9-11-25 Study of Revelation Ephesians Chapter 5:18-19 Be Filled with the Holy Spirit Part 1b

➡ This Bible study focuses on the book of Ephesians, particularly the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is given to those who believe and takes up permanent residence in their lives, a process that begins upon salvation. The study emphasizes that being filled with the Spirit is a continuous, moment-by-moment process, not a one-time event. It’s about living a Christian life in obedience to Christ, constantly seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit in decision-making.
➡ This text discusses the concept of being guided and influenced by the Holy Spirit. It compares this to a ship being moved by the wind or a stick being carried by a stream. It also talks about the Holy Spirit permeating our lives, like salt flavors food or a fizzy tablet flavors water. The text emphasizes the importance of allowing the Holy Spirit to control our lives, helping us to manage our emotions and confront our problems directly, rather than avoiding them.
➡ This text discusses the concept of being filled with the Holy Spirit in Christian life. It suggests that when we yield to the Spirit of God, we are led and controlled by it, just as Jesus was. This control influences our thoughts, emotions, and actions. The text emphasizes that being filled with the Spirit is crucial to living a meaningful Christian life and being useful to God.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of being filled with the Holy Spirit to effectively serve God. It suggests that without the Spirit’s guidance, our efforts are futile. The text uses examples from the Bible, like Stephen and Saul, who were filled with the Holy Spirit and were able to do great things for God. It concludes by stating that being filled with the Spirit involves surrendering oneself completely to God’s control, which leads to a life of gratitude, joy, and spiritual growth.
➡ This text emphasizes the importance of living a life guided by the Holy Spirit and the teachings of Christ. It highlights the positive impact this has on our relationships, encouraging submission, love, obedience, and fairness in various roles such as spouses, parents, children, and employers. The text also stresses the need to immerse oneself in the Word of Christ, as this leads to spiritual fulfillment and guidance. Lastly, it uses the story of Peter’s devotion to Jesus to illustrate the miraculous outcomes of a life dedicated to following Christ.
➡ Peter, a disciple of Jesus, was able to perform miracles and speak profound truths when he was near Jesus. However, when he was separated from Jesus, he denied knowing him out of fear. After Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit, which allowed him to continue performing miracles and speaking truths. The story teaches us that being filled with the Holy Spirit is like being in the presence of Jesus, and it allows us to live according to God’s will.
➡ The text discusses the spiritual journey of becoming more like Christ, which is a continuous process. It emphasizes that as we strive to be obedient and study the word of God, the Spirit fills us up, but our actions can also reduce this spiritual ‘tank’. The text also uses the disciples as examples of this process, highlighting how they had to let go of their egos to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Lastly, it includes a prayer asking for guidance, protection, and help in this sanctification process.

Welcome. This is our Thursday night Bible study. We’re into the book of Ephesians and we’re doing the last part of last week’s initial part of part one of being filled with the Holy Spirit. And you made it halfway through. And we’re going to finish up part one tonight and continue on. And I thought, here’s somebody I didn’t think I was going to see. Hey, Nick. Hey, Nick. I thought you were going to be on your anniversary with your wife. It’s Stephen. Oh, I’m sorry. Sorry, sorry. Wrong Nick. Sorry. Bad me. Sorry. Okay, so anyway. What. Yeah, I know.

They’re two different. So anyway, we’re, we’re into the book of Ephesians. We’re going to do part B of what we started last week again for those of you that are new, and we’re getting a lot of new viewers of our Bible study now and just want to make sure that everybody understands this is. The study of Ephesians is an outgrowth of Revelation. We stopped in, in Revelation 3 and came over to Ephesians to understand what it meant to have a Christian life with all of the, all the historical information associated with creation. And once we finish with Ephesians, we’ll go back into Revelation, but we’re also studying Acts at the same time.

So Ephesians is an individual look at your life with Acts being the collective whole as the church, but you still are the church. But it is the understanding that you upon salvation are mirrored into Christ as a group of people and that that was the mystery that Christ gave to Paul with regards to the formation of the Church. So in that we’re going to, to look again in what we started last week as being filled with the Holy Spirit. I’m going to back up a little bit so I can lay a proper foundation before we, we get into the balance of this.

So the question becomes, is who gets the Spirit? That. And it all is based upon those that believe. You see, it’s the simple act of saving faith that gives you the Holy Spirit. He becomes the river of living water and he takes up permanent residence in our lives. And you can never lose that. Remember that we learned in, in this, that once you’re saved, immediately you’re baptized by the Holy Spirit. And that baptism of the Holy Spirit is actually all of the Godhead coming and living inside of you, inside of what is called your heart by scriptures.

And it’s sealed, meaning that there’s nothing that can come in or, or go out. Once you’re saved, you’re Always saved and sealed by the Holy Spirit. The question is, are you saved? So the Spirit is a permanent residence in the life of every believer. And that’s why of all the commands in the New Testament, and there are a myriad of them, of all of the commands in the New Testament, there is never a command to be baptized with the Spirit. Nevers. There are seven references to the baptism of the Spirit in the New Testament. Not one of them is in the imperative mood.

Not one of them is a command. Why? Because you get it freely. Excuse me? Once you’ve accepted Christ as part of your regeneration process, you get the Holy Spirit. Not one of them is in the imperative myth. Okay, so you never commanded to be baptized by the Spirit because the baptism with the Spirit is when you’re placed in the body of Christ. And that happens at the moment you’re saved. Now that’s where the tie in of Ephesians gets in. Acts, by the way, as soon as you are saved, you begin the regenerated process. The Holy Spirit comes inside of you and you are enjoined into the body of Christ.

Now it’s both physically and and literally. Okay, physically means that we’re in the body of Christ. We sit at the right hand of God the Father with Christ all along this physical life. And literally we become one in this physical realm, attached by the Spirit that is all around us. We’ve already learned a lot about that. So second, you never commanded any anywhere in the New Testament to be indwelled by the Spirit. This is also a promise already guaranteed. You’re never commanded in to be sealed by the Spirit or kept secure. That is also a gift of God.

