we see ourselves in Christ.
Paul continues to focus on Christian behavior.
It’s important to understand that behavior can be motivated by a lot of different things. Paul wants our behavior to be motivated by who we are in relationship to God.
Paul began chapter 5 of Ephesians telling the Ephesians to be imitators of God and walk in love. He then warned them against walking in darkness, practicing the old ways of doing things, like fornication, uncleanness, or covetousness. Now in verse 8, Paul tells them to walk as children of the light.
Paul isn’t just saying we were once walking in darkness, he says we “were once darkness” ourselves. Now, not only are we in the light, we are light in the Lord.
What does that actually look like?
What does it mean to be light?
Paul puts it in practical terms, we can understand, he calls it “fruit of the Spirit.”
When you are light you show
Goodness, you show
Righteousness, you show,
Truth
Paul goes into more details about the fruit of the Spirit in his letter to the Galatians.
While we are working on letting our light show, Paul tells us to “find out what pleases the Lord.”
Which isn’t that difficult of a task. If you were to read back over Ephesians chapters 4 and 5 you will find Paul’s instructions for Christian living. He has done a great job of telling us what is pleasing to the Lord and what is not.
Next Paul not only tells Christians they are to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, they are supposed to expose them. Not so we can look better than others but to make a point to avoid them and offer other’s the opportunity to avoid them. It is significant to recognize Paul says we should avoid the “unfruitful works of darkness,” not the people who are in the darkness.
Paul then reminds them that “all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.” When we expose the unfruitful works we see just how much a waste of time they are to participate in. So wake up!
Let’s review some of these new things Paul is teaching. We are new and are set apart.
We become holy.
He said we are more loved than we can possibly imagine. We have become beloved children, children of the light. We don’t have to live in the dark anymore.
As we read on in chapters 4 and 5, we discover Paul has been laying out perimeters. These are areas designated to show us what this new identity does and doesn’t look like. Paul has talked about real life issues and helped the new Christian understand what they should look like in their new identity. He has focused on things like sex, money, relationships, anger, generosity and work ethics and explained what they should really look like now that we are part of this new identity, known as Christian.
Now in verses 15-21, Paul doesn’t provide more perimeters. Instead, he demonstrates the immense amount of freedom we really have. The best analogy I can come up with is where Paul is like a new parent of these spiritual children. He wants to show them just how much freedom they have by giving them perimeters.
This may seem paradoxical, because most of us think that freedom is having no perimeters, where we can do whatever we want. But that is not what the Gospel says. Basically, doing whatever you want leads to ruined lives. So in reality, there is freedom in having perimeters. Anyone who has been around children knows exactly what I mean. If you have ever spent time with either a toddler or a 13 year old boy, you know that if you do not set up boundaries or perimeters, and you allow them to do whatever they can think up and want to do, they are not free, they are a disaster waiting to happen. As parents it is out of love that we establish perimeters in order to keep them safe. Have you noticed that as soon as perimeters are established, the child becomes fixated on what they can’t do rather than relishing in all the things they can do.
Paul is explaining how in reality there is an immense amount of freedom. Paul has been laying out perimeters of what it means to live in our new identity. If you were to count them up, there really aren’t that many. So if you were to put these into perspective of our daily lives, there is so much more freedom to live as this new kind of people. If you think about it, most of what we do in our day to day lives doesn’t even cross most of the given perimeters. We are busy interacting with our family, going to work, taking care of the house, or providing for ourselves and others. How many of us have searched the Bible for answers to questions like:
Where to live? Where to get a job? and we couldn’t find direct answers. That’s because there is this freedom.
As we listened to these verses it seems like they could be one liner bumper stickers or something,
“Be careful how you live.”
“Be filled with the Spirit.”
“Sing and make music from your heart.”
But actually Paul understands, that although there are some perimeters for this new life, most of it is open and there is a lot of freedom which leaves many of us wondering,
“What are we supposed to do?”
“How do we know how to make good decisions with this freedom that we have?”
Paul offers three ways,
Wisdom,
Discerning God’s will,
Being filled with the Spirit.
Paul offers these as guiding lights. And you will know that you are in God’s will when you are
“Singing and making music with your heart.”
“Giving thanks.” and
“Submitting to other people.”
Let’s look at the three contrasting pairs that Paul offers.
First pair,
not as unwise but as wise,
Second pair,
do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is,
Third pair,
Do not get drunk… but, be filled with the Spirit.
Let’s take a look at each pair and see how they fit in our daily life of trying to live like a Christian.
First off, Paul tells us to be wise. When we hear the word “wise” we immediately think of something that happens in our head.
We often think of someone who is smart or has a lot of insight. However, in the Bible, wisdom has a deeper meaning. There are words in the Bible for knowledge and understanding. The meaning for wisdom for Paul comes from an understanding we find in Exodus chapter 31. This is the story of how the Israelites were at Mount Sinai and they had been freed from Egypt and God was designing His own personal dwelling place.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills— to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of crafts.
Here is a person, Bezalel, who God said had “wisdom.”