What he says to you, is this my down payment to you upon your faith in what I did and your belief that what I did is going to provide you your ticket home. When you do that, I am going to give you security. And that security is him coming indwelling inside of you free of charge. Ephesians 1. You’ve already been sealed. You’ve already been baptized. You’ve already been indwelt. Those are never given as commandments. The commandment is this in Ephesians 5:18. Now what is that? Be filled with the Spirit. Now that is completely different from a doctrinal basis than being baptized with the spiritual spirit.

That’s completely different. It’s not indwell, baptism or sealed, but field. And you say, well, what does it mean in the first place? It’s the very opposite of the pagan kind of activity. In the pagan ex. Forget that word. The Pagan belief that. But the word means this. Let me give to you the verb rendering in literal sense and then, then I’ll show you how it works. It means to literally be, present tense, says be. Okay? That’s what it means. Being filled with the spirit means be. Be filled. It’s a passive term. Be being kept, filled with the Spirit.

That’s what it literally means. You are to work in regards to your sanctification, to be being kept, filled with the Holy Spirit. And that only comes through sanctification. And the idea of being kept is a constant. It means it never stops. Be being kept. You don’t say, oh, I’m filled with the Spirit. That does it. I’m in re. I’m in that for the rest of my life. That is not what happens. That’s what a lot of the churches today preach. Once you’re saved, you don’t have to worry about anything else. Be being kept filled is a moment by moment by moment process.

It’s a day by day by day by day process. It’s not all, it’s not a once for all thing. It’s not a zapper here. You don’t get zapped from heaven when you get saved and you don’t have to worry about anything else in your life. You just go live your life like you want and. And you’re safe. That is not what this h. It is all about. Being, be being kept is a continuously filled process. It’s passive that if something fills you, you don’t feel yourself, you receive the action and it is the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of God who fills you.

I want you to listen to me. Got it? God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit upon salvation comes and lives in your heart. Well, hopefully. And what they do is they seal themselves in there. So you can’t, you can’t deter what they do. Number one, they’re always going to clean you out. They’re going to clean their house out. And what they do to you as the house is whether or not you’re going to be obedient to Christ or not. If you’re obedient, you get more filled, the light gets bigger. If you’re disobedient with God, they begin to seal things off.

So it’s a present tense process. Be constantly in the present tense. Being kept continuously filled by the Spirit of God. Now you may be baptized into the body, you may be indwelt by the Spirit, and you may be sealed by the Spirit unto the day of redemption. But you need to know something else. You can live your Christian life in complete defeat if you don’t know what it is to experience moment by moment, the be being kept continuously filled by the spirit of God experience. That’s where the fence comes up. It expresses the idea of a moment by moment continual work.

It’s not some second thing that that’s good for the rest of your life. My being filled with the spirit five minutes ago isn’t any good now. I had prayer before we got online for a majority of reasons. You know, just need to pump up a little bit. And none of what I did five minutes ago is there now. My being filled with the spirit tomorrow isn’t any good for today. You’re being filled in the spirit yesterday has no results for today. It has to be a continual process, moment by moment by moment. That is a reason why you have to look inward to the Holy Spirit in regards to the decision processes of your life to ensure that the Spirit is behind what you’re going to do.

Now listen, when you think of filling, you may think of a glass of water, you feel it, or a box and you stick something in it, or a container that you dump something in it. But that’s not the idea here. The English language produces a very dichotomy associated with words. Let me give you three concepts to hang into here. The word perio is used of a wind filling a cell and billowing the cell out, which moves the ship along. You know, when we say that the cells are filled with the wind, and that’s in Paul’s mind for a beginning thought to be carried along.

To be carried along is a very beautiful thought. But to be moved along, to have the thrust of your life and the energy of your life and the pressure of your life, be in the power of the Holy Spirit of God is where you need to be. In other words, you don’t move in your own energy. Okay, we talked about that. All right? We, God, put the breath of life inside of each one of us as we were born. And that become, that becomes the life of the body. Why? Because the life of the body is in the blood.

And what fuels the blood, it’s what we call oxygen, but it’s really God’s breath. And God did that with a system inside the fallen state of this world called the matrix. Using photosynthesis, we breathe out carbon, we breathe in oxygen. The plant, all green things, trees, grass, grass, flowers, whatever takes all of that carbon converts it back into the oxygen as we, for lack of a better word, that converts that Back to the elements associated with God’s original breath. Now we’re carried along the path that he will go. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and we move in the direction continuously that God’s directing us, he makes our path.

It’s in a very real sense, almost like those who wrote the scripture who were born along by the Holy Spirit. Now it’s as if you are nothing but a stick in a creek. Have you ever watched a stick that you put on top of the water and it goes wherever it goes, it twirls it, maybe it goes straight or whatever. When you were a little child, you dropped a stick in a creek and then run up and down and watched it come down the creek. You’re sort of carried along by the Spirit of God. You’re blown along like a sailboat in the wind.

Now that’s one thought of this. To be filled with the Spirit is to be carried along from day to day, from moment to moment, from enterprise to enterprise, from thought to thought, from from word to word, from D to D. By the power of the energy of the whole, of the Spirit of God, two things happen. One is you’re inwardly directed because of the Spirit living inside of you. And the second thing is you’re protected and moved by the Spirit that surrounds you. God’s breath. So it has the idea of pressure. Oh, that’s how you breathe.

It’s because the outward pressure on your lungs makes your lungs breathe. You see the energy, action and reaction to each other. God pushes us in, we push out because we need to breathe. So it is this constant flow of energy outward to in, outward to outward surface, inward to inward surface, which causes you to act accordingly to the control of the Holy Spirit. Now there’s a second one, and that’s the idea of permeation. Pyrrho is used sometimes of something which permeates. And a good illustration of that is salt. Salt permeates. In fact, it permeates so well that if you put enough on it, on of it on something, it will preserve it.

That’s what they used to do in older time when they didn’t have refrigerator. They actually coated meat that they hung into a smokehouse and preserve the meat that way. But when you want to eat something and you put, put salt on gives it sort of a flavor. It permeates the whole thing so that the whole thing is flavored. Now, I use the illustration also of a fizzy. And if you’ve read a book called Found God’s Will, you’ll read About Fizzy Principle. That’s a book written by John MacArthur some years back. Fizzies were kind of a flavored Alka Seltzer.

A little thing about the size of an Alka Seltzer. Only they made them in grape and orange and root beer and cherry and all of that. And you get a little deal of those things. And you drop them in a glass of water and they would spew. That was there when I was a kid, all right. To give flavored water, you know, like an Alka Seltzer does. And they’d fill it up. They’d fill the whole thing up with their flavor. And you’d see the bubbles come up and all stuff. So it was permit. It was a permanent permeation.

You put a grape fizzy in there and the whole glass of water tastes like grape juice. And what it did was flavor the water. And Piero P I E R O O is used in the same sense in the Greek language. Now that there’s this. The sense in which the spirit of God wants to flavor your life so that you taste like the spirit of God, as the illustration goes. And so that when anybody gets next to you, see, here you go. The flavor of your life is that of God. So that being with you is like being with you guys.

You see, that’s the light. So it’s the idea of pressure to move you along. And it’s the idea of permeation. So that, you know, when somebody gets around you, they think maybe they’ve been with Jesus. Now, that’s interesting self assessment here. Let’s just break here. How many of you have any idea about what the people feel around you? How many of you even attempt to put in motion an act, an action that would draw them so near to you that. That. That their feeling is they’re being so loved? That is God’s presence itself, because he flavors your life.

But the dominant thought here, as compared with the gospel record, particularly the dominant use of perio, is to speak of control, to speak of total control. That’s kind of the idea in scripture. You’ve got the idea of moving along. You guys know that you walk. And we’re talking. We’re talking about walking worthy of your calling. And the whole chapters 4, 5, and 6. So we’re right in the middle of that. You’ve got the idea of permeation, but the control idea is the key. Let me see if I can illustrate it a different way. Whenever in the gospel record the writer wants to talk about somebody who has just dominated by an emotion.

He will use the word period, which is used here in this scripture. In other words, in John 16:6, it says they were filled with sorrow. In other words, sorrow to such a degree that it can’t be balanced off by happiness. And they’re just totally sorrowful. Okay, emotions, guys. This is the baseline of understanding emotions. If you are walking in Christ constantly and you are in this relationship that you have a moment by moment being filled with the Spirit, the Spirit controls the downward spirals. It also controls the upward spirals. But in the upward spirals, it increases velocity.

Let me give you another illustration. Most of the time, we can kind of balance things in our life. Oh, that’s the operative world. We can balance things in our life. All right. This is where the law of duality comes in. Because the. The devil comes in to deceive you. And that when you feel like you have controlled balance and you’re on a high, the devil says, see, I told you so. Okay, we. We’ve got sorrow over here on a scale and happiness over here on a scale. And we go through life a little bit of sorrow, and then we think of something happy.

Well, it’s not going to well at home. I think I’ll go to the office. If I go to the office, I’m outside of the home. And by being in the office, it’s made better. No, it’s not. That’s an illusion of your mind because you’re going to come right back to it. And when you come right back to it, it’s still going to be there. And what Christ says is you need to deal with those situations immediately. Now, it’s not going too well at the office either. I think I’ll go home. See, we try to balance this life based upon moving away from the confrontation that we are in now.

We talk about sad things. We’ve done that the last two days. We don’t want to talk about it anymore, so let’s talk about something happy. So all. All of a sudden, whatever made us sad, we think it’s going to change by now. Talking about something happy. And yet sorrow is still at the base of what we’re going to go back to as soon as that conversation is over with. But every once in a while, we can’t keep that balance. The person we love, the purse, the person dies. All of a sudden, the scale is all the way down on the sorrowful side.

And nothing anybody says or nothing anybody does can take away that sort of filled. And that’s when the word would be used. It’s totally dominating. On the other hand, you’re going along. Happiness over here, sadness over here. Aunt Martha dies and leaves you filthy rich. Whoa. On that side, you’re very happy and it doesn’t matter. The world can go down the tubes. I got filthy rich. Never expected it. No. Now all of a sudden you’re filled with happiness. And that’s the concept that you need to grasp of the word of God. You’re totally dominated by it and you don’t need any equilibrium.

Sadness thing going on around you is totally under. Un. Uninteresting to you. You’re happy and that’s the way life goes. That’s the way every life goes. There may be things that kept us secure, a house that’s got locks on it and things that scare us and give us fear and we go along a little bit and oh, a husband gets a raise, we get a new house, the kids are doing great and we feel so great. We filled with security. On the other hand, when you’ve already done that and you’re in that process and all the security you could ever need, there’s a disaster and we’re scared to death.

You know, it’s in the middle of the night and somebody’s poking around the windows, you know, that’s perero. It’s to be controlled by that emotion so that you no longer can keep your balance. You’re out of it, you’re out of control. You’re controlled by that which influences your thinking and your emotions. Self assessment here. What is controlling your thought pattern. That’s what you think. You become that which you think you act upon that which you think is what you’re going to move out to show yourself to others. Now the same thing is true and how we live the Christian life, this is the way most of us go.

Here’s self over here and here’s the Holy Spirit over here. That’s typically how we’re taught after salvation in most of the churches today. We say a little bit for self and we a little bit for the Holy Spirit and a little bit for me and that we are kind of. But all of a sudden at some point in time, we yield to the Spirit of God and totally self disappears and we’re filled with the Spirit. You see what this means to. In order to be continually filled by the Holy Spirit, you have to be obedient to his word.