The Hebrew word for wisdom is, “hokhmah,” which means, “a skill that you cultivate by bringing the potential out of something and making it awesome.” So in this passage, Bezalel had a skill in taking gold jewelry, melting it down and artistically designing something new, like a candle holder for seven candles with flowers on it.
Look at how Paul describes wisdom, verse 16,
making the most of every opportunity,
So in our day to day lives, in relationships, in work, paying the bills, what you do with your time, as Christians we can be really stupid and not make the most of our lives. God loves us anyway, we are still His beloved children, but we’re just not being wise with our life.
So then how should we live?
With the presence of God in our lives, we have the ability to make good decisions with our lives. Sure we have relationships, we have our past, whatever our story is but we are absolutely loved by our creator. Jesus loves us and gave Himself for us. Here’s our new life, go for it, be wise, make good choices. There is a direct correlation to our being wise and making wise choices and God’s being present in our lives, which takes us to the second pair,
do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is,
So, if we are wise, we understand that on any given day we can make decisions that are more or less in line with God’s will. This is something that many of us get lost in discerning. If you are like me, somewhere I got this perception that God’s will was like some secret hidden purpose that I needed to figure out for my life. I was taught as a Christian that God has a plan for my life.
So as soon as I decided to follow Jesus it was my job to pay attention to God and decipher what my particular life plan was and do it. I asked myself questions like,
“Which college is God’s will for me?”
“Is it God’s will for me to take this job?”
“Am I supposed to get married?”
Many people think, because God is all knowing and the plans He has was already set long before we were already born, then God’s will is like a point on a map and we need to find the point and then figure out the way God wants us to get from where we are to that point. That’s not how the Bible talks about God’s will. Sometimes Paul talks about God’s will by setting up perimeters. For example God’s will on sexual purity. It is not God’s will to have sex with someone you are not in a marriage covenant with.
But most of the time Paul and other authors refer to God’s will having to do with discerning what is pleasing to God. Let’s go back to the example of loving parents. You have a toddler in your house. You have set up some perimeters. They are not allowed in the drawer with the sharp knives, playing with knives is against your will. Nasty things could happen if you allowed them to play with knives. The medicine chest is another place where they are not allowed. So there are a few places you have placed perimeters but basically your toddler has freedom to the majority of your home. You and your toddler are home with time on your hands. It’s not like you are going to say, “Okay, I want you to play with your trucks now.” or, enough of that, “Now you need to sit down and color.” That would be obnoxious. Generally your child is free to do whatever, and play with whatever they choose to play with. It is your will for them to have fun and grow and learn.
Now if they decided it would be fun to start throwing their trucks at the picture window, it would mean poor choices are happening, and you would step in and intervene.
Paul talks about Christians renewing their mind and this process takes place when we spend time with God, reading His Word, talking with Him and by doing so we cultivate the ability to discern His will. We hear that small, still voice say, “Don’t throw the truck into the window.”
So as we grow in Christ we are to be wise and learn to discern His will.
But how does that work?
That’s where the third pair comes in, verse 18,
Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit,
Not sure when we ever use the word debauchery, but the Hebrew word Paul used here means, “without restraint, without any boundaries, without any perimeters.”
Many people have read these lines and thought that Paul is making a comparison. Don’t get drunk with wine, instead get hammered in the Spirit. In fact, there are religious institutions that believe that getting drunk on wine is wrong, but that being filled with the Spirit can produce the same effect as excessive alcohol consumption would. God bless the diverse Christian community, but I am not sure Paul had such a picture in mind when he wrote this. He has clearly set up contrasting statements,
“Don’t be unwise, be wise.”
“Don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.”
“Don’t be drunk, that’s one kind of behavior, Be filled with the Spirit, that’s a completely different kind of behavior.”
The only similarity between the two is at this point, Paul is talking about some kind of outside influence. You can be wise and unwise of your own accord. But to be drunk or filled with the Spirit involves something outside yourself that is influencing you.
Looking at this image of not getting drunk with wine, you can see how making the most of something, discerning and making good decisions, trying to discern that whatever you are doing during your day is going to be pleasing to God, that involves having to think about your life. And one way you can not think about your life is to get drunk.
That is one of the primary reasons why people get drunk regularly is because they begin thinking about their life and it’s too painful, it’s a means of escape.
Paul is informing this new community how to walk in the Lord, and so at this point he focuses on an influence they will want to avoid, which will impair them from making good decisions, in the moment, and discerning what God’s will is.
Okay, alcohol and Christianity, that’s a loaded pair of words. To start off with, you will not find a verse in the Bible that prohibits the drinking of alcohol. You will, however, find the exact opposite, Psalm 104, talks about the gift of families being able to cultivate the harvest out of the ground, and enjoy wine, which gladdens the heart.
Then in the New Testament, when Jesus was celebrating the creation of a new family at the wedding in Cana, He turned the water into wine, not grape juice.
When the Bible does talk about alcohol it talks about its potential to always be part of a celebration of the good things in life. But there are just as many passages in the Bible, where drinking is not prohibited but absolutely warned against the abuse of alcohol. Go to the beginning of Proverbs 31 and King Lemuel shares what his mother has taught him.