Everything is controlled by Him. You get this. Everything is controlled by him, both good and bad. So therefore, if you want to seek yourself and you want to seek that which is of this world. He’s going to let you have it. All of our emotions, all of our acts of will, all of our thinking processes can either be controlled by him or controlled by us. Now that’s what it means to be filled with the spirit. That’s the heart of the matter of being filled with the spirit. It’s the idea of being moved along. It’s the idea of being permeated.

So you have the flavor of Jesus Christ, but is also the idea of being controlled by and a firm hand of control of God. Now let’s look at scripture for an illustration. Look at Matthew 4:1. It says this. Then was Jesus led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tested by the devil. Now here’s the Holy Spirit operating in the life of Jesus. And the Holy Spirit it says, led Jesus. Wow. Jesus was God. Well, yeah, but he was man. He had to live the life of man in order to fulfill the host body system requirements of being living our life like we live.

So he could experience all of it dying, being buried and being resurrected, which is the other condition. And because he was resurrected, so are we. And you got to remember, this is all done before the foundation of the world. Okay, what he’s telling you by in scripture is what was done before you were ever born. He led Jesus in Matthew 4:1 to the temptation. That’s what God had to get done in heaven before he finished his simulation to know how to successful the end result was going to be before he created one ounce of matter. Now in Luke 4:1 we have the same incident, second time the temptation, the same situation.

But here, here it says this. Jesus being full of the Holy Spirit returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Now what was the condition by which the Spirit led him? He was what? Full of the Spirit. You can’t be led by the Spirit if you’re not full of it. You get what I’m saying? If the Spirit of God is locked inside your heart and if you don’t do something called sanctification, you cannot be led by the Holy Spirit because you don’t know what scripture is telling you to do useful with the Holy Spirit.

Now do you see what being filled with the Holy Spirit actually means? It means to be led by the Spirit, to be controlled by the spirit. Now if you were to go to Mark chapter one, the same thing is dealt with again. Now as we’ve seen Matthew, Luke and Martha in the church, it says that we’re all the same event. No, they weren’t There were three temptations. Three. One, two, three, three. What’s the numerology of three? Trinity. Why is that? Because you got a dark trinity. We learned in the return of the gods. And you got the.

Got the Holy Trinity, which is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. So, and immediately the Spirit, and it uses the word ek bello, drives him into the wilderness. And that is really a strong word. He drove him, he spirit drove him, Jesus into the wilderness. He spirit thrust him, Jesus into the wilderness. In other words, Jesus himself was under the power of the Spirit of God so that the Spirit of God literally drove him where he wanted him to go. Now, if we’re supposed to be like Christ, we’re supposed to have that activity in our lives as well.

He was controlled by the Spirit of God. And that’s why later on, when they came to Jesus and they said, what? Do what you do? You do by the power of Satan. He said, you have blasphemed. Not me, but what The Holy Spirit. Why? Because he had yielded the control of his life to the power of the Spirit of God. He was full of the Spirit, and that’s why he was driven by the Spirit. So you see, when Christ came, he came as 100% God and 100% man. And being 100% man, he had to live the life of man.

But inside of him he was 100, controlled by God. To be filled with the Spirit is the same thing. And what I know. What did I say? If we were to look at our lives in totality against the standard of Jesus, we should. And it says, be like him. Right? How can you be like him if you don’t have 100 God in you? You’re 100 man. He’s giving you the power to be 100 like God, just like Jesus was. How? By being 100, driven by the Holy Spirit. It’s the idea of being driven by the Holy Spirit of God, being moved by the Spirit of God or being permeated by the Spirit of God are being controlled by the Spirit of God.

That’s the issue at the crust of all Christian life. And that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about living your life under the control of the Spirit of God. He’s there. And if you don’t live that way, you grieve him on the one hand and you squish him on the on the other, right? You put a fence up, you cut him off. And when you cut him off, he resents. It doesn’t go Anywhere. He just leaves you alone to do whatever you want to do, which then you can defeat yourself in a fallen world. So you are really dealing with his person negatively and his purposes negatively.

And by the way, unless you’re filled with the spirit of God, listen to me, you have no use. You might be safe, that only gets your ticket home. But unless you’re filled by the spirit of God, you have no use to God in this earth. Now, I’d like to use an illustration of a glove. If I have a glove lying here and I say, glove, go play the piano. What’s a glove gonna do? Glove doesn’t play the piano, it just sits there. If I put my hand in that glove and then play the piano, what happens? Chaos.

I quit after my first. I. I took piano lessons when I was young and I quit after my first recital and I went into baseball. Why? Because that was more closer, aligned with what I wanted to do. But you know, the glove you put on in a hand in the glove and a glove just goes. The glove doesn’t get pious and say, oh, fingers, show me the way to go. It doesn’t do that. And a glove doesn’t fight you saying, blood. Please respond. No, the glove just goes where your hand tells it to go. Well, as a Christian, you’re a glove.

And you can, you can lie around on a table and grunt until you die, but you’re never going to affect anything for God until you’re filled with the Spirit. Because the glove can’t do anything without a hand and you can’t do anything without the energy of the fullness of the Spirit of God. Everything you try to crank out on your own is done in the flesh and is completely useless. And scripture says it’s best double, not gold, silver, precious stones. So what the scripture is saying here is that you need to be filled with the Spirit of God to what be effective.

You have a purpose. You can, you can get things done. To fulfill the worthy walk, as we’re talking about is to fulfill the love walk, the light walk and wise walk. To do anything for God to walk in wisdom, you must be filled with the Spirit of God. You must be permeated by his person. You must be born along by his power and you must be controlled by his presence. Now let me show you something. Unless you’re that way, as I stated earlier, but I want to make sure that you hear what I’m saying. You are useless to him.

I mean, he can’t do a thing with you in his mind. It’s a Waste of time. That’s the reason why he leaves you to yourself. Functioning in the flesh reaps absolutely zero. Whenever the Lord wants a job done, he always gets somebody full of the Spirit to do it. In Acts chapter 6, verse 5, they needed some men for a special job, remember? And so what were the qualifications in Acts 6:5 and the saying pleased the multitude. And they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit. They chose him because he was full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit.

And it says in, in chapter 7, verse 55. But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, looked at, looked up steadfastly into the heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. This was Stephen in the midst of the Sanhedrin, giving them their last warning. Now, to be filled with the Spirit just takes you completely right out of this world. To be filled with the Spirit gives you a view of God himself. You can’t think like God thinks, like the scripture tells you to do, unless you have a view of who God is.

To be filled with the Spirit detaches you from the system. To be filled with the Spirit means I could care less what happens to me as long as what Christ is glorified. That’s the only reason you’re here on earth, is to glorify him. So what are you doing in your personal life? Self assessment in everything to glorify him. He just looked up and saw the glory of God. It’s a transcending thing. Transcending word, nice word. It’s a transcending reality. You move right out of this world, right out of your circumstances, right out of your whatever it is going on, right out of your trials to see God.

You see, whenever God wants a man for a job, he wants a man full of the Spirit because it may wind up the man getting stoned. And if we, if he isn’t filled with the Spirit, he’ll never be able to handle that. To realize the adversities in your life is caused by God. Self assessment. All of the things going on in your life are controlled by Him. All the good things in your life are controlled by Him. Why do you have bad things going on your life if you are saved? Well, you’re not obedient, you’re not being filled with the Spirit.

So he’s going to get your attention one way or the other. And it could get so bad that death is involved later on. In chapter nine, he needed a man. He needed a man named Saul, who was a tough Nut to crack. He was a persecutor of the church. But the Lord got a hold of him. And The Lord had one basic condition for him. In chapter nine, verse 17 of Acts, Ananias went his way, entered into his house and putting his hands on him, said, brother Saul, now this is after his Damascus road experience. Even Jesus the Lord had appeared unto him in the way that thou camest.

In other words, Ananias say, hey, you know what? You just met Jesus on the road and that’s how. That’s the only reason you’re here. And oh, by the way, brother Saul, he sent me that thou mightest receive what thy sight and be what filled with the Holy Spirit saw before you begin your work, you’ve got to be what filled with the Spirit, or I’ll be done in the flesh. Being filled with the Spirit is just living one moment at a time under the control of the Holy Holy Spirit. That’s all. We have such a complexity of understanding about life.

We don’t understand that all we need to do is have a ongoing conversation with the Holy Spirit inside of us. And he will direct your path. It’s a yieldedness. It’s the emptying of you so that he can fill you see, you find further as you go into into Acts, chapter 11, verse 22, which we’re not there yet. The Lord needed a man named Barnabas to help a man named Paul. And when the Lord wanted to pick a man named Barnabas, he had some conditions. Verse 22. They sent forth Barnabas. Barnabas? Why Barnabas? Verse 24. For he was a righteous man and what full of the Holy Spirit.

Do you see the pattern? If you’re going to live a Christian life walking worthy of your calling, you must be continuously filled by the Holy Spirit. What else would God require? And later on you find in chapter 13, verse 9, and Saul, filled with the Holy Spirit set his eyes on me. Here he is sometime later, still filled with Holy Spirit. Chapter 13, verse 52. And I love this. And the Scripture and the disciples were filled with joy and with what the Holy Spirit. And what happened? It came to pass in icing that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews.

And so spoke that a great multitude, both the Jews and the Gentiles were what say what God wants is somebody to minister to his church. When God wants somebody to pioneer a missionary work. When God wants somebody to win people to Christ, he finds somebody filled with the Holy Spirit. Somebody who is born along in the will of God by the pressure of the Spirit. Of God permeated by the flavor of Jesus Christ himself and somebody who’s absolutely controlled by that power. Now that’s the standard that God has set. Oh, now that’s the standard that you know.

And because now you know that your accountability has just been raised. Because if you don’t live that life, you’re going to get judged accordingly. Now that’s the meaning of filling. But really, what’s that mean? How do I get filled? Well, we’ll look at some very quick things. And how do. How do I get filling of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit? How can I know this if it’s commanded? Well, you know, it’s amazing that I hear people praying for the filling of the Holy Spirit. That is what the Presbyterians and Holy Rollers do all the time. They pray to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

So they what, they can fall over, act like dead, you know, have a fit and begin to speak no terms that we even understand. You don’t pray for it. It’s not a prayer request, it’s a command. You don’t say, lord, oh, I want to be filled. He’s up there saying, I want you to be filled. I want you to be filled. And you’re saying, I want to be filled. I want to be filled. There’s sort of a little roadblock here, do you see? And if he gave you a command, then you have the resources, right? He’s not going to ask you to do anything that you don’t already have the resources for.

And the resource is to empty yourself of yourself. It’s a matter of the confession of sin. Well, let me give you a simple way to look at. Involves a surrender of your will, your intellect, your body, your time, your talent, your treasure, everything to his control. It’s the complete death of self. Paul says, I die daily. Why? Because he is. He is moving himself out of the way so that the Lord Jesus Christ can maintain control. It’s the crucifixion of yourself. It’s the slaying of your own self will. It’s the mortification of the members of your body.

It’s absolutely the death of you. And when you get to the point of dying, he fills it. When you are so empty yourself of yourself, he fills it and he fills it to the brim. Now look at Ephesians, chapter 5. Quickly, David. Ephesians, chapter 5, verse 18. This statement. Be not drunk with wine, in which is excess, but be filled with the spirit. Now what happens when you’re filled with the spirit? Here’s what Happens. You’ll speak to yourselves in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Verse 19, verse 20. You’ll be thankful. You’ll give thanks always for all things good and bad.

I bet the day that you guys have a wreck in your life, all you think about what in the world is going on? Why, why am I in this situation? Why did God put me here? You should be getting on your knees thanking God that you’ve gone through it, because there is a blessing coming. Verse 21. You will submit yourself to each other. Oh, now that’s a big field. You got big time even being submissive in your home. How are you going to give it to somebody else? Verse 22. Spirit filled wives will submit to their husbands.