Paul doesn’t just slip the use of alcohol into this passage. He is quite aware that in the use of alcohol you have to be really wise, right? Because for some people, enjoying a bottle of wine with friends as you go out to dinner is a way of celebrating your friendship.
Having a Manhattan together with friends because it’s really really good, or a mug of craft beer made here in Maine, supports the local economy, it’s a way to enjoy the culture of our state. For some people this behavior may be their way of thanking Jesus for good friends and a wonderful cultural space, where for other people it may be utterly foolish and destructive, because of that person’s unique story having to do with alcoholism. Or because they know their temperment leans toward addictive behavior. Or because one may know they are in a tough season of their life and there is a temptation to just have another, have a third, and then have another because I don’t want to think about my life right now.
This is exactly what Paul is focusing on with this. It’s an outside influence that doesn’t only deaden your mind. If you were to go online and read what wikipedia has on the relationship between alcohol and your brain you would be quite amazed.
Guess which part of the brain alcohol effects? The prefrontal lobe, the very part of the brain both toddlers and 13 year olds have yet to develop. It’s the part of the brain that is able to be aware of and think through multiple sequences and the consequences to your actions. So when your toddler thinks about throwing his trucks at the window, he’s not thinking about what the consequences will be, he’s fixated on what will happen at the moment. What alcohol impairs is the very part of the brain that allows you to wisely think through the consequences of your decisions. This isn’t rocket science. If you have ever been in the presence of someone who is inebriated, you know exactly what I am talking about.
But in this context it all makes sense. Paul is saying that if I am a new Christian, a new kind of human being where Jesus has taken up residence in my life, there is a whole new freedom open up to me.
I am becoming a new and different kind of person, that is actually saying no to influences that are going to dehumanize me, or make me less of a human that God is calling me to be. For some, that may be alcohol. Paul doesn’t say, “Don’t drink.” He says, “Know who you are and don’t get drunk.”
On the flip side, Paul says we should be filled with the Spirit. He’s not saying that you have somehow lost the Spirit so you need to get it back in your life. The Spirit is the Bible’s way of saying Jesus’ physical presence is with us and in our midst. The New Testament talks about people who wake up to the story of Jesus and it clicks and they realize that Jesus is real and what He did is for me. The Bible talks about that person making a conversion, or confession in Jesus.
That’s a work of the Spirit.
It means they are waking up to Jesus, there is a new awareness, a new sensitivity and a new reality of the presence of Jesus in our life. The Bible uses words like baptism, being immersed in the presence of Christ. Let’s go back to Ephesians chapter 4, verse 30,
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
If you have put your faith in Jesus, and trusted your life to Him, if that was a three week process, a three month process or three year process, regardless of how long it took, you were baptized, immersed in the Spirit, or to use another metaphor, it’s as if God took a stamp and said, “Mine!” Marked and sealed.
It’s the presence of the Spirit that marks that sealing.
You can’t undo it! You’re His.
You can’t unseal yourself, but what you can do is
“Grieve the Holy Spirit.”
To put it in a positive manner, Paul is inviting you into a newer and newer experience with Jesus, where Jesus is filling up one area of your life. And then you experience something else and realize there is another area of your life that needs to be cleansed, or filled with the Spirit.
Okay, check in time.
How does this work?
Think about it, if it weren’t for the presence of Jesus in your life, would you really care?
Look around you. How many people do you know, who don’t know Jesus as their Lord and Savior and make completely different decisions, without batting an eyelash?
When we open ourselves up to Jesus, it’s this new person who speaks into our lives and convicts and speaks new truths, by pointing out new ways, like that is totally outside the perimeters, that not just not wise, it’s stupid. It’s opening yourself up to this new relational presence.
But with Jesus, it can seem a bit confusing because He isn’t really physically here. But Paul goes on to share what the fruits of the Spirit are for a Spirit filled life, verse 19,
“speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord,”
Paul is telling them that it is through the Scriptures and through each other that we allow Jesus to have influence into our lives. This happens when we come to worship and verse 20,
always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
You know it’s happening when you go through your day and you say something and then it hits you,
“Why did I say that, that was stupid.”
Or you do something that wasn’t kind and you think about it later and think, that was lame.
This is the Holy Spirit, working in your life, convicting, helping you to see what is right and what is not. This is the example of having an outside influence in your life that is compelling you to change and to grow to be more like Jesus.
Then what it leads to is the last verse we read, verse 21, the outcome of the Holy Spirit in our lives,
“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.”
This means we allow the community and the Scriptures to speak into our life, to be open, to be humble enough to realize we need change, because left to our devices we would probably make some dumb decisions, so we need the input of other believers in our lives.
This is the picture Paul is painting.
He lays out the perimeters on what it means to be a new human.
He gives us a huge area of freedom.
Then he talks about influences.
Becoming a new kind of human, being wise, learning how to discern what God’s will is, on any given day.
How?
You become open to the influence of Jesus, by the presence of Jesus through the Spirit in your life. Then you submit to it. Because that is the way we are going to grow. Paul wants God’s children to be free in God’s love.
May we be free indeed.
Let’s pray.