Verse 25. Spirit filled husbands will love their wives. Chapter 6, verse 1. Spirit filled children will obey their parents. Chapter 6, verse 4. Spirit filled fathers will not provoke the children to wrath. 6.5. Spirit filled servants will be obedient. And 69 spirit filled masters will treat their servants right. Those of you have your own jobs, own your own businesses. Do you treat your workforce as Christ treats you? Now, do you notice that? Isn’t that amazing? All this feeling of the spirit never produces anything aesthetic at all. It produces singing, saying thanks, submitting, and a whole lot of right human relationships.

Nobody gets zapped and goes off the deep end. Amazing, isn’t that? Nobody falls over flat on their back. Nobody gets into some kind of ecstatic experience. What happens is very simple. All relationships begin the right way. Your relationship with God is right because you sing and say thanks. Your relationship to other people is right because you submit. Whether it’s in a marriage, a family or an employment situation. Remember, you’re supposed to be humble. It’s all very practical and it’s all very clear once you break it down to the elements of understanding. It’s about how you conduct yourself.

The feeling of the Spirit affects all of these relationships to God. It also does it to your families and to everybody else you come in contact with. Now let me show something. If you look at Colossians chapter three, there’s a parallel. Now I have to think. I believe that this is a very fabulous parallel. Colossians 3. And verse 16 says in the middle of the verse, teaching and admonishing one another, oh my gosh, does that hit home? I’m opinion. My opinion is this. You ought to do this. Whatever is that, Teaching or admonishing one another. My idea is better than your idea.

And you don’t even understand what their idea is. Here we go again. Just exactly like Ephesians 5, Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. Now, in verse 17, whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, give thanks. Now it goes through the same routine again. Now it’s condensed, but it’s all here. Wives, submit to your husbands. Husband, love your wives. Children, obey your parents. Father’s not. Don’t provoke your children. Service, obey your masters. And then in chapter four, verse one, masters, give your servants what is just and equal. Oh, let’s think about your work habits.

I don’t like my job. Well, do you realize your job was given to you a guy? Gosh, I hate this. I hate what I’m doing. I need to do something different. Well, do you ask God about what he really wants you to do? Are you just out there flapping your gums because you’re so disgruntled? You’ve not even approached the Holy Spirit to determine what it is you should be doing? Now, it’s the same sequence. You’ve got it all right there. Okay? You’ve got the singing and the saying, thanks and the submissiveness. The wives, the husband, the children, the father, the servant, the master.

It’s all identical throughout this process of the scripture. You get one half of the chapter doctrine and the last half, an application. And the application sections is all the same. Now, we know what produces this in Ephesians 5. The filling of the Holy Spirit. What produces it here in Colossians. Oh, it’s different here. Look at verse 16. Let the word of Christ dwell in you what richly, in all wisdom. Now, hang on to your seat. Let me tell you something. Being filled with the Holy Spirit is the same thing as letting what the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Now, how are you going to do that? Many of you don’t even pick up the Bible. Many of you say, I’m saved. I got this made. Boy, I’m going to see you in heaven. But you know what? You’re not going to see me in the cheap sheets. It’s got to be the same because it produces the same results. It doesn’t matter what scripture you read. The outcome has got to be the same. People say, oh, the filling of the Spirit is mystical. Oh, absolutely. Is very mystical. No, it’s not. The feeling of the Spirit is taking the word that Christ has given us and what? Letting it dwell in you.

Where? In your heart. If you want to be spirit filled, don’t go sit in a corner somewhere and plead. Guide. If you want to be spirit filled, feed yourself the word of Christ. And as you’re fed and filled with the Word, the re, it results in the dwelling in you plus P L O U S I s which is abundantly, richly, richly in fullness, you’ll find yourself coming under its control. Who’s the author? The Word of Christ, the Spirit. And when you pour the Word in, it becomes the thing that controls you. Charles Spurgeon said it this way.

Your blood will become biblian. Life of the blood. Life is. Your life is in the, in the blood, right? That’s the breath of the air of Christ. Your blood will become biblan, which is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, which is the energy of God, which both is dwelling inside of you and is all around you. It’s a simple thing, and there’s no reason to make it confusing. Being filled with the Spirit is, is simply letting the Word, Word what the Bible dominate your life. If you want to know what it is to be filled, spirit filled, then feed yourself the Word of God.

Because when the Word goes in, the Spirit has the truth which to give you the direction and the guidance you seek. What does it do? It shifts your, your biological brain over to a control point of your heart. Unless you feed your brain with the knowledge of Christ, you’re not going to understand how to allow the Holy Spirit to move and control you. Now, Peter wanted to be where Jesus was. He wanted to be where Jesus was always. Now, I mean, I’m pretty sure Jesus walked down the road and stopped and Peter ran into the back of him.

I’m pretty sure Peter had a brown nose at times. Peter trailed him everywhere. If you don’t know anything about Peter, need to go book, read the book of Peter and see what he did. He followed Jesus Christ like a lamb leading slaughter. He trailed him everywhere. Martyr went up on a mountain. Peter went up on the mountain. Lord says, will you go away? He says, where I am going to. Peter was always around. And so you know why he was around? Because when he was near Jesus, three things stand out in the Bible. He did the miraculous, said the miraculous and had miraculous carriage.

The first thing he did, the first time you see Peter, by the way, he’s in a boat on the sea, right? It’s a very nervous time, the storm. And they’re all alone and they’re shaky and they’re out there in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and all of a sudden they look off in the distance and here comes Jesus. What? Walking on the water. And then Peter thinks to himself, I’m here. He’s there. That’s no good. I got to close this gap between us. And he’s going to go be with Jesus now. He’s been a fisherman all his life, lived on the shore, the Sea of Galilee, never walked on it, yet every time he ever stepped into it, he went right to the bottom.

And he knows this. Live in your life. He never been any different. It’s never been any different for him. And yet he jumps out of the boat and takes off across the water. He gets out a little ways and says, you know, well, you see, he was unconscious of what he was doing because his compulsion to be with Jesus absolutely overrode everything. He was just going to be who Jesus was. And of course, he met Jesus. And for a little while, he started to sing. And then the Lord reached down, lifted him up, and they walked back to the boat.

Now, you know, I can just imagine him walking along with Jesus back to the boat. He’s feeling pretty hot. Look at us fellas. And I always laugh because one writer wrote it had a sandbar, that they were walking on a sandbar. But he’s the same writer who said that there wasn’t a great fish that swallowed Jonah either. That was just the name of a dingy tied on the back of the ship. Of course, my question was, whoever heard of a dingy that vomited? That’s another topic for another day. So Peter and Jesus are walking to the boat.

And you know what? You have to admit that when Peter was near Jesus, he could do the miraculous. I mean, he couldn’t walk on water, but he could when he was near Jesus, right? That’s what scripture tells us. The next time we see him. In our little analogy, he’s gathered with the disciples, and Jesus said, who do men say that I am? Matthew 16. And they said, oh, some say you’re Elijah or Jeremiah or one of the prophets. And he says, well, who do you say that I am? And Peter goes, thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.

Now, I’m sure he thought to himself, where did that come from? You see, Peter’s mouth was available a little while later in that chapter, Satan used it, remember? And Jesus had to say, get thee behind me, Satan. His mouth was available, and God used it. At that point in time, there are Christ, the son of the living God. What a shock it must have been for him. And Jesus looked at him and said, flesh and blood didn’t reveal that to you, Peter? My Father in heaven did. My father just used your mouth for a moment there.

Well, do you remember Peter going to Carneus back in, in Acts and at the start of the church with the Gentiles fulfilling the last portion of creating of the church. And all Peter had to do was open his mouth and God saved everybody. And Peter had to shut up. Well, no wonder he wanted to be where Jesus was. He could do the miraculous and say the miraculous. He could do anything he wanted to do as long as he was with Jesus. Now he could have miraculous courage. If you recall, in the garden, all the soldiers came to catch Jesus, capture him, right, take him to trial.

And Jesus said, whom seek ye? This is Jesus talking to the Roman soldiers. And the whole Roman army fell over. They fell over like dominoes, flat on the ground. And Peter thought to himself, wow, that’s easy. I mean, one. And they all fell over already. And so he’s standing next to Jesus and he’s getting more and more irritated. And Peter said, peter, pretty soon he decides he’s going to just lash out. So he takes his sword and he starts with the first guy in line. And he was going to go through the whole pile of them.

They were probably with, with what the Bible talks about 500 of them from, from the fort there in Rome. He just whacks off Malchus here. And he was going for his head, but Malchus ducked. No question in my mind about that. He wasn’t just saying, I got your ear, you know, that wasn’t the idea. He was going for the whole deal. And he started with the first guy in line. He was going to work through his way of the whole truth. We can only say, peter, where did you get that courage, man? Where’d you get that courage? Well, he knew that all he had to do was just look at Jesus.

And Jesus would go like that again and it all fall over. So he didn’t have anything to worry about, see, he just thought he could look at Jesus. Jesus would say one word that fall over and just Peter would just go through the line. So he had the ability to do the miraculous, say the miraculous and have miraculous courage when he was what, near Jesus. No wonder that’s where he wanted to be. No wonder when Jesus said, will you just go away? He said, where would I ever go, Lord? And yet you know what happens the next time we see Peter? He separated from Jesus.

Jesus is inside being tried and he’s outside washing his hands or warming his hands rather. And the Bible says three times he did what? Denied him. Isn’t that awful? You know, all it took for Peter was to get separated from Jesus. And he was a failure. Great principle in that. You say he was a coward when Jesus was a hundred feet away or so. Yes, he was. The next thing that happened, Jesus went to heaven. And you say, oh, that’s the end of Peter. He’s a coward at a hundred feet. What’s he going to do now? And the Lord clear back in heaven, we might as well bury the guy.

Christ says, no, you know what Christ did? He stands up. It gave Peter enough courage that he stands up on the day of Pentecost. And he says, ye men of Judea and all of all of Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words. And it goes on to preach about what Jesus, whom you crucified is the Lord Jesus Christ. And he preaches a fantastic masterpiece as we’ve already studied. And God is using his mouth again and it’s going with divine inspiration. And it gets all done. And they were prick in their hearts and they cried out, what are we going to do? In other words, they became fearful because they realized what they had done.

And he said, repent, be baptized for the remissions of sin, and ye shall receive the Holy Spirit. Three thousand and more. You know what you see him doing next? Saying the miraculous again. He’s opening his mouth and God’s talking. The next time you see him, he and John are going over to the temple to worship. And there’s a guy laying there, he’s a beggar. And he looks at him and he says, silver and gold have I none, but such I have give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And the guy jumps up and jumps around and dances and goes right on through the temple doing all of that.

Recall the story we’ve already studied, that he not only could say the miraculous, he could do the miraculous. And so they didn’t like what he was doing. And they dragged him in before the Sanhedrin and they said, stop preaching. And he said to them, you tell me whether I ought to obey you or God. Well, that was pretty bold. And they let him go. And he went right out and started a prayer meeting. And they prayed that God would give them more boldness. And they went out and preached all the more. Now listen, guys, this should hit home.

It’s amazing to me that when Peter was with Jesus, he could do all the miraculous things, say the miraculous and had miraculous courage. Later on, when Jesus was clear back in heaven, he could do the miraculous, say the miraculous and had miraculous. Curse you say, what’s the connection here’s the point of a Christian life. Before he ever stood up on Pentecost, the Bible says in Acts 2, 4, they were all filled with what? The Holy Spirit. Now listen, here’s the. Here’s the conclusion to this. Being filled with the Spirit is the same thing as living as if you’re standing next to him.

Jesus Christ. Oh, my gosh. Self assessment time. Do you think Jesus Christ could ever stand beside you? Are you that worthy of his presence to do that? Being filled with the spirit is the same thing as letting the present of Christ dominate your life. It’s not a mystical thing, guys, as we’ve been taught. It’s not a mysterious. It’s not a myth, it’s not mythology, its reality. It’s filling yourself with the word of God so that the truth of Christ dominates every part of your thinking. And then the spirit of God, as you yield to the truth of Christ in you, will lead you to do and say what? Be what God wants you to be.

With that, we finished part one questions, points we’ll pick up with part two next week. Hopefully we’ll get all through it. All the way through it. Anything, guys. What’d you learn? What you didn’t learn, what frustrates you, what you get, what you don’t. Well, good parts, bad parts, anything. I liked how you broke it down so that we understand what being filled with the Holy Spirit means, because I’ve never been taught properly, so I really appreciate that. And yeah, okay. I’ll look at things certainly differently. Thank you. Yeah, ditto. Barb. I. I was feeling the same way.

This is what the. The steps that I’ve been missing. I got the Holy Spirit filled me when I was seven. But then obviously I was not an obedient, so I wasn’t actively filling up with the Holy Spirit. That makes so much sense, Jim. It’s so helpful. And then I love what you said about Peter, that he was just. He had to be next to him. There’s something about that that’s just really priceless to me. Great lesson. Victoria. Yes. I have a question. When you talked about emptying of ourselves, and we’ve been doing that, working on that.

Is emptying of the self like emptying of the mind? The ego mind, the unconscious would be the same. Just those are. Yeah, your ego mind is your self. Brain. Okay, well, just because I come across sentences, some things that I read. But I like the emptying of the self much better. I mean, it’s biblical, right? So the emptying of the self, does it come in parts or do you have to completely empty all the sins before this miraculous could happen? I know it won’t ever happen in my life. Basically, the Gospel says continually to strive to be like Christ.

So this is a ongoing process. You’re not going to be. It’s not like you get it all done and the Spirit comes in. As you migrate through, the Spirit fills you up and it keeps filling you up and it keeps filling you up and keeps filling you up all along your journey to be sanctified in Christ. So we, I see signs of that in certain areas. Okay? Okay. And guys, I want you to think about this. Every time the Spirit comes into you, it fills you up. Your tank is full. It doesn’t say, oh, you’re at a quarter tank and I’m going to fill you to a half.

No, no, no. When the Spirit comes to you and you, you are obedient to that and you are, or working into in the sanctification process and restoring your physical brain to that which you are. Right. The only way you know who you are is by knowing what first, who Christ is. And you get that in your sanctification process by. By studying the word of God. Then the Spirit says, okay, you accomplished something today. You’re ready to be filled. Here, here’s your tank. It’s full. It’s been your fault. Now, five minutes from now, it could be drastically reduced for what you do.

Right. Because the Spirit will only. Only fill you if you’re continually obedient. As you. It’s. It’s like the scale as you disobedient. So does the tank go down as you’re obedient? The tank goes up. Okay? That’s the way you can physically or, or visually see what’s going on. So, Jim, when, when Christ walked on the, you know, he walked on the earth as man, so, so he saw the, the what we had to go through, like to become sanctified. I mean, we, we. I mean, the ego part, we have to empty that from us to be able to get to that, to, to the Holy Spirit to fill us.

Is that correct? Yeah. And your example is what? Your examples? Yeah, it’s the disciples. Disciples? Yeah, I mean, because they. You’re nothing more than a disciple, just like they were. Okay? Yeah. And as, I mean, look at what Christ had to do to them in order to get them to the point where they could actually become apostles. That’s no different than what Christ is saying, guys, be sanctified in me. If you’re sanctified in me, you’re going to produce the same stuff that the apostles did. Okay. In your own environment. I’m not going to get into what they could do and what we can do.

But in actuality, what he’s saying is, I’m going to give to you the same conditions I gave to the apostles in order to further my gospel. Right. And so, like. Yeah, so. So like Peter, I mean, when he got away from Jesus, he. He. I mean, he was emptied. I mean, he. And he also went downhill, Right? Yeah. Okay, well, think about your life. Right. Okay. But then when you. The. But then somewhere along the line, God. God said, you know, that he was going to speak through Peter. Oh, well, no, Peter had to first let go.

Okay. Had to let go of his eagle. He had to let go of himself to allow. And that became what? The Holy Spirit. Spirit. Okay. Coming at Pentecost. And he. Sorry. Okay. All right. Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you. Anything else, guys? We’re good. Sure. All right. Father, thank you for this evening. Father, thank you for all the blessings that you bestow on us. Father, we just ask that you correct this world and correct it soon. I ask you to bless Charlie Cook’s family. There is a big need, a wife with young children and no husband.

There’s a big need for. For you to implant in her mind that what Charlie is leaving, you’re going to provide. Many families that go through this have such a mindset that they absolutely can’t deal with the reality at hand, and they begin to leave the only presence that provides them the safety and the healing. Father, take the crap off of the freaking Internet. Protect his son. You know, statistics we hold in this foreign world that sons that have a father that’s assassinated basically go off to the deep end. And we wish that not for him. He didn’t cause this.

He’s one year old, Father. Protect him, Father. As we commemorate the 911 and understand the details behind that, we can’t go without understanding you protected lies. That day gave us hope. We ask for justice. We ask for accountability. We ask you to be in control so that we don’t do things foolishly. Give a. Give our government wisdom. Give them the strength. Of course, Father. We know you’re doing that, but just want to sort of remind you till we’re asking for that, Father, continue helping us in our own sanctification process. Because the further we get to you, the more filled we are, the better our.

Better our lives become. The more we closely walk with you and the more blessings are bestowed. And we want to thank you for your son. Without him, none of this would be available. We thank you for that. Thank you for your love, your mercy and your grace. Protect each one of our hearts. Give us the peace and joy and understanding that you’re in control. I ask all these things in your sons now.
[tr:tra].